Intersectional Burdens: On the Pathological and Gender Stereotypical Portrayals of Deaf Female Children in Picture Books
This research paper was originally written for my Freshman Writing Seminar, “Disability Justice,” at Princeton University
Mandy and the pathological model of deafness as a separate oppressive system
In her 1991 picture book Mandy, hearing author Barbara Booth characterizes Mandy as a Deaf female child who enjoys baking cookies and going outside with her hearing grandmother.¹ These activities initially sound like she could do them independently, like a hearing female child could. Yet as Cynthia Neese Bailes points out in her essay, “Mandy: A Critical Look at the Portrayal of a Deaf Character in Children’s Literature,” Mandy is not independent.² Without using sign language and a functioning hearing aid to communicate, she seems completely dependent on her grandmother to help with everyday tasks. The conflict arises when her hearing grandmother loses her silver necklace during their walk. The silver necklace is precious because it was a gift from Mandy’s late grandfather, who was also Deaf.³ Mandy, knowing how special the necklace is, goes to find and retrieve it in the dark.⁴ Despite her brave act, Booth still characterizes Mandy as disabled.
Unfortunately, in Debbie B. Golos and Annie M. Moses’ research study entitled “Representations of Deaf Children in Picture Books,” Mandy is one of several picture books where hearing authors portray Deaf children through the pathological model of deafness.⁵ Golos & Moses define the pathological model of deafness as a “disabling medical condition”⁶ that must be fixed with hearing aids or cochlear implants. This way, hearing families stop fulfilling Deaf female children’s every need. Padden and Humphries, for this reason, use the “lowercase deaf”⁷ when referring to the pathological model of deafness in their book, Deaf in America: Voices of a Culture. And even though many Deaf people communicate via sign language, its seemingly simplistic nature may cause some hearing people to believe Deaf people are dumb.⁸ Speaking, according to Golos and Moses, forces Deaf people to seem more intelligent; it also removes the language barrier between them and their hearing families.⁹
Some of the other picture books Golos & Moses include are Kami and the Yaks by Andrea Stryer (2007) and Enrique Speaks With His Hands by Benjamin Fudge (2008), in which hearing authors characterize Deaf male children through the pathological model of deafness: Enrique by “bringing sign language and hope to the Deaf children of Honduras,”¹⁰ and Kami using his deafness to find his family’s missing yaks.¹¹ Although the Deaf male children are also stereotyped as disabled, these picture books never consider how rigid gender stereotypes often position Deaf female children as “fundamentally different”¹² from Deaf male children due to intersectionality. Intersectionality refers to how the number of ways they may be discriminated against, such as through gender or disability, overlap.¹³
When these two separate systems of oppression — rigid gender stereotypes and the pathological model of deafness — intersect, how do both dehumanize Deaf female children in picture books? Using Enrique Speaks With His Hands and Kami and the Yaks as lenses for contrasting Mandy, I will argue that this intersectionality in picture books portray Deaf female children as burdensome for asking for help and trying, but failing, to prove their independence while hiding lack of confidence. Whereas, Deaf male children are not burdensome; their hearing families humanize them as more independent and confident due to their lack of intersectionality. This complicates disability justice because the more dehumanized Deaf female children in picture books are, the less they will be able to advocate for themselves and make meaningful contributions to society.
Rigid gender stereotypes as a separate oppressive system
Like the pathological model of deafness, rigid gender stereotypes are important to consider because they will always reinforce Deaf female children’s inferiority to Deaf male children regardless of their accomplishments. One way is through Ashley E. Martin and Michael L. Slepian’s concept of human connected entities. In the first of five experiments they conduct for their study, “Dehumanizing Gender,” they define human-connected entities as “skills, personality, interests, communication, desires, and emotions”¹⁴ society often prescribed to men or women. Participants then had to state whether or not gender could be assigned to the human-connected entities, ranking them from 1 to 7: “1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree.”¹⁵ Similarly, they had to state which rigid gender stereotypes most represented men and women. A common association identified in the first experiment was a man exuding more confidence and intelligence than a woman.¹⁶
Some hearing people, by this logic, may enforce these rigid gender stereotypes to oppress Deaf female children in picture books. If a Deaf female child expresses her opinion in the story, it would be undervalued, forcing her to remain silent so she is not labeled dumb. In turn, she may be hesitant to take action. A Deaf male child in picture books, conversely, may receive greater respect for his opinions by speaking up. After all, his gender identity tends to favor opportunities to assume dominance and show their intelligence as leaders.¹⁷ One may argue that by characterizing Deaf female children as the same rigid gender stereotypes, some hearing people neglect the “far more interesting facets of [their lives]”¹⁸ that makes them unique from each other. Padden and Humphries, in writing this, may have alluded to the same human-connected entities expressed in “Dehumanizing Gender.” Still, these rigid gender stereotypes prevent society from taking Deaf female children as seriously as Deaf male children.
