Gender Relations, Comic Books, & Children's Cultures (PDF)

Special Issue: Teacher education for gender, sexuality, diversity and globalization policies Policy Futures in Education Gender relations, comic books...

Special Issue: Teacher education for gender, sexuality, diversity and globalization policies Policy Futures in Education Gender relations, comic books 2018, Vol. 16(5) 524–538 ! The Author(s) 2017 and children’s cultures: Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Between stereotypes DOI: 10.1177/1478210317724642 journals.sagepub.com/home/pfe and reinventions Marta Regina Paulo da Silva Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul, São Paulo, Brazil Abstract The article discusses the production of children’s cultures based on the experiences of 3–5-year- old children with the language of comic books, focusing on gender relations. It is part of a doctoral research project conducted at FE / UNICAMP and investigates a case study in a municipal pre- school in the Greater ABC region in São Paulo, Brazil. It assumes that comic books viewed as media production interfere with children’s ways of life, often reinforcing stereotypes found in sex differences. Combining philosophy, sociology and childhood education, it discusses how small children interact with comic books and what they reproduce, invent or reinvent when inspired by such materials. It emphasizes that comic books are part of children’s material cultures and unveil symbolic aspects of children’s cultures, which they share with each other and with adults in such a way that they observe patterns and identity values being negotiated in the sense that not only do they reproduce stereotypes of heteronormative culture, but also cross the boundaries of gender. In sum, the article sheds light on the challenge of bringing children to the debate about gender relations from the perspective of pedagogical proposals which might overcome sexist practices present in educational institutions. Keywords Gender relations, comic books, children’s cultures, child education Introduction This article discusses the relationship between childhood, gender relations and comic books based on the experiences of specific readers:1 boys and girls aged between 3 and 5 in a pre-school setting in the Greater ABC region in São Paulo, Brazil. The aim of the study is to raise the visibility of children’s cultural productions, considering that several Corresponding author: Marta Regina Paulo da Silva, Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul, Avenida Goiás, 3400, São Caetano do Sul, São Paulo 09550-051, Brazil. Email: [email protected] Silva 525 studies underestimate the way they assign meaning to the different cultural practices they participate in. As part of my doctoral research study (Silva, 2012), I investigated the production of children’s cultures based on the experiences children had had with comic books. Then, I sought to understand how children assimilate the codes of comic books’ language, and what they reproduce, invent or reinvent by creating their own narratives. Now, emphasis is placed on one of the categories that emerged throughout the investigation: gender relations. According to Corsaro (2011), studies of media directed at children hardly ever investigate the role that images, characters and stories play in boys’ and girls’ lives. Authors have often discussed the ideological aspect of comic books: on the one hand, frequently showing them only as harmful influences on children’s development; on the other hand, failing to recognize that children are not passive consumers of this type of publication, but on the contrary, children are active agents who see them with curiosity. Thus, the relation established between children and comic books results not in passiveness, but in curiosity, creation and (re)invention. From this standpoint, investigating children’s own experiences stimulates us to watch their productions with curious eyes and recognize in them some logic not always perceived by adults. The challenge of better learning how those productions are prepared led me to examine the daily life of pre-school students, and to verify how those productions are articulated in the complex network of social relations being created. Thus, our research sought to evince the children’s movements of imposition, negotiation, resistance and transgression against established norms, acknowledging children as social, historical and cultural beings, and therefore not only as reproducers, but also as producers of culture. The design of our investigation called for a methodology through which children’s voices could be heard and considered. This ethnographic case study allowed the author to emerge into the daily life of pre-school students in order to learn its dynamics by adopting the following methodological procedures: participant observation; children’s oral accounts; descriptive field notes through writing, filming and photographing; interview with comic book writer Laerte Coutinho; analysis of comic books produced by children; and analysis of official documents of the Municipal Secretariat of