“Powerpuff-girls in pink power!” For an understanding of childhood’s femininity from media studies and gender studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the social and cultural place of the girl, in the context of a globalized media culture. The analytical approach refers to surveys conducted with children in the early grades, the region of Florianopolis, in their school settings and the presence of identity references that culminate in the image we call Powerpuff-. The dialogues analysis, tensions and questions such representation, whose meanings are marked for their inherent ambiguity and contradiction, especially when appropriate and reinterpret by children. Such an image brings together elements and and features that go back to a kind of contemporary children's femininity, where you can find more traditional cultural matrices. In this sense, include aspects related to passivity and subservience female in the direction of characteristics related to women's achievements and the empowerment of women. For the research with children, we made use of ethnography and research of intervention in order to discuss power relations, especially geared to gender issues, children and media. As a result, we note that the children's femininity as much as they advanced towards equal rights and freedom of and freedom of expression, are still occupying a place of subordination, of inferiority and naturalization of differences, and crystallized in sexist practices and discriminatory. They are experienced and reproduced todays in children's interrelations.

Keywords: Childhood; Gender; Children's media culture; Cartoon