The intersectionality of rigid gender stereotypes and the pathological model of deafness
Now that we viewed the pathological model of deafness and rigid gender stereotypes as separate scholarly conversations, I will now discuss their combined effects on Deaf female children in picture books using Gaylene Becker & Joanne Jauregui’s article, “The Invisible Isolation of Deaf Women: Its Effects on Social Awareness.” Becker and Jauregui first state that Deaf women are often viewed as passive in society.¹⁹ Revisiting the same rigid gender stereotype about confidence from “Dehumanizing Gender,” Deaf female children in picture books may believe they are not qualified to make meaningful contributions to society. They may isolate themselves from the hearing world, fearing that Deaf male children may dismiss their opinions on topics like current events, healthcare, and childhood as “deaf and dumb”²⁰ rather than Deaf and intelligent.
Becker & Jauregui also mention that Deaf women may have more limited access to important information (e.g. resources) — not only due to the belief that they are disabled, but due to the language barrier preventing their hearing families from helping them.²¹ This is because their hearing families may believe they are overdependent according to the pathological model of deafness. Instead, they must “turn to each other”²² for support. Similar to Golos & Moses, Becker & Jauregui recognize that Deaf male children also experience discrimination under the pathological model of deafness. But despite their hearing loss, Deaf male children in picture books may have an easier time understanding the world than Deaf female children. While they can still confide in each other, gender does not stop them from accessing this information from their hearing families. If Deaf female children are constantly dehumanized under this combined oppressive system in real life, will they ever be humanized as self-sufficient and confident in picture books?
Mandy vs. Enrique speaks with his hands
No, Mandy may be portrayed as burdensome to her hearing grandmother for communicating her needs. While Mandy mixes the chocolate chip cookie batter, she taps her grandmother’s shoulder to ask if she can lay them down on sheet pans. Booth then criticizes Mandy by adding that “[she] could have used her voice to ask for them,”²³ although tapping is a common gesture Deaf people use to get hearing people’s attention.²⁴ But the last thing Mandy wants is for hearing people (excluding her hearing grandmother) to make fun of the sound of voice, which — like many Deaf people in real life — “does not sound good when [she vocalizes].”²⁵ Booth then shows Mandy spooning the batter onto the sheet pans. Instead of feeling its vibration on the metal surface, Mandy keeps wondering if it makes noise. This is largely in part by her hearing aid, which she “turned high enough”²⁶ but can barely hear out of. Again, she never asks her question aloud to meet this need. Frustrated, she silences herself, reinforcing that her needs as a Deaf female child does not matter.
One may argue that in order for Deaf female children’s voices to be heard like Deaf male children in picture books, they need to stop being afraid to ask for help. In Enrique Speaks With His Hands, hearing children mock Enrique for being the only Deaf child born to a hearing family.²⁷ He does not literally express his need for living with other Deaf children. But figuratively, this need is met when a Deaf woman arrives to transport him to a hidden village of Deaf children using sign language.²⁸ When he gets older, he learns and subsequently teaches sign language to the other children. The other Deaf children, at the end of the story, idolize Enrique as “the special one”²⁹ (their role model). Clearly, Enrique never has to silence himself as a male Deaf child; his immediate access to resources lets him not only improve his own life, but also help the other Deaf children “advocate for respect of [Deaf] language and culture.”³⁰
However, saying that Enrique chooses to ask for help suggests that Mandy never chooses to ask for help. Mandy, like the Deaf women Becker & Jauregui mention previously, asks questions to try participating in the hearing world. This is especially the case when one considers that she is the only Deaf female child in the story. Although Booth’s choice makes sense to keep readers focused on the main character, Mandy does not have other Deaf female children to confide in. Her intersectionality forces her to remain isolated, too passive to react to the hearing world around her. Additionally, it is obvious that her hearing grandmother enjoys spending time with Mandy. But ultimately, she cannot effectively respond to Mandy’s needs if she cannot communicate with Mandy due to their language barrier.
In contrast, other Deaf children in the village surround Enrique. By having sign language in common, he could easily communicate his needs. And the more his hearing world effectively responds to his needs, the more they could take him seriously as a confident, Deaf male child eager to take initiative. Being in the Deaf village, furthermore, removes the language barrier between Enrique and his hearing parents. Instead of being unable to help Enrique, they delivered upon his need to feel less alone. Booth may not have meant for Mandy to be “tragically trapped in [her] Deaf body”³¹ — or unable to receive the same access to resources and information as Deaf male children. Nonetheless, the portrayal suggests that Deaf female children in picture books do not deserve help, or risk their hearing family members seeing them as burdens.