Education and of the school investigated. All those procedures and their triangulation with reference literature were central to this analysis. The pre-school was selected for its customary projects related to comic books. The class selected was ‘‘semi full-time’’ and had 26 children aged between 3 and 5. In this class the teacher promoted activities with comic books, including their exploration and reading as well as the retelling and rewriting of ‘‘The Three Little Pigs’’ into comic books and comic strips. It is important to point out that, in this article, comic books are considered not only as entertainment products, but also as an artifact of media culture, lying at ‘‘the crossroads between entertainment, defense of certain political and social ideas, pleasure and consumption’’ (Giroux, 1995: 60).2 The article focuses on small children’s experiences concerning gender relations, with the aim of understanding how they move, act, react and are seduced (or not) by the stories, based on images regarding those relations. My intention is to extend the discussion about the pedagogy of comic books by focusing on children’s experiences with comics as media artifacts, and to promote a debate about childhood, media and gender relations. 526 Policy Futures in Education 16(5) Comic books and gender relations Body and sexuality are issues of control and surveillance. Different social institutions have created techniques for disciplining the body. Such techniques are upheld by medical, religious, juridical, scientific and educational discourses that define who is central and who is peripheral. Those institutions ‘‘have the authority to proclaim the ‘truth’ about individuals; to determine what is right and wrong, normal and pathological; to decide who is decent or indecent, legal or illegal’’ (Louro, 2000: 38). As a result of this, in a heteronormative society such as that in Brazil, to be ‘‘normal’’ and ‘‘natural’’ in terms of sexuality is to be heterosexual. Whoever does not fit into that is ‘‘abnormal,’’ ‘‘perverted’’ or ‘‘pathological’’; this is the way homosexuals, bisexuals and transvestites, for example, are considered. The body, which is not only biological but also cultural, is constrained by expectations, values, beliefs and conceptions dependent on different historical periods. These societies establish power relations, constructed by political play, which directly affect the body, such that identity does not exist without power. That is why sexuality and gender relations cannot be seen as belonging to the private sphere only. As the body is the ‘‘locus of identity formation’’ (Louro, 2000: 104), it is necessary to watch and normalize children’s bodies from an early age in an attempt to make them fit into dominating forms that define man or woman, and that dictate how every man and every woman should behave and live according to their sexuality. This way, boys and girls, since their infancy, engage in social practices from which they learn what attributes are masculine and feminine, experimenting with them in relations that are established with other subjects and other cultural objects. Boys and girls are taught that behavior is determined by sex, and based on that they learn to categorize man and woman as a way of hierarchizing and naturalizing prejudices. However, children live in a historical period, undergoing political, economic, social, cultural and technological changes; those changes are so complex that boys and girls are confronted with many different experiences, which lead them to criticize certain hegemonic values. When Setton (2005) analyzes the socialization process in contemporaneity, she discusses the emergence of a plural and diversified cultural world where there is a higher circularity of heterogeneous experiences and identity references. According to her, from an early age, children face a series of diverse and often contradictory situations with ‘‘a tendency to articulation and constant negotiation between values and diverse institutional references and biographies of individuals’’ (345). Immersed in that world, children seek to grasp all those relations. By acting on the environment, they produce children’s cultures and, through them, children demonstrate how they signify and resignify certain cultural aspects, and how they reproduce, reinvent or even recreate them. Educational institutions, as socializing agents, with curricula that iterate chauvinist and homophobic values and conceptions, play a key role in that process, contributing to the formation of identities that reinforce stereotypical images of man or woman. However, as pointed out by Apple (2006), curricula have a contradictory nature: on the one hand, they are powerful instruments that restate ideological hegemony; on the other, they represent an arena for disagreement and resistance. Gender relations lie in that arena. Gender is a ‘‘constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between sexes [...] [and] is a primary way of signifying relationships of power’’ Silva 527 (Scott, 1995: 86); therefore, gender refers to the social construct each society establishes in