‘I Mean, the Queen’s Fierce and the King’s Not’: Gendered Embodiment in Children’s Drawings

Abstract

Gender differences in children’s artwork have been the subject of study for over 100 years. The focus of early research was quite narrow, honing in on issues such as children’s gendered subject preferences, or their ability to render spatial relationships or include detail in their artwork. This has led to some stereotypical conclusions about gender with regard to particular aspects of visual representation. This paper speaks back to some of these stereotypes by discussing fundamental principles of meaning-making through drawing, and how the content of children’s artworks should be viewed in relation to their form, and the processes children used as the artworks evolved. Using social-constru..