The representation of gender, race and sexism in children's book

For children's books it's important to remain on a neutral and even stand point in which every character is portrayed equally and no character is made as worse off than another. This falls under categories in which prejudice or discrimination may be made.

Gender - 

Gender in children's books is a fairly simple concept to grasp and has one main rule. "Portray women as equal to men in your storyline". This means that the characters in a children's book must perceive and show off male and female characters as equal, meaning female characters cant be featured in situations of distress (within the realms of being child friendly) without the male character also having the same issue. A misconception would be that there needs to be equal amount of roles of females to males which isn't entirely true. Yes it's true both genders should be represented equally but if a book is tailored and catered towards boys, that doesn't mean the book must feature females as well.

Race -

Race within anything can be a touchy subject and so in children's books it follows the same rule of gender. All different races should be treated the same in children's books if presented as well as not create a distinguish between one being inferior to another. Not only because this extremely out of line within modern society but also because it has been scientifically proven that no human race is biologically superior to another. Everyone has the ability to strive and achieve.

Language used that features black themes or depicts that people of other races as a minority and not as great is a criminal offence, contained in section 50A and section 96 which includes both racially aggravated harassment and racially aggravated behaviour as well as racial aggravation of other common law offences.

Sexism - 

Sexism refers to the words used in a children's book more than anything. Some words in the eyes of how a children's book should be written demeans girls and woman, meaning they are made worse off much like how gender is covered earlier. An example of some words that should be used are:

• Manufactured not Manmade
• Firefighters not Firemen
• Ancestors not Forefathers

Though there isn't anything typically wrong with these words in the real world, in children's books it's important to remain on an equal ground and make sure every gender and person is treated the same as the next.