Agency and Acting on the World: Are All Heroes Bro’s?

Agency, or the ability to act on the world, affords a character the potential to be a heroic figure in any story. The verbs predicated of gendered subjects show that most of the agentive behaviour in these series of children’s fiction is done by males, that the actions of boys and men are more vigorous and more aggressive than those of girls and women. The frequent mention of clothes and makeup in connection with female characters supports societal assumptions about the preoccupations of women and girls. In terms of the objects held by characters, males carry objects which support their potential for agency while females tend to hold less important and more domestic items, thus reducing the scope for girls to act heroically.