a certain historical context concerning masculinity and femininity. According to Scott (1995), constitutive elements of social relationships of gender are the symbols that give rise to symbolic representations of such differences. Those representations allow several metaphorical possibilities, creating normative concepts which, in turn, lead to typically binary opposition which, finally, dictates the meaning of masculine and feminine in a categorical manner. Those concepts are permanently produced and reproduced in different cultural practices such as comic books. Comic books refer to a ‘‘story of combined verbal–nonverbal narrative: written language and images’’ (Cagnin, 1975: 25). As visual narratives, combining text and imagery, readers must interpret them both verbally and visually. Comic books, as visual narratives, circulate ways of interpreting the world; consequently, they have an effect on the identity formation of boys and girls, who are expected to behave in compliance with the heteronormative expectations and values of society. Comic books, then, especially those directed at children, frequently project the crystallized image of innocent, unsexed, socially alienated children to ‘‘unpretentiously’’ produce and reproduce values of the dominating social class, eager to sell either symbolic or material goods. Nevertheless, media do not represent a closed system, providing only one possible way of interpreting reality. For Viana and Setton (2004: 97), media culture ‘‘seems to ambiguously reflect relations of power, domination and resistance, in their products,’’ circulating images that reify patterns and/or legitimize behaviors. In addition to that, children are not passive individuals who only incorporate what adults make available to them; they are not simply adaptive beings. On the contrary, they are agents of the process that makes sense to the cultural practices they participate in, and, in that process, they produce children’s cultures in a collective and creative way. Those cultures are (re)constructed from the world adults offer children, and from the relations of comradeship established during play and activities (Fernandes, 1961), which are manifested by means of multiple languages. However, such cultures are invariably silenced by adultcentric society. Paulo Freire (2003), in his book Pedagogia do Oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), discusses cultural invasion as a form of colonialism in which the dominating part disqualifies the dominated culture and imposes the dominating culture, making unauthentic the individual whose culture is being invaded. In this way, cultural invasion in childhood means silencing children by imposing adults’ world interpretation, by denying their voice and multiple languages, and by rendering unauthentic their way of acting, thinking and feeling as boys and girls. Understanding the world through the eyes of children implies stopping that silencing, and consequently constructing a dialogical relation with them, recognizing them as active participants of and in society. For that, it is necessary to consider that children’s socialization process ‘‘is not only an issue of adaptation and internalization, but also a process of appropriation, reinvention and reproduction’’ (Corsaro, 2011: 31). From that perspective, small children do more than just adapt to society and reproduce cultures; they also produce cultures. By using what is made available to them, children take possession of such elements through games, drawings, spoken language and other forms of expression, assigning to them new and different meanings, which in turn directly impact the ‘‘adult world.’’ 528 Policy Futures in Education 16(5) As far as comic books are concerned, children are not only influenced by them in their productions; children, as powerful comic book consumers, also influence the market and the very production of comic books. Nevertheless, as discussed by Buckingham (2007: 147), when analyzing ‘‘childhood in the age of media,’’ the power children have is clearly limited, as producers can only ‘‘meet their needs for services and products that adults can provide them with. In debates about changes in the nature of education and in the supply of leisure and media, children’s voices are hardly heard.’’ Accordingly, it brings into question what children’s needs are met or created by comic books, especially when they are published by large entertainment corporations that also market tie-in toys and other products based on comic books. Thus, as a product of media culture, comic books enter different spheres of socialization and are present in the home setting, in the school setting and in different media products. As discussed by Butler (2010: 154), bodies ‘‘never quite comply with the norms by which their materialization is impelled.’’ Therefore, we need a ‘‘reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names.’’ The repetition of a sign and its citationality, that is, its capacity of being cited regardless of having been cited in the context it has produced, makes it intelligible and productive. For the sign to produce effects on bodies, a network of signifiers must be established, reinforcing and naturalizing its representations. That network is established through the production and circulation of those representations at schools, at home, at church, in the media and so on. Production and circulation will be confronted with other forms of experiencing sexuality and the relations between human beings, generating conflicts and tensions. Voices abound and other forms of relationship gain visibility. However, as discussed by Louro (2008), although some social segments demonstrate growing acceptance of sex plurality, traditional segments restate and strengthen their attacks against such plurality; this way, forms of regulation and control over sexuality are multiplied. Schools are among those centers of control and regulation. Schools, according to Louro (2000: 47), establish a ‘‘tacit agreement of silence, dissimulation and denial about sexuality,’’ as if everyone lived by socially established patterns, but that is not what happens, and children’s sexuality is out there. Though the school has historically denied ‘‘its interest in sexuality, it has made use of it.’’ Textbooks, comic books, assignment sheets and illustrations, among other materials, often end up by circulating images and conceptions that dictate the exact place man and woman should occupy in society. For example: ‘‘boys don’t cry,’’ ‘‘sit down like a girl,’’ ‘‘boys are messy,’’ ‘‘she looks like a boy,’’ ‘‘this is a toy for girls,’’ and so on and so forth. But there are still other, more subtle practices, such as single-sex queues, or mixed-sex tables arranged under the pretext that girls will help control disorderly boys. Thus, sexist discourses and practices systematically try to fit children into the hegemonic discourse that legitimizes an identity as the norm: white, middle-class, heterosexual adult male; which is legitimate, but almost invisible. All those practices and discourses reinforce the hegemonic image of women as passive, easy-going, neat, fragile. As to men, they are disorganized, active, strong, providers, and cannot take care of themselves. In this way, several Brazilian comic books depict images that seek to legitimize such discourses, which, in turn, reinforce gender stereotypes. This is the case of comic books available at the library of the pre-school investigated, especially Monica’s Gang,3 created by comic book writer and businessman Mauricio de Sousa. Silva 529 I believe that reflecting upon expectations of gender produced and circulated in comic books and upon how small children resignify them in interactions established among themselves and adults can prevent us from transforming small children into ‘‘stereotyped personological models,’’ as proposed by Guattari (1981: 54). Children, comic books and gender relations Most of the children at the pre-school investigated are familiar with comic books, especially with the characters in Monica’s Gang. As middle-class boys and girls, they have access not only to the franchise comic books, but also to animated cartoons, collectible cards, doll toys and other licensed products. This material is available at the school library and in several classrooms. Besides comic books, a collection of videos, illustrated books and pictures about Monica’s Gang is also available. During conversations, children have reported that comic books are also available in their homes. It was noted that parents make Monica’s Gang comic books available to both boys and girls, whereas superhero comic books (Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, etc.) are made available to boys only. However, girls and boys have contact with the latter through movies and animated cartoons, suggesting that parental ‘‘control’’ over television viewing is clearly lower. Throughout the research process, during children’s visits to the library, the children’s interest in comic books was obvious, and they could often be seen leafing through them, telling stories from the illustrations or asking adults to read the narrative. Children also check out comic books and take them home. During children’s discussions about their readings, they included topics related to the body and gender. They commented on and laughed at certain images, for example Jimmy Five with no clothes on, Monica hitting the boys with her stuffed bunny or Monica getting married to Jimmy Five. In one class, two girls, aged 4, were commenting on the cover of a comic book with illustrations of Monica and Jimmy Five. One of the girls, pointing at both, said to her classmate: ‘‘this is the woman’’ (referring to Monica), ‘‘this is the man’’ (referring to Jimmy Five). Still looking at the illustration, she kept on: ‘‘this is Monica’s man’’ (pointing at Jimmy Five); ‘‘this is Monica’’ (pointing at Jimmy Five); ‘‘both are Monica, boy and girl,’’ she concluded. That girl, based on the images and information she has been constructing about social relations, shares her understanding of what being a man or woman is; her understanding is not yet marked by the male–female dualism, despite the force of stereotypes in