New Picture Book Helps Dispel Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes surround our children, no matter how much we may try to shield them. A new picture book tries to counter some of the constraining gender messages they may receive.

Except When They Don’t, written by Laura Gehl and illustrated by Joshua Heinsz, is the latest book to come from the partnership between LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD and Little Bee Books. “Boys play monster trucks with glee. Girls bake cakes and serve hot tea,” it begins, showing images of boys and girls doing those things. After four pages of such stereotypes, it brings us up short. “Except when they don’t.” We see the image of a child, identified as a boy, wearing superhero tights and a cape, and sipping tea from a pink tea set. Four more pages of stereotyped activities follow—then comes another “Except when they don’t” spread of a girl with a football, one in a tutu, a boy in a dinosaur costume waving a ribbon, and one in a football helmet, shaking pompoms.

“You might play with swords and knights. Maybe twirl with flowered tights,” the story continues, smartly now addressing the reader directly and showing images of a girl jousting and a boy dancing. A spread of hands doing various things, from painting nails to making noise, allows readers to imagine themselves into the action as desired. “Girls and boys like lots of things,” the book assures us, as three final spreads offer even more images of both boys and girls doing a variety of activities, not all traditionally aligned with their genders.

In some of its examples, the book nicely shows that attire and action can combine in different ways across the traditional girl/boy divide. The jousting girl wears a pink dress, and the football-playing girl wears ribbons and ruffles. Gender expression doesn’t have to fall entirely on one side or the other.

There are a few examples, too, of boys wearing traditionally female attire: one has a ruffled pink apron over his pants, another has flowered tights, and a third child, who reads male, has pink ballet shoes. Examples of girls with gender creative attire are harder to spot, though a few characters are ambiguous to me and might be read as gender creative girls or as nonbinary people.

As an entry into thinking about gender and stereotypes, this book brings color and verve, in a similar way to Robb Pearlman and Eda Kaban’s 2018 Pink Is for Boys. Neither book, however, clearly looks beyond the gender binary. Even as Except When They Don’t concludes with “Be exactly who you are,” it does so after having framed gender only in terms of girls and boys. Still, adults who wish to raise the idea of being nonbinary, genderqueer, or gender fluid may be able to do so as they discuss the characters with children.

Gender is a complex subject and no one book, especially for children, can tackle it all. Grown-ups may wish to use this book to start a conversation about gender and follow it with books that further push the boundaries, such as Jamie Is Jamie, Neither, Jacob’s New Dress (and the recent sequel, Jacob’s Room to Choose), Annie’s Plaid Shirt, Julián Is a Mermaid, Introducing Teddy, Jack (Not Jackie), and many others, in order to continue the discussion.

Other books in the GLAAD-Little Bee partnership include:

• Prince & Knight, by Daniel Haack and illustrated by Stevie Lewis.
• Maiden & Princess, by Daniel Haack and Isabel Galupo, with illustrations by Becca Human.
• Jack (Not Jackie), by Erica Silverman, illustrated by Holly Hatam.
• Our Rainbow, by a variety of artists.