Tackling Sexism, Root and Stem: The Library & Gender Project

In a bid to tackle sexism and gender imbalances in children’s literature, a Gràcia based project took matters into its own hands, analyzing entire libraries to remove books containing problematic tropes. We spoke to the director to find out more.

When it comes to depictions of women and people of color, some books don’t age well. Take a look back at classic literature written in the 20th century and before, and you can’t help but notice blatantly misogynistic and homophobic tropes. It’s jarring at best, and at worst, grotesque.

In adult literature, getting to grips with this issue can go one of two ways. Some, upon being exposed to the implicit misogyny of say Hemmingway or Orwell, would immediately whip out the censorial red pen, striking books from the canon and posthumously “cancelling” their authors without trial. Others take a “different times” perspective, asking what we really gain by judging things from the past by today’s vastly more progressive standards. It’s a question of ethics; there isn’t really a right or wrong answer.

However, with children’s books, finding a concrete solution becomes a little more pressing. The effect that even subtly misogynistic messaging can have on a child’s mental and social development is surprisingly great. The old cliché that children’s minds are like sponges is true, and there are myriad studies that suggest from early infancy children take in and normalize what they see and hear to develop their understanding of people, relationships and the world around them. Allowing young children to read books containing prejudiced tropes, then, is generally considered damaging.

The fact that children’s literature of yesteryear is littered with examples of such problematic texts puts this issue into the spotlight. Fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White perpetuate ideas of manipulative, villainous women and feature female characters whose only function is to be saved, passively having things done to them with no real agency of their own.

And similar tropes abound in children’s literature of today, too. One study by the Observer found that “lead characters were 50% more likely to be male than female” in the most popular children’s books of 2017, while another, published by the Journal of Science & Popular Culture, established that modern science textbooks “trivialized women’s expertise, diminished their perceived technical competence, failed to acknowledge their contribution or presence and represented them in a manner that suggested that they were passive, lower status and superficial.”

What to do with these troublesome books, then? Ban Sant Jordi? Well, one place in Barcelona is making such a case, taking matters into its own hands to ensure that in school, children are not subject to books that reinforce negative gender stereotypes.

That place is called L’hora Lliure, an after school space in Gràcia where children and families can spend their free time in a fun, educational environment. In 2017, Ana Tutzó Puig, the director of the space, began an ambitious project titled “Biblioteca i Gènere” (Library & Gender), with the goal of taking books that contain stereotyped gender roles and perspectives out of her daughter’s school library.

We spoke to Ana to find out more about the project, the responses to it, and why she thinks it is so very important that children learn free from misogyny, prejudice and all forms of stereotyping.

Hi Ana, can you tell me a little about L'hora Lliure beyond the Biblioteca i Gènere project.

L'hora Lliure is a family space in Gràcia, where children and their parents can come and play, have a snack, join a music or yoga workshop, celebrate a birthday, or even see a family show in winter. We also run courses for children over the holidays. 

Two years ago we felt the need to develop a project to improve co-education within schools and families. We wanted to offer children the opportunity to grow up with equal opportunities and free from stereotypes, so they can develop their identities fully without gender biases.

Was Biblioteca i Gènere your first project?

Yes, Biblioteca i Gènere was our first project—I started it more than two years ago. 

One day, when I was collecting books for L’hora Lliure, I saw that a new one had been donated to our library. It was a picture book aimed at young children 0-3 years old. In it, two characters appear—one female, one male—and they dress up in a number of different disguises.

Both characters were completely stereotyped into certain roles: the female dressed as a princess, a dancer, a witch and a nurse, while the male character dressed as a fireman, a soccer player, a warrior and a chef. It was the same with symbolic objects they used: the male character used swords and balls, but the female character used crowns, hearts, bows and stars. And for colors, it was always pink for the female and blue for the male. 

Afterwards, I wrote to the people who edited the book with comments about the biased gender perspectives in the story. They responded to me, saying: "Thanks for your evaluation, but we do not share your opinion.” That made me question what was happening in children’s publishing. I realized the need to analyze school libraries to show the sexism that is transmitted to children from these stories. So, during the last year, my team and I analyzed the preschool library (used by children 3-5 years old) of the Tàber school in Barcelona from a gender perspective.  

How many people do you have on your team?

All the stories were analyzed twice, once by a librarian who liked the project and decided to get involved, and another time by me. 30% of the stories were analyzed for a third time by some of the childrens’ mothers. In total, there were about 10 people working on the project.  

