The Paradigm Shift of Masculinity: Impacting Children’s Literature

In reference to boys and schooling, Richard Fletcher remarked that “Feminist thinking – that

girls deserve that same opportunities as boys – has become recognized as common sense.

But we are still confused about directions for boys” (205). John Stephens contends that

masculinity is consistently subject to change and amendment, and while there may be

diversity of masculinities at one time, certain masculine paradigms will achieve dominance

at a particular place and time (“Preface” ix). Hegemonic masculinity is considered to be the

form of masculinity most desired or privileged in a society (Stephens “Preface” ix). This

paradigm of masculinity becomes problematic in that it confuses ideas of agency as illusory

and denies agency to others including women, gays and children (Stephens “Preface” x-xi). A

paradigm shift has taken place against hegemonic masculinity where subjectification and

subjection, which commonly structure identity formation, have been reconfigured in order

to depict emerging masculinities (Stephens “Preface” xi). In examining this shift in relation

to multiple short stories it is possible to determine the impact and delineate the importance

of masculinities in children’s literature.

First introduced to academic use by Connell in 1995, the term “hegemonic masculinity” was

defined as “the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted

answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to

guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (77). Stephens

explains the phrase is often taken to mean the versions of macho masculinity characterised

by courage, toughness and also aggression, violence, misogyny, homophobia, and other

negative qualities in the discourses of other masculinities and feminisms (“Preface” ix).
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Hegemonic masculinity tends to be evoked as a schema, in which only a couple of elements

of the schema need to be visible for readers to instantiate the whole schema (Romøren and

Stephens, 219). The schema of hegemonic masculinity includes the following characteristics:

solipsistic, a bully, overbearing of others, insistent upon differential gender roles,

misogynistic, hostile to difference, xenophobic, inattentive, insensitive, short-tempered,

neglectful of personal appearance, violent, sexually exploitative, overly fond of alcohol,

sport-focused, aimless and possessive (Romøren and Stephens 220). Perry Nodelman argues

that masculinity is mistakenly considered a freedom of stereotypes, but in actuality is a

social construct that connects with and does not necessarily coincide with maleness (2). For

a girl performing masculinity they are seen as a tomboy and containing admirable character

traits, whereas a boy performing femininity is treated with suspicion of gender confusion

and considered “unmanly” (Nodelman 3). Stephens contends that children’s literature is

shifting towards making visible the operations of traditional normative masculinity while

rejecting the concept of the unitary masculine subject, substituting instead diverse

masculine subjectivities for which agency is premised upon intersubjective relations no

longer grounded in unequal power relations (“Preface” xiv).

In conforming to normative masculinity, many children’s books focus on a solitary male

bravely confronting danger and being deemed as a hero because of it (Nodelman 11). Two

short stories which portray this are “The Thrill-Seekers Club” by Meredith Costain and

“Abandoned” by Robert Hood. “The Thrill-Seekers Club” follows Kyle, Jacob and George as

they recreate the 1960s Victorian Exploring Expedition. Jacob, the chairmen of the club,

designs a route for the group through the property of a reclusive Vietnam veteran. The story

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comes to a head when Kyle and George try to point out the strange animals on the property

and Jacob, in ignoring their unmanly protests, is attacked by an alligator. Nodelmen states

that characters who act by virtue of their inherit maleness deserve to be punished, simply

for being stereotypically male (4). It is presumed these characters will behave in the same

manner despite punishment, as they are simple subjects of male initiation, confronting

enemies in order to become heroes (Nodelman 4). Indeed, despite Jacob being attacked and

“missing a few bits” (Costain 228) the trio are hailed for helping a police raid on the

property. Here Jacob’s hegemonic masculinity is celebrated, as he attempts to be self-

sufficient in a way which might be defined as antisocial, and is yet seen as admirably

triumphant (Nodelman 5).