those images. It is therefore necessary to consider that images enable the construction of numerous meanings by those who interpret them, and they do that based on their own references, even when authors believe comics’ messages are not open to interpretations. Monica’s own image is controversial: she is considered as the leader of the gang, especially when she uses physical force. However, she is not described by pre-schoolers as a strong girl: her image is associated, by boys and girls, with a girl who is always angry and hitting boys. Monica, who is always a victim of boys’ ‘‘surefire plans,’’ only discovers she has been set up when one of them mistakenly tells on the others, and, consequently, she spanks them with her stuffed bunny, Samson, which represents the character’s instrument of strength. Such strength is not in the character, but in the object. Like the biblical Samson, if his long hair was cut, he would lose his strength; the same goes for Monica: if she loses her bunny, 530 Policy Futures in Education 16(5) she feels defenseless, which is why boys are always trying to steal her bunny. As Monica never discovers the boys’ plans, the gang thinks she is not very clever. During conversations with pre-school girls, they defended Monica, justifying her hitting the boys because ‘‘they pick on her,’’ or because ‘‘they want to take the bunny away from her.’’ They also justified their teacher’s scolding the boys because they are boring and messy. Interestingly, girls were also scolded by the teacher for running around and getting involved in conflict. Children’s reactions demonstrate how the body is subjected to the expectations that determine what a boy’s or girl’s behavior is; in practice, even if girls cross that gender divide, the prevailing hegemonic discourse is that boys are messy and disorganized. In another situation at the library, while pre-schoolers were watching a Monica’s Gang animated cartoon, Monica ‘‘transformed into a chicken’’; children soon started to imitate a chicken. Then, they started a game: ‘‘Let’s make believe I am...’’: Linus:4 I am Four Arms. Gui: I’m Fire Man. Guto: I’m Ice Man. Lucy: Ice Girl. Filipe: Me too, boy with four arms. Marcie: Ice girl. Charlie: What about Marta? Filipe: She’s Super Wonder and Miguelito is Ben 10. Haroldo: I’m Ice Man with fire. Calvin: I’m fire. Susanita: I’m a princess. Susie: I’m a princess. Charlie: Ben 10. Filipe: I’ve got a Ben 10 shirt. Sally: I’m Buttercup. (Field note, October 2010) Children created a verbal game in which they ‘‘became’’ characters related to fairy tales (princess) or to animated cartoons and comic books like Ben 10 (Four Arms, Fire Man), Wonder Woman (Super Wonder), and The Powerpuff Girls (Buttercup). In this game, children did not use Monica’s Gang characters, but characters from other animated cartoons. The game ‘‘Let’s make believe I am...’’ is very common among small children. In such roleplay games, boys and girls improvise and enjoy themselves while they recognize the transforming power of the game. By using such power, they expand the context in which those roles are played (Corsaro, 2009), typically roles of father, mother, teacher, princess or superhero. It was possible to observe that, in that game, girls identified with both princesses and heroines from cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls and Ben 10. Conferring their transformation power to a girl reveals that girls have as much power as boys do. It indicates that most of the girls resist the historical role conferred on women as fragile, defenseless and submissive; on the contrary, the characters girls identified with are full of strength and power. It was also possible to observe that girls identify with characters associated with strength and beauty; for example, they said they like Sakura, Naturo’s character, ‘‘because she is strong and beautiful.’’ Silva 531 The fact that children assume such roles may be associated with their wish to gain autonomy from adult authority, and this way, as discussed by Corsaro (2011), they have control over their lives, at least while they play. Thus, Naruto, Ben 10, Transformers, Batman, Spiderman, The Powerpuff Girls and Pucca, among others, invade schools through children’s games. By experiencing different roles, children feel empowered, enjoying a status of power and control. Girls’ empowerment is still limited. In general, when girls participate in role play games at school, they are not observed by adults, who are less likely to accept such games. This reinforces the idea that childhood sexist practices define what games are specific for boys and for girls. However, girls break gender standards and assume roles of heroines who invade the playground and transform it. Now, superheroines run around, hide and await in ambush to catch villains and villainesses by surprise, showing they do not accept gender stereotypes passively; they challenge and refine them. Suriá (aged 5) is an example: In the playground, Felipe and Miguelito were running around: they played fight, and chased each other on and on. Suddenly, Felipe pretended to activate his watch-like alien device, possibly alluding to the Ben 10 cartoon. After ‘‘activating’’ his device, he moved faster as if transforming into a Ben 10 alien. Miguelito also activated his imaginary watch, and both were aliens, running around, chasing and attacking each other. Suriá, who was watching the game, also ‘‘activated’’ her watch, chased the boys and was chased by the two aliens; she was an alien too. (Field note, November 2011) In this scenario, Suriá assumes a ‘‘masculine’’ character and plays the boys’ game, with the boys’ full acceptance; they keep on playing for some time. Finco (2004), after observing gender relations in pre-school boys’ and girls’ games and activities, verified there is no sexist practice among children, and therefore they do not reproduce adult world sexism. He also verified that children form groups in different ways, bringing into question research that naturalizes such groupings. At play, children do not feel under adult control, and allow themselves to experience different roles. Not only do children make use of culture, they also confront it. As far as gender relations are concerned, they cross typical socially defined sex boundaries, demonstrating their capacity to establish multiple and diverse social relations. We learn to live by gender and sexuality in culture, through discourses of different socialization settings: ‘‘there is nothing purely ‘natural’ and ‘intrinsic’ in them: being man or woman is part of a cultural process’’ (Louro, 2008: 18). Further to this, during our field research we witnessed conversations in which boys considered themselves faster and stronger than girls; however, girls always disagreed and counterargued in their own defense, as illustrated in Figure 1. In the last drawing [of Figure 1], the boy says soccer is a man’s game. After reading that, the children started a discussion about whether girls know or do not know how to play soccer. It all started when Manolito (aged 6) burst out laughing and said that girls do not know how to play soccer. Some of the boys agreed, saying that girls are weak and cannot run fast. Lola (aged 5) rebutted by saying that girls DO know how to play soccer and that there are many female soccer players. Other girls added they had watched some women’s games on TV. Boys intervened, boasting that men’s soccer games are more common. They even tried to imitate some soccer 532 Policy Futures in Education 16(5) Figure 1. Comic strip by Laerte Coutinho. Source: Folhinha de São Paulo, May 29, 2010. moves, while the girls kept on saying they also know how to play the game. Finally, Manolito, trying to calm them down, said: ‘‘That’s OK, girls can play soccer, only if they play in the girl’s field.’’ (Field note, June 2011) It was interesting to note how Manolito started to change his opinion during the discussion, especially motivated by the way girls reacted, though he was only willing to conditionally change his opinion: ‘‘only if they play in the girl’s field.’’ This discussion seems to reproduce sports practices typical of our society, in which men and women play soccer separately, or in the case of children, some pre-schools offer soccer classes for boys and ballet classes for girls. This is without considering the way men’s soccer is highlighted by the media. After the children resumed the comic strip (Figure 1) and discussed it again, new meanings were assigned to that story, and some boys even recognized that ‘‘the girl played soccer better than the boy.’’ It was also noted that small children are more flexible concerning boys’ and girls’ social roles, even confronting ideas, values and cultural practices that insistently and repeatedly reiterate that there is only one ‘‘natural’’ way to behave like a man or like a woman. This demonstrates that children not only incorporate gender stereotypes, but they also resignify them while interacting with other children and with adults, showing that gender expectations are not simply inculcated in children, but are socially constructed while they interact with each other (Corsaro, 2009). As well as in children’s games, the world of comic books also appears in boys’ and girls’ drawings. As Staccioli (2011: 32) states, ‘‘children’s drawings mirror their thoughts. And thoughts reflect, in part, the influences children receive.’’ Such influences come from different settings: home, school, religion and media, among others. Boys and girls include, in their productions, aspects of the cultural and historic context they live in, and such aspects are based on their experience: daily life events, games, films, Silva 533 cartoons, etc. Such references are also reflected in the way they draw and in the way they use colors, all representing ideas and values that circulate in society. They also evince the way adults interpret and value their productions. By analyzing comic strips produced by children, it is possible to observe that girls usually opt for feminine topics; only one girl included a masculine figure, representing her father. Girls’ drawings typically depict animal care, little sisters, houses and a father, as well as flowers, animals and