readers. Children are able to express themselves as the readers without any cultural hostilities that embedded in the culture where they live.
The author of chi ldren’s literature invites child readers to positioning
themselves to view the character based on their own thought. Nodelman 2008: 18 states children way to read children’s literature clearly works in the minds of
many writers of fictional texts intended for children. Many of which not only have child protagonists but also focalize the action through those child protagonists and
ask readers to think of themselves in terms of what happens to the child protagonists. He suspects that focalization through a central child character is
another quality that marks a text as one intended for child readers. It means that the author intentionally creates and focalizes the character to invite children to
explore their ideas and opinion. Children readers will be triggered to read children’s literature and exploring the ideas without being intimidated by morals
and values that adults force to give to children.
2. Children’s Empowerment
In a long history, children’s literature becomes one of the most debatable issues. Mo
st of the scholars consider children’s literature as unimportant literature. It makes the issue about children’s empowerment emerged in the analysis of
children’s literature. As human being that is always seen as inferior in both, literary works and real l
ife, the study about children’s empowerment is very important. It will increase the acceptant of people about the children’s equality in
life.
The terms of empowerment is described by Miscovitch and Dorver in Lord and Hutchison, 1993: 2 as a term that is closely related to power and
powerlessness. They define power as the ability of dominating class consisted by few people that have access to economy and politics where the majority of society
does not possess it. Other definition of empowerment is described by Cornell Empowerment Group in Lord and Hutchison, 1993: 2. This term is defined as a
“capacity of some persons and organizations to produce intended, foreseen and unforeseen effects on others.” This definition provides broader understanding,
where power owned by people or organization despite their amount to take control over other people life.
Both of the definitions above provide different understanding about empowerment. Miscovitch and Dorver focus on the power domination in small
amount that can affect bigger society whereas Cornell Empowerment group focuses on the broader effect of empowerment without mentioning the sphere
affected by power and without mentioning the quantity of people involved in it. However, both of them have the same perception about power; that power can
cause the domination of one people or organization over others. People who are in the domination position become superior in society compared to others. They will
have ability to run and affect other people’s life. People, who are under control of dominated class and belong to inferior
group are considered as powerless. Powerlessness occurs because people in inferior group do not have control over their own bodies and minds. They feel
weak because they face several kinds of powerlessness such as violence, abuse
and isolation. There are different understandings about the meaning of powerlessness. Keiffer in Lord and Hutchison, 1993: 2 defines powerlessness as
people’s belief that their action will have less impact toward their lives. Another scholars, Lerner in Lord and Hutchison, 1993: 3, explains powerlessness as the
condition where people do not have power in politics and economic to possess control over other’s life and resources. In other words, powerlessness can be
described as people’s characteristics of having less self-esteem and lack of capability to struggle in giving positive impact on themselves and other people’s
lives. Powerlessness makes people in inferior position compared to other people
or group in society. People, who are internalized powerlessness, believe that they are lack of power, in result they have no interest in gaining power and struggle.
According to Lord and Hutchison 1993: 8 there are four kinds of powerlessness which mostly happen to women and children. The forms of powerlessness include
social isolation, unresponsive services and systems, poverty, and abuse. All of them create boundaries for both, women and children, to participate in social life,
public facilities, health and welfare because they experience neglect, isolation, and abandonment in their lives.
People who are suffering from powerlessness, will feel that they are weak and they will underestimate themselves. Powerless people should receive the
consequences of powerlessness that is dependency. People who are lack of power will be dependent to people who own power. Lord and Hutchison 1993: 10 state,
dependency affects person and it makes this person becoming lack of self-esteem
and has less options in making decision because hisher experience is limited. Dependency is harmful because people will think that they are less capable than
others. As a result, they will rely on other people who they think have higher ability. Moreover, they will consider their decision and thought are less important.
Powerlessness is closely related with children’s empowerment because children are seen as weak and innocent creatures. Therefore, children are
considered as powerless. This perspective over children emerges because people see children as having less knowledge and skills compared to adults. As stated by
Nodelman 2008: 167 “Children need to be innocent less than adults need to believe that children are innocent
—that childhood is a matter of not being human in the ways that adults are h
uman.” This statement suggest that adults do not want children to be like adults with all of their capability and ability. Adults do not
considered children as human because their lives and qualities are different from adults. Adults construct children to be what they want, children who are innocent,
thus children become inferior and adults become superior. As a result, adults’ control dictate children to do what adults want instead of giving the opprtunity for
children to do what they want to do. This condition creates difference between adults, in this case parents, and children and shapes power for adults and
powerlessness for children. Another scholars have different understanding about empowerment.
Whitmore in Lord and Hutchison, 1993: 3 explains the term of empowerment as: “an interactive process through which people experience personal and
social change, enabling them to take action to achieve influence over the organizations and institutions which affect their lives and the communities
in which t
hey live.”
This statement means that empowerment is a dynamic process where people experience personal and social transformation that make people able to act in
order to influence their lives and other people from the process. Whitmore also emphasizes that empowerment is the process on how people have capability to
decide their actions in gaining influence and power from others to change their lives that become the part of community.
Furthermore, Whitmore in Lord and Hutchison, 1993: 4 highlights four important assumptions to understand about empowerment:
a. Every person needs to know well about heshe need better than others and
also should has the capability to identify it and know how to achieve it. b.
Every person owns strength and capability that heshe can establish even from the beginning.
c. Empowerment is a constant attempt in life.
d. Capability and experience are very significant and important elements to
gain empowerment. The four points above represent the concept of empowerment and how to achieve
it. It starts with awareness of people about themselves that they need to be empowered if they want to gain power and achieve something. People need to
realize that they already have power inside their bodies since they were born that can be used to empower their capabilities. In addition, empowerment is a
continuous process that always develops through times based on people‘s need. If people already realize that, they will use their capabilities and experiences as the
catalyst to empower themselves. The understanding about empowerment above is
related to the idea of children’s capabilities to develop and learn. Children’s literature depicts children as human beings who are able to be empowered. As
Nodelman 2008: 68 states: “texts written for children should view childhood as both eternally static
and a place of change, children as both wonderfully incapable of learning and inevitably and always in the process of learning from adults who
already know, home as both a place of safe fixity and a place where one learns
to be different.” Nodelman argument explains that children’s literature depicts children who have
limited experience that prohibit them to take real actions. It does not mean that children are incapable to develop and learn because children are usually learn
from adults and families at home as the primary sources of knowledge for children in childhood time. The phase of childhood is an important period for children
where children’s experiences will develop through the process of learning. Thus, children are able to make their own empowerment through the process.
As a result, empowerment creates change in people’s life. Lord and Hutchinson 1993: 17 explain that one of the effects of empowerment is that it
can create the ‘feeling for themselves’. It means that empowerment is able to make people, especially women and children increasing their self-esteem,
confidence, and sense of pride and it makes them feeling that they are valued by other people as well. They will be proud to be themselves because they are being
reckoned and gaining self confidence to achieve their goal.
3. Feminism in Children’s Literature
