Counter-Hegemony By Women's Intellectuals in Mary Wears What She Wants and I Am Kartini Children's Picturebooks: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Children’s picturebooks function as both educational and enjoyable literature while also serving as a means of cultural expression that conveys social values to young readers. This research aims to examine how women construct counter-hegemony in Keith Negley’s Mary Wears What She Wants (2019) and Wikan Satriati’s I Am Kartini (2019), and to compare their strategies within different cultural contexts. This research employs a qualitative method. Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and Roland Barthes’ semiotic theory are applied to analyze the data. The findings reveal that both picturebooks portray patriarchal hegemony through different forms of restriction because Kartini experiences more complex patriarchal hegemony. This complexity arises from the dominant aristocratic structures influenced by Dutch colonialism. However, both Mary and Kartini develop their critical consciousness to construct counter-hegemony through their intellectual agency and social class. This research concludes that counter-hegemony emerges through the development of intellectual agency, which is supported by social class. So, future research may extend this comparative approach by examining more American and Indonesian children’s picturebooks to broaden understanding of counter-hegemonic strategies.