Everyone can agree that males and females are born biologically different from one another, but there has been an extensive debate surrounding the development of stereotypical masculine and feminine gender roles within individuals. One side of the debate claims gender roles occur naturally; however, others argue another point. Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls” is a piece of literate that argues the other side of this long-established debate. Munro’s critics have noted that she has a “commitment to the everyday lives of women [and she conducts] unflinching investigations into the by turns suffocating and satisfying world of the domestic” (DeFalco 377). In “Boys and Girls”, the reader follows the narrator as she grows into a gendered adult. Munro utilizes different types of characters in "Boys and Girls” to support that gender roles are not naturally produced but are created and enforced by the societal norms of the time.
Munro’s characters within “Boys and Girls” can be divided into three groups according to their impact or view into the process of establishing gender roles. The first group of characters consists of external forces and includes the salesman and Henry Bailey. When the salesman comes to the family 's farm, he makes a comment about the narrator’s gender standing. The father induces his daughter (the narrator) as his “new hired man” to the salesman. The salesman’s response, however, is to treat the induction like a joke and to say he “thought it