The invisibility of women in the Newfoundland high school literature curriculum

Healey, Phyllis-Marie (1993) The invisibility of women in the Newfoundland high school literature curriculum. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The intent of my study was to examine critically how novels in use at the high school level portray female and male experiences, how the authors have constructed these texts, how dominant literary practices work to invisibilise women, and to express my own assumptions on the issue of women's exclusion from pages of literature texts. -- I have examined how the values, norms, and knowledge prescribed by a male-organized society and in particular, a male-organized educational system served to promulgate the ideology that the masculine experience is universal. The entire educational system has a tremendous power to shape and to teach overtly and covertly a cultural view which is primarily male. This view is mirrored in the novels currently in use at the secondary school level. I have attempted to show how gender exclusive textbooks marginalize/ignore women and women's experiences. -- Following from my critique of the thirty-two novels and my analysis of the gender inequality at all levels of the Newfoundland education system, I have made recommendations for change in order to include women and women's lives.

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