hearts, as in Figure 2. Boys’ drawings, however, depict cars, characters from movies and cartoons, electronic games and other types of games. They often represent boys playing, cars transforming into robots (Figure 3), and heroes saving the planet. In the 1970s, Belotti (1979) observed that children’s drawings followed different patterns of preference when comparing drawings by boys and girls: drawings by the latter were exclusively related to family life, while drawings by the former depicted cars, policemen and thieves, among other masculine imaginary characters such as princes, wizards or ghosts. To Belotti, such representations demonstrate the way children are brought up Figure 2. Comic strip produced by Susie (aged 4). Source: Silva (2012). Figure 3. Comic strip produced by Gui (aged 5). Source: Silva (2012). 534 Policy Futures in Education 16(5) from an early age, that is, according to expectations related to the social roles they are expected to play. On the one hand, girls are always seen at home in the company of their mothers; boys, on the other hand, are freer, always in the company of friends, away from household chores. Gobbi (1997), like Belotti (1979), also verified the reiteration of symbols that delimit the boundaries between men and women in children’s drawings. But, based on data produced in research conducted in the late 1990s, she observed that it was a ‘‘period of transition in the relations between men and women, the way they understood and constructed gender relations was changing’’ (136), because the social roles men and women were playing in children’s families were changing. The present study shows how certain topics are preferred by boys, and others by girls, denoting the presence of gender stereotypes in their productions; however, it was also possible to identify some changes. For example, Suriá (aged 5) made drawings of Ben 10 and cars; she even compared her drawings with Filipe’s: ‘‘they look like his drawings, girls don’t draw cars, but some girls do.’’ Suriá observes that girls usually do not draw cars, but some girls, like her, do. When asked why she draws cars, she replied that girls in general do not like to draw cars, they prefer princesses. She said, ‘‘I like to draw whatever comes into my mind.’’ Suriá’s production and discourse suggest that, for her, the roles assigned to men and women are not so fixed; she also shows this in the playground, where she plays with both boys and girls. She plays different roles: no matter if it is a housekeeper or a superhero. The same goes for Charlie (aged 5): he naturally includes a heroine in his drawings (Figure 4); according to him, both men and women can be heroes. In addition to that, two other boys, Charlie and Gui, spent more time than usual on their drawings of Ben 10, Transformers, Jenny and Batman, among others. This happened because they were so attentive to details that they needed extra time to finish the activity. Such behavior defies the idea that girls are more meticulous and concentrate better than boys, who are judged to rush into things, paying no attention to details. This difference was not observed in the children investigated, who all seemed to be completely concentrated on what they were doing, if the activities were meaningful and interesting to them. Figure 4. Comic strip produced by Charlie (aged 5). Source: Silva (2012). Silva 535 In children’s reports, it was possible to note that their narratives articulate different information from that of the universe that adults provide them with. Their narratives also show change and permanence in social roles regarding gender relations. An example is the comic strip ‘‘Doll without owner’’ (Figure 5), produced by Marieta (aged 5), and later interpreted by Marion (aged 3): Once upon a time there was a little girl who was lost, and she got married to the boy, then she opened the house door, then there was a dog, then it went out, then she got married and the little girl didn’t want to get married and then she opened the window and the monster got into the house and flew over on a broom, then the monster fought with her, then she was so strong that she hit the monster, then she put on her earring again, then she opened the window, but she couldn’t open it. (Marion) Marion’s story gives rise to several issues. First, there are references to home daily life typical of fairy tales, revealing the character in distress (‘‘the damsel’’), who got married, but did not want to, who is strong enough to hit the monster, but cannot open the window because she lost her strength even after putting on her earring. Her narrative enables a series of interpretations, suggesting that she, like other children, seeks to understand and resignify social values and norms from different spheres of socialization. As per Setton (2005): [...] as the domains of shared social and identity references multiply and are diverse, and a plurality of options is available to individuals, they consequently have more opportunities to deliberate. In this case, social agents would not be reduced to a coherent identification with social and identity roles and with institutional normative patterns assigned to them, nor would they linearly internalize institutional projects; they would, however, articulate a wide range of identity patterns and values. (345) Scenes of children’s daily lives, fairy tales, soap operas, electronic games, cartoons and comic books constitute the references for boys and girls throughout the complex process of identity formation. Brougère (1997) states that children play with whatever they have and think of. The same goes for their stories and drawings, which are based on their experiences and imagination, Figure 5. Comic strip produced by Marieta (aged 5). Source: Silva (2012). 