One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: A Study of the Image of Women in the 100 Basic Works of Literature in Turkey

Abstract

Children's books of literary quality may affect gender perception, self-perception, and the social roles of children through the illustrations, main characters, and situations that they reflect. The Turkish Ministry of Education suggested a list consisting of stories, novels, poetry, and puns under the title " 100 Basic Works of Literature. " The objective of this research is to determine how the image of women is presented in the children's stories in these 100 Basic Works of Literature. The data in this study were collected through document analysis in conjunction with contents analysis. These 20 stories were first studied for their depictions of main characters, illustrations, and titles. Research show that the female characters are depicted with images reflecting traditional gender roles. Of all the images, female characters were presented mostly as passive (79 times or 19 %), weak (76 times or 18 %), sex objects (45 times or 11 %), or emotional (44 times or 10 %).