Mandy vs. Kami and the Yaks
Mandy may also be portrayed as burdensome to her hearing grandmother, by trying to prove her independence (when in reality she may doubt her self-sufficiency). Mandy is hesitant to find her grandmother’s silver necklace because she is afraid of the dark; if she cannot see or sign with hearing or Deaf people, she has no way to communicate with them.³² Still, she searches for it at night without her hearing grandmother knowing. She visualizes “light reflecting off”³³ the jewelry, which tricks readers into thinking that she could find it by simply using her flashlight. But when Mandy falls on the grass and drops her flashlight, the flashlight shines on the silver bracelet. She stands in front of it the entire time.³⁴ This begs the question of whether the unexpected coincidence compromises her independence.
One may argue that unless they are confident enough to take risks, Deaf female children cannot prove their ability to fend for themselves compared to Deaf male children. In Kami and the Yaks, Kami is a male, Deaf child living in the Himalayas with his father and older brother. His family specifically relies on yaks for food and clothing. However, the herd goes missing.³⁵ Kami, listening to his figurative voice, uses his sight and touch to look for the herd himself. He must endure traveling through a hailstorm³⁶ and “[hitting] his shoulder on a rock.”³⁷ Moreover, he nearly gets in trouble for wandering off. But his father and brother, ultimately, consider him heroic for taking the same active role as Enrique, thus preserving the family’s livelihood. By saving his hearing family from crisis, Kami successfully proves his independence as a Deaf male child: “I did it, and he knows I did it!”³⁸ This earns him greater respect for his accomplishments.³⁹
But saying that Kami chooses to be independent and confident suggests that Mandy chooses not to be independent and confident. If the pathological model of deafness maintains that Deaf female children are disabled, then Mandy would not be trusted to complete everyday tasks (like finding her hearing grandmother’s silver necklace) herself. Also rigid gender stereotypes, coupled with her fear of the dark, may make her less confident in her abilities compared to Deaf male children. It stands to reason why symbolically, her adventure would go beyond showing “love for her [hearing] grandmother”⁴⁰ or “[overcoming] her fear of the dark.”⁴¹ She, depicted as completely dependent on her hearing grandmother, would never know her abilities unless she tries taking risks. The flashlight appearing by “happenstance,”⁴² however, may reinforce how deep down, her intersectionality may hold her back from putting fear of failure aside. So Mandy may earn little respect for her attempt to find what may be her hearing grandmother’s remaining memory of Mandy’s late, Deaf grandfather.
In contrast, the weather may threaten to make Kami doubt his ability to retrieve the missing yaks. This is because under the pathological model of deafness, he, too, would never hear nearby danger. With that being said, Kami does not have any known fears. He remains confident through the story, for he knows doing so would prevent his family from dying of severe lack of food, water, and clothing. And unlike Mandy’s hearing grandmother who never leaves to show overdependence, Kami’s father and older brother do not appear until the story’s end. This coincidence allows Kami to confirm the stereotype that Deaf male children are inherently independent. They can actively “take a dominant role”⁴³ in even dangerous situations, rather than letting their possible fear of failure control them (aka. being passive). I am sure that Booth only meant to portray Mandy as a brave, Deaf female child. But her intention does not excuse how Deaf female children in picture books, unless they push their limits to prove their independence, are portrayed as overdependent and burdensome to their hearing families.
Conclusion
Mandy may be an older picture book than Enrique Speaks With His Hands and Kami and the Yaks. But all three picture books show that due to the intersectionality of rigid gender stereotypes and the pathological model of deafness, Deaf female children in picture books may be dehumanized for asking for help, trying to be self-sufficient, and masking confidence. Their hearing families, as a result, may see them as burdens for figuratively speaking up. On the other hand, Deaf male children in picture books tend to have their needs immediately met while maintaining independence. Their gender, stereotypically more confident than females, does not bar them from speaking up and being valuable assets to their hearing families.
For hearing authors wanting to write future picture books about Deaf female children, I suggest that they find real Deaf women to share their experiences (with interpreters present to translate). These same Deaf women, additionally, could read the picture books’ early drafts to check for gender and pathological model based stereotypes. There may be several rounds of revision, depending on how many changes need to be made. Nonetheless, this research is crucial for understanding that deafness and gender are not independent of each other. Unless future picture books humanize Deaf female children as self-sufficient, active participants in the hearing world, these separate systems of oppression will always intersect to dismiss Deaf female children in picture books as intersectional burdens.
Footnotes
¹ Cynthia Neese Bailes, “Mandy: A Critical Look at the Portrayal of a Deaf Character in Children’s Literature,” in Children, Deafness, and Deaf Cultures in Popular Media (University Press of Mississippi, 2023), 16.
² Bailes, “Mandy,” 22.
³ Bailes, “Mandy,” 16.
