Gender Stereotypes as Seen in Erica Silverman’s Jack (Not Jackie)

Abstract

This thesis focuses on how gender stereotypes are seen and used in Erica Silverman’s Jack (Not Jackie) ((2018)), a children’s picture book about a little girl named Jackie who defies gender stereotypes and wanted to be called Jack instead. Gender stereotype is a generalization for how maleness and femaleness should be done. It engulfs everything in day-to-day life, from how people wear their clothes to their preferred jobs. Gender itself is an identity that is socially constructed, which differs from the biological sex. According to Shahnaz, Fatima, & Qadir (2020). gender stereotypes can potentially limit a person’s perception, view, and experience of gender. In addition to that, rigid gender stereotyping can catalyze transgenderism, where a person decides to be the opposite gender from their birth sex. The research question of this study consists of how gender stereotype is seen in Jack (Not Jackie) (Silverman, 2018) and what is the critical position in the discourse of the author of Jack (Not Jackie) (2018). The former uses Hall’s (1997) constructionist representation theory to answer, unraveling the gender stereotype that is represented in Silverman’s Jack (Not Jackie) (2018), searching for the represented meaning in the construction of contexts surrounding it. Moreover, Barthes’s (1967) semiotic sign theory is also used to dissect the meaning (signified) behind the illustrations (signifier & sign) of this children’s picture book. The author’s critical position in the discourse is found through the interviews that the author has done on the internet. Seeing that the author, Erica Silverman, is a part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, her position is quite clear in the discourse, to support and give the trans community a representation through this children’s picture book. However, it is concluded to be unnecessary for children to be introduced to such a heavy topic that can have a lifetime psychological and/or physical influence such as transgenderism.