In contrast to “The Thrill-Seekers Club”, “Abandoned” follows Jess, a boy who goes against

the conventional constructions of masculinity when he shows sensitivity to a childhood toy

his brother goads him into leaving in a junkyard. Jess also tends towards heroism as he

braves the junkyard, a hit and run and a murder in order to relocate his toy, eventually

discovering the identity of the murderer. Jess is called both a “baby” and a “dork” for caring

about the stuffed pig, Errol (Hood 32, 35). After pushing away his sister’s gesture of help,

Jess falls into a pile of rubbish. Unlike Costain’s Jacob, Jess is pulled out relatively unharmed

and holding both his pig and the wallet of the murderer. This safe ending could be

attributed to Jess’ qualities of being loving and less caught up in being rowdy marking him

apart from hegemonic masculinity (Nodelman 11).

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In her essay on Redeeming Masculinity, Pennell argues that in order to redress the

pejoration of masculine subjects in pro-feminist fictions, masculinity needs to be redeemed

by both story and discourse marking the traditional schema of “hegemonic masculinity” as a

construction rather than “natural”, and also by rejecting the concept of the unitary

masculine subject (56). This subject must instead be replaced by a range of diverse, self-

reflexive masculine subjectivities whose intersubjective experiences with women and girls

are not premised either implicitly or explicitly upon unequal relations of power (Pennell 56).

“Tell and Kiss” by Margo Lanagan is a short story which features a self-reflexive subjectivity

apart from hegemonic masculinity. Lanagan’s story centres on a world where weight is

gained by keeping feelings to oneself. The government disagrees with people keeping things

private and so the main character, Evan, is sent to counselling after his mother is taken

away to a Health Farm. Evan’s counsellor describes Even as being “a healthy size and you

offer story very readily. You can raise concerns without hesitating, and you can even

perform the occasional Leap Without Looking, those spontaneous confessions that are so

good for the body” (Lanagan 70-71). After comforting his best friend, Antoinette, Evan is

able to maintain this healthy ideal by sharing his feelings with her. This type of masculinity

can be considered that of “the sensitive new age man”, a schema which engages with

feminised masculinity and behaviours (Mallan 24). Romøren and Stephens explain that this

schema includes attributes of being other-regarding in interpersonal relationships, well-kept

but unselfconscious of appearance, calm, self-possessed but approachable, caring and

attentive (225). By utilising this schema, Lanagan’s “Tell and Kiss” shows the shift towards

masculinity away from the hegemonic norm.

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In order to truly see how a paradigm shift away from the hegemonic norm is beneficial, it is

interesting to discuss the way the hegemonic norm shapes various readings by examining

stories in which the gender of the character is not given, especially those in which the

character is not essentially human. “The Fog” by Allan Baille is a short story which contains

first-person narration. The narration has been deftly used to cover up the identity of the

narrator. The narrator begins by stating, “I was fishing in the deep water” (Baille 103). This

action seems relatively human, backed by the character’s descriptions of an ancient woman

who pickled things in a pot and their “terrified” feelings over discovering a shark for the first

time (Baille 103-104). It is only after the fog settles in and the character is transported to

another time and place do readers become aware that this character is actually a “bunyip”

(Baille 108). The interesting thing to note about “The Fog” is that when reading the

character it is quite easy to picture them as masculine over feminine, despite gender never

being explicitly stated.

Just as the character has been humanised by their emotions, Baille’s “bunyip” has been

gendered by their actions. The reason for this is two hegemonic masculine traits the

“bunyip” takes on, being solipsism and overt fond of alcohol (Romøren and Stephens 220).