⁴ Bailes, “Mandy,” 22.
⁵ Debbie B. Golos and Annie M. Moses, “Representations of Deaf Characters in Children’s Picture Books,” American Annals of the Deaf 156, no. 3 (2011): pp. 270–282, https://doi.org/10.1353/aad.2011.0025, 271.
⁶ Golos & Moses, “Representations of Deaf Children in Picture Books,” 271.
⁷ Padden & Humphries, Deaf in America, 2.
⁸ Golos & Moses, “Representations of Deaf Children in Picture Books,” 271.
⁹ Golos & Moses, “Representations of Deaf Children in Picture Books,” 271.
¹⁰ Golos & Moses, “Representations of Deaf Children in Picture Books,” 279.
¹¹ Golos & Moses, “Representations of Deaf Children in Picture Books,” 279.
¹² Ashley E. Martin & Michael L. Slepian, “Dehumanizing Gender: The Debiasing Effects of Gendering Human-Abstracted Entities,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 44, no. 12 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218774777.
¹³ Hannah Coombes, “Intersectionality 101: What Is It and Why Is It Important?,” Www.womankind.org.uk (Womankind Worldwide, October 15, 2020), https://www.womankind.org.uk/intersectionality-101-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-important/.
¹⁴ Martin & Slepian, “Dehumanizing Gender.”
¹⁵ Martin & Slepian, “Dehumanizing Gender.”
¹⁶ Martin & Slepian, “Dehumanizing Gender.”
¹⁷ Martin & Slepian, “Dehumanizing Gender.”
¹⁸ Padden & Humphries, Deaf in America, 1.
¹⁹ Gaylene Becker & Joanne K. Jauregui, “The Invisible Isolation of Deaf Women: Its Effect on Social Awareness,” The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 8, no. 2 (July 1981): 245–262, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351318082-3, 257.
²⁰ Bailes, “Mandy,” 18.
²¹ Becker & Jauregui, “The Invisible Isolation of Deaf Women,” 258.
²² Becker & Jauregui, “The Invisible Isolation of Deaf Women,” 258.
²³ Bailes, “Mandy,” 19.
²⁴ Bailes, “Mandy,” 19.
²⁵ Bailes, “Mandy,” 20.
²⁶ Bailes, “Mandy,” 22.
²⁷ Benjamin Fudge, “Enrique Speaks With His Hands,” YouTube, August 11, 2015, read aloud video, 2:10 to 2:30, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip85wbCXylg.
²⁸ Fudge, “Enrique Speaks With His Hands,” 2:10–2:30.
²⁹ Fudge, “Enrique Speaks With His Hands,” 5:53–5:56.
³⁰ Golos & Moses, “Representations of Deaf Children in Picture Books,” 272.
³¹ Bailes, “Mandy,” 18.
³² Bailes, “Mandy,” 22.
³³ Bailes, “Mandy,” 23.
³⁴ Bailes, “Mandy,” 23.
³⁵ Andrea Stenn Stryer, Kami and the Yaks (Palo Alto, CA: Bay Otter Press, 2007), 12.
³⁶ Stryer, Kami and the Yaks, 20.
³⁷ Stryer, Kami and the Yaks, 31.
³⁸ Stryer, Kami and the Yaks, 49.
³⁹ Martin & Slepian, “Dehumanizing Gender.”
⁴⁰ Bailes, “Mandy,” 22.
⁴¹ Bailes, “Mandy,” 22.
⁴² Bailes, “Mandy,” 16.
⁴³ Becker & Jauregui, “The Invisible Isolation of Deaf Women,” 257.
Bibliography
Becker, Gaylene and Joanne K. Jauregui, “The Invisible Isolation of Deaf Women: Its Effect on Social Awareness,” The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 8, no. 2 (July 1981): 245–262, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351318082-3.
Booth, Barbara D, and Jim LaMarche. Mandy. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993.
Coombes, Hannah. “Intersectionality 101: What Is It and Why Is It Important?” Www.womankind.org.uk. Womankind Worldwide, October 15, 2020. https://www.womankind.org.uk/intersectionality-101-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-important/.
Fudge, Benjamin. “Enrique Speaks With His Hands.” YouTube, August 11, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip85wbCXylg.
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Martin, Ashley E., and Michael L. Slepian. “Dehumanizing Gender: The Debiasing Effects of Gendering Human-Abstracted Entities.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 44, no. 12 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218774777.
Padden, Carol, and Tom L. Humphries. Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Stephens, John, and Vivian S. Yenika-Agbaw. Children, Deafness, and Deaf Cultures in Popular Media. University Press of Mississippi, 2023.
Stryer, Andrea Stenn, and Bert Dodson. Kami and the Yaks. Palo Alto, CA: Bay Otter Press, 2007.
