Analysis Of 'Girl With A Pearl Earring'

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Céline Smith CAT Speech Proposal 11 August 2015 Socialization and social forces rather than natural differences influence gender behavior. Society, culture, politics, location and so on, are what gender roles are dependent on. Gender stereotyping in literature is significantly influential especially in children’s books as they are the key culture method for teaching children gender roles. It is literature that has caused many unnatural masculine and feminine characteristics to become acquired The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa values human dignity and the achievement of equality by creating a non-racialism and non-sexism society. The choice of gender sensitive novels included in the school library can contribute …show more content…

Griet is hired as a maid by the famous painter Vermeer to clean his studio, along with other household duties. The gender stereotype of a female servant whom is submissive and obedient is shown through the character Griet. Although, I do believe this novel should be included in the school’s library because it is set in an earlier time period where the society, politics and cultures were different. If the students are restricted to being able to learn from the past and understand historical methods, manners and aspects, they will not be able to learn from the eras in order to create a non-racist and non-sexist society based on their own …show more content…

Whereas women are, gender stereotyped to play the role of being a victim, seductress or evil villain. The Republic of South Africa aims for literature to be devoid of gender stereotypes to prevent a sexist society but by trying to remove the stereotype of a frail female, it creates a new gender stereotype of an independent woman in absolute power. Therefore this novel should be included in the library as it is up to the readers opinion on how the interpret the characters and themselves. The book is not entirely educational but if the library restricts novels to only non-racist, non-sexist, gender sensitive novels, it will no longer create an interest for students to want to read and the school cannot control all opinions and views through novels provided. A perfect novel to represent this is The Giver by Lois