The character has no thoughts but for their own hunger. Due to the character wondering

how the ancient woman’s “pickled pieces would taste” (Baille 103), later shown to be

alcohol, the character is transported by her to a place where they are consumed by lust for

drinking. The character is even shown to have drunk too much, “I rolled over and drank the

muddy water until my parched throat no longer felt like a gravel track” (Baille 112). When

speaking of anthropomorphised animals, Perry Nodelman states that “the male child is to

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his mother as the animal is to the human, the wild creature in apparent need of being

civilized… the essential meaning is that boys are wild things and inevitably in conflict with

the anti-wild repressions of their female parents” (5). Indeed the ancient woman feels as

though a mother figure to the “bunyip” as the character state, “she had taught me

something… I would never crack another pickle shell” (Baille 115).This resonates with

Nodelman’s suggestion that to be appropriately male, characters must be animal-like and in

doing so be punished for defying civilised values (7). Interestingly, one could also say that

this punishment could be considered a sign that hegemonic masculinity is undesirable in

that it sees a cycle of punishment for defying civilised values.

The problem with masculinity in children’s literature is that those works that transcend the

popular fiction by portraying boys who see through the conventional constructions of

masculinity, and learn to be more sensitive and loving, are written with females in mind

(Nodelman 11). Nodelman explains that interest in children remains as it traditionally has

been the domain of women (Nodelman 11). That is not to say that there are not men

interested in the field, or that there are not male writers of children’s literature amongst the

female, but that even literature produced by men ten towards boys that mothers may easily

love (Nodelman 11). This is problematic as texts which attempt to subvert hegemonic

masculinity tend to be focalised through female subjects. In Margo Lanagan’s “The Boy Who

Didn’t Yearn”, the character of Keenoy is portrayed by the main character and narrator,

Tess, as being the type of character who fits the “New Age Boy” schema. Stephens

describes this schema as a boy whose relationships with peers are other-regarding, so that

he can act without self-interest, and that though he may lack physical prowess and courage

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his moral courage and other-regardingness prompt him to act courageously (“A Page” 44).

Tess describes Keenoy as being surrounded by all different people, “He didn’t seem to care

who he was seen with… He volunteered for the daggy old musical; he played sports – not

well… And he talked. He greeted everyone, he chatted, he joked, he had deep-and-

meaningfuls when deep-and-meaningfuls were required” (Lanagan 150). Already this

character is far from the antisocial nature acceptable of boys (Nodelman 5). The problem in

this portrayal is that by defying hegemonic masculinity through the gaze of a female

character, Lanagan’s story is one less likely to be viewed by males. Portrayals of boys

defying conventional masculinity may have little influence on boy readers when compared

to the power of cultural conventions which reinforce traditional desirable masculinity

(Nodelman 12).

A central issue to the traditional desirable masculinity is the question of subjective agency

(Stephens “Preface” xi). In shifting away from the paradigm of hegemonic masculinity, other

masculinities have portrayed identity formation as the individual emerging from constraint

(Stephens “Preface” xi). This is particularly seen in the characters of Margo Lanagan’s “The

Boy Who Didn’t Yearn” and “Tell and Kiss”, where characters delineate away from

hegemonic masculinity. The importance of viewing a text such as “The Boy Who Didn’t

Yearn”, which is focalised by a female subject, is as hegemonic masculinity perpetuates itself

by denying agency to women (Stephens “Preface” xi). As Pennell argues, pro-feminist

literatures often create a binary between genders which pluralise and re-signify feminine

subjectivities while demonising masculine subjectivities (56). In “The Boy Who Didn’t

Yearn”, Keenoy’s new age schema allows Tess to accept that he is part of her yearning. In

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doing so she “was brim-full of my own self again, unhappy but unstretched , not yearning,

not fooling myself… I didn’t have to wonder any more” (Lanagan 163). Here Lanagan has not

demonised masculine subjectivity, yet also portrayed Tess as displaying agency in her

acceptance allowing her to no longer be tethered her to her yearning. Likewise, Evan in “Tell

and Kiss” displays agency when he decides not to bottle his emotions and instead embrace

the healthy lifestyle of sharing his feelings with others. Evan is seen as a “sensitive new age

man” for his ability to be other-regarding and attentive, attributes he displays when

comforting his friend. Like Keenoy, Evan’s portrayal away from hegemonic masculinity

allows him to command the discourse of his “story”. In turn this command “articulates

subjective agency as a force for expressing emotions and responsible judgements, for

embodying the qualities of concern and commitment which are the ground of that agency”

(Stephens “A Page” 54).