536 Policy Futures in Education 16(5) making them cross boundaries and limits established by adultcentric and sexist discourses and practices. As denounced by Guattari (1981), dominating semiotics attempt to imprison small children from an early age; however, boys and girls respond to them not only by reproducing codes, but also by incorporating new elements and meanings into them. Final remarks When children are producing, they are thinking. Their choices are not random. Even when under their teacher’s control, children, based on their experiences, leave their marks – their poetic understanding – on the manner in which they interpret, feel and represent the world. In their experience with comic books, boys and girls think about and discuss the roles assumed by men and women, either reproducing discourses, gestures and images, which indicate the maintenance of hegemonic discourses about gender relations, or transgressing them. Children are social, historical and cultural beings; however, on the one hand, we can note in their productions reproductions of aspects concerning a heteronormative culture; on the other hand, we can note resistance to that culture, collectively revealing curiosity and inventiveness, which are present in the cultures they produce and live in. For children, their experiences are central to their imagination, allowing them to cross boundaries and limits established by adultcentric and sexist imprisoning discourses and practices. Thus, socializing with other children at school provides them with important experiences that make them understand their social roles. In this setting, they can also show their capacity to resist and transgress homogeneous ways of interacting with the world. As to comic books, they are not only useless forms of entertainment; on the contrary, they unveil symbolic aspects of children’s cultures that boys and girls share with each other, with their families and with teachers, in such a way that they observe patterns and identity values being negotiated in comic books that don’t just reproduce stereotypes of heteronormative culture, but also go beyond the boundaries of gender. In the 1980s, Guattari (1981: 50) challenged us: ‘‘How can we prevent children from getting so attached to dominating semiotics that they are denied the true right of freedom of speech from an early age?’’ I understand that children’s voices must be heard and considered, and that children must be deemed as interlocutors and participants in issues that matter to them. As far as gender is concerned, close attention must be paid not only to children’s productions, but also to their resistance and transgression, bearing in mind the construction of emancipatory education capable of promoting gender equality and the extinction of sexist practices, and that gender relations, as a social construct, undergo changes. Small children, as agents of that process and of society, have a lot to say; consequently, attention must be paid to their cultural productions, through which we can understand how they interpret the world. After all, what does ‘‘true freedom of speech’’ mean to children? Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Silva 537 Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Notes 1. In this article, I take for granted that small children read, that is, ‘‘reading the world that precedes reading the word’’ (Freire, 2003). Taking comic books into account, boys and girls who do not know how to read ‘‘read’’ images, and, based on their own experiences, they can establish different relationships with the narrative of comic books. 2. All quotations have been translated from Portuguese by the author. 3. Monica’s Gang, originally titled Turma da Mônica in Portuguese, is a popular Brazilian comic book franchise created by Mauricio de Sousa. The main characters are Monica (Mônica), and Jimmy Five (Cebolinha), a troublemaker and bully who is always trying to steal her stuffed bunny, Samson (Sansão). Monica, in revenge, is always hitting him and other boys with her bunny. 4. For reasons of privacy, children’s names are fictitious and represent comic books characters. References Apple MW (2006) Ideologia e currı´culo, 3a. ed. Porto Alegre: Artmed. 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Marta Regina Paulo da Silva, doctor in Education, Unicamp, is a researching professor at Graduate Studies Program in Education, Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul, São Paulo, Brazil.