“Fun with Dick and Jane: Gender and Childhood”
A Gender Studies Conference at the University of Notre Dame
In recent years, there has been great interest in questions of gender and childhood, ranging from issues around boys wearing princess costumes to school; to Disney princess culture; to parents refusing to announce a baby’s biological sex; to pre-teen children coming out as gay, lesbian, and queer; to toy companies marketing toys by gender; to gender-related bullying and more.
How are children gendered? How do we account for transgender children? How have ideas about girls and boys changed historically? How are children hailed as gendered consumers? How do schools inculcate ideas about gender? How do children’s books promote ideas about gender? How do changing ideas about parenting relate to children’s gendering?
This conference seeks to explore issues of gender and childhood through multiple lenses and from a wide range of disciplines, including gender and childhood in media, literature, history, anthropology, biology, architecture, philosophy, art history, sociology, education, and more.
For more information or to register, please visit the conference website.