How did you choose the participating schools?

Tàber is my daughter's school, and the same school that my brother and I went to. I know the school’s teaching methods, the teachers and the management team very well. The library at Tàber has a history of more than 50 years, so I thought it would be very interesting to compare volumes of the same book from the 1970s and the present.  

How did you choose the parameters for the analysis? Did you use an existing paradigm?

During the first few months I spent time researching to see what other similar projects had done. That helped me see that I needed to include more parameters than I had initially thought, because there were already some very extensive analyses out there. But there were some very interesting things they had left out, like the relationships between the characters and an analysis from the perspective of diversity. Additionally, they didn’t analyze the roles characters played in terms of caregiving, authority, violence or in demonstrations of affection. It was also very important for us to bear in mind what happened to animal characters who were not specifically gendered.

Do schools teach lessons on topics such as gender to complement the project?

In Tàber, yes, of course. Teaching about gender perspectives and eliminating the sexism of “girls” vs. “boys” education is a part of their educational project. They give talks, workshops and activities for both students and their families. Our project was conceived as a door to introduce gender perspectives across all areas of the school.

How did you include LGBTQ+ diversity in the project? Given there are far fewer examples of LGBT+ characters in children's books, surely this kind of analysis was much more difficult?

One of the parameters of the analysis was to count the number of characters with LGBTQ+ identities and affective-sexual diversity—the absence was amazing. In the school there are a large number of diverse families, but in the classrooms and the library this isn’t reflected at all.

Diversity is a pillar of our society, but at the moment it is practically absent from school libraries, so we have to work hard to change this. One of the maxims of education should be to educate respect for diversity in society; it is the basis for eradicating gender violence and violence against LGTBI groups, racism and any other type of violence that is exercised in the name of difference.

Discrimination can be exercised directly but also explicitly if there is an omission of diversity. If childrens’ imaginations are only constructed with heteronormativity during their early years, it exerts on them a symbolic violence towards LGTBI communities. Making diversity invisible in children’s imaginations produces a kind of discrimination and violence, as well as enforcing the hierarchy of the patriarchal system.

Why did you choose to remove some versions of classic, quintessentially Catalan stories like Sant Jordi from the library?

It was decided that we should remove all stories that were highly stereotyped, sexist and/or misogynist from the kindergarten library. At this age, children have no capacity for historical perspective; they are not able to contextualize things and they don’t have a fully developed capacity for critical thinking. As a general rule, everything that a child reads from 0-5 years becomes naturalized—it is assumed as natural—so we do not want the school to normalize violence and gender discrimination through books.

Adapted versions of classic books remain in the kindergarten library, and nothing has been withdrawn in elementary school, we simply marked those stories that we believe have things to reflect on in terms of their gender perspective. The classics are also there, of course, and the school makes an effort to use those stories in many aspects of primary school life.

What has been the response of the school’s parents?

There is always a voice that ignores this sort of work due to ignorance, but most families support the project and are very happy for the school to participate. We have received many expressions of support, encouraging us to continue with our work. The truth is that we have been very happy with the response.  

Have there been any accusations of censorship?

Yes, there have. But if you only read sensationalist headlines, you cannot understand what has been done or why it has been done.

For me, not showing the reality of a diverse society to children is censorship. Not letting children’s identities develop freely, without coercion or restrictions of any kind, is censorship. Omitting a part of reality in school libraries is censorship. Our goal is not to censor, but to give children the tools to choose freely and develop their own critical thinking by themselves.  

Has the project been made available to other schools?

There is a lot of interest in exporting the project to many other schools, and we are delighted to have been able to do our bit to transform society. This work should be done in all schools that want to pursue education without sexism or discrimination.

What is the immediate future of the Biblioteca i Gènere project?

In Tàber, we are in the second phase of the project with the primary school library. We are identifying the stories that we believe can help reflect on stereotypes of gender and diversity. On the other hand, we are working with the teachers to eliminate sexism in all areas and spaces of the school. 

To make this sort of discrimination invisible, you have to look to yourself and unlearn certain things to make real changes. These issues often become quite personal, but the welcome we have had is very good and we will continue to follow our path, both in Tàber and in all schools and preschools that want to offer an equitable, balanced education in favor of freedom.

Harry Stott is a regular contributor to the Barcelona Metropolitan covering Brexit, local political and social issues as well as the music scene. He recently received a B.A. in music from the University of Leeds, and now writes and produces radio content for a number of organizations in Barcelona and beyond. You can read more of Harry's articles here.