Alice Munro’s 1968 short story “Boys & Girls” illustrates the gender norms typical in rural families in the 1960s. Munro’s work, concerning a young protagonist whose family informs her views on gender, emphasizes the gender gap between males and females, with females being held to a different standard, not only by males but other females as well. When we relate the gender paradigms in Munro’s text to those views advanced in Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle’s An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, we see that perceptions about gender in literature are based entirely on the subjectivity of the reader. One reader may have a feminist take on a work while another might see a completely different paradigm, so Bennett and Royle’s quote, “literary texts call into question many of our essentialist ideas about gender” (183) definitely makes a great deal of sense. This quote makes one think of the essential differences between the constructivist view on gender versus the essentialist. Ultimately, Munro’s text reveals the constructivist view on gender to be far more accurate than the essentialist since the norms are created and reinforced by the social family structure, not by biology.
The constructivist view on gender posits that gender is largely a social construct determined by the social spheres of one’s life, i.e., the family, social circle, workforce, religious institutions, etc.; by contrast, the essentialist views gender as a uniquely biological definition that reinforces the real and essential differences between men and women. Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girl” reveals gender to be more a construction than a biological difference. Certainly, there are physical differences between men and women; however, these differences do not make women better suited to the kitchen and men to the outdoors. While men may have physical advantages and women advanced nurturing capacities, this is certainly not true across the board, not enough to make stereotypical assumptions about the different gender capabilities.
The protagonist of Munro’s short story remains perfectly capable of performing “men’s work.” She works just a hard and is just as capable, even more so, than her brother Laird, who seems lazy by contrast. In fact, her inquisitive spirit and work ethic make her an excellent candidate to help her father with the outdoor work, raising and pelting foxes. What makes her incapable of excelling at her tasks are not her physical limitations, but the conceptions of those around her, including her own mother.
The most surprising thing about the text is not how the men act dismissively toward the young woman—“She’s only a girl” (Munro 12)—but how her own mother confirms her stereotypical role within the family dynamic, even as the protagonist herself attempts to reach beyond that stereotype to a different, more accurate self-identity: “[Mother] was always plotting. She was plotting how to get me to stay in the house more, although she knew I hated it … and keep me from working for my father. It seemed to me she would do this simply out of perversity, and to try her power” (Munro 5). This quote shows readers how the gender norms can be so engrained in one’s self-conceptions that even one’s parent might seek to reinforce them. The protagonist never acknowledges or recognizes her stereotypical gender-based limitations until they are reinforced by both parents, first through her mother’s “plotting” and then by her father’s damning statement at the end: “She’s only a girl” (Munro 12). This concluding statement essentially proves to be the observation that truly clarifies and confirms the girl’s gender normative identity, as she finally gives in to the gender paradigm by saying, “I didn’t protest that, even in my heart. Maybe it was true” (Munro 12).
- Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. Routledge, 2014.
- Munro, Alice. “Boys & Girls.” 1968. Accessed 18 March 2017. Retrieved from http://members.tripod.com/~womeninlit/alicemunro.htm.