When examining the impact of critical paradigm shifts in children’s literature, it is important

to consider the paradigm and why a shift is necessary. Within masculinity, the dominate

schema of hegemonic masculinity has become problematic in denying agency and

dismissing others. By examining the way hegemonic masculinity has been portrayed in short

stories, it is possible to see why shifting the paradigm away from this schema is beneficial to

children’s literature. It is important to examine varying works of children’s literature in order

to accept that conventional masculinity is not natural, but a construct of socialisation

(Nodelman 3). Only by shining a light on masculinity as its reality of a set of malleable

cultural conventions, is it possible for masculinity to be thought about and revised in its

implications and impact on children’s literature (Nodelman 14). By reconfiguring against

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hegemonic masculinity, the paradigm is able to shift towards a more positive direction of

diverse masculine subjectivities for which agency is premised upon equal intersubjective

relations (Stephens “Preface” xiv).

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Reference List

Baillie, Allan. “The Fog”. Trust Me. Ed. Paul Collins. Melbourne: Ford Street Publishing.,
2011. 103-114. Print.

Connell, R.W. Masculinities. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1995. eBook.

Costain, Meredith. “The Thrill-Seekers Club”. Trust Me. Ed. Paul Collins. Melbourne: Ford
Street Publishing., 2011. 215-228. Print.

Fletcher, Richard. “Changing the Lives of Boys”. Boys in Schools. Ed. Rollo Browne and
Richard Fletcher. Sydney: Finch Publishing, 1995. eBook.

Hood, Robin. “Abandoned”. Trust Me. Ed. Paul Collins. Melbourne: Ford Street Publishing.,
2011. 29-44. Print.

Lanagan, Margo. “Tell and Kiss”. White Time. Ed. Margo Lanagan. Australia: Allen and
Unwin, 2014. 55-80. Print.

Lanagan, Margo. “The Boy Who Didn’t Yearn”. White Time. Ed. Margo Lanagan. Australia:
Allen and Unwin, 2014. 141-164. Print.

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Mallan, Kerry. “Picturing the Male: Representations of Masculinity in Picture Books”. Ways
of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children’s Literature and Film. Ed. John
Stephens. Oxon: Routledge, 2008. 15-36. Print.

Nodelman, Perry. “Making Boys Appear: The Masculinity of Children’s Fiction”. Ways of
Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children’s Literature and Film. Ed. John Stephens.
Oxon: Routledge, 2008. 1-14. Print.

Pennell, Beverly. “Redeeming Masculinity at the End of the Second Millennium: Narrative
Reconfigurations of Masculinity in Children’s Fiction”. Ways of Being Male: Representing
Masculinities in Children’s Literature and Film. Ed. John Stephens. Oxon: Routledge, 2008.
55-77. Print.

Romøren, Ralf and John Stephens. “Representing Masculinity in Norwegian and Australian
Young Adult Fiction: A Comparative Study”. Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities
in Children’s Literature and Film. Ed. John Stephens. Oxon: Routledge, 2008. 216-233. Print.

Stephens, John. ““A Page Just Waiting to Be Written On”: Masculinity Schemata and the
Dynamics of Subjective Agency in Junior Fiction”. Ways of Being Male: Representing
Masculinities in Children’s Literature and Film. Ed. John Stephens. Oxon: Routledge, 2008.
38-54. Print.

Stephens, John. “Preface”. Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children’s

Literature and Film. Ed. John Stephens. Oxon: Routledge, 2008. ix-xiv. Print.

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