point of views about children positions and roles to give understanding to female children about the experiences of discrimination and women positions in
patriarchal society.
C. Previous Research Findings
There are some relevant studies conducted in analysing both feminism and children’s literature. The researches have the same focus that is identifying
feminist quality in children’s literature. The first research is Bethany S. Wester’s ‘At Home We Work Together: Domestic Feminism and Patriarchy in Little
Women’ conducted in 2005. The aims of this study are to examine how the roles of patriarchy and domesticity in Alcott’s private life and in Little Women,
emphasizes the transcendentalist thinking that surrounded Alcott in her childhood and how it subsequently infiltrates the novel, explores the role of the struggling
female artist in Little Women and how the fictional characters’ struggles reflect
Alcott’s own problems as a female writer in a patriarchal society and Alcott’s reformist ideas and the reformist issues that surface in Little Women. This research
focuses on domestic feminism and patriarchy presented in Little Women. Alcott assumed that women should be able to choose the way for their future, whether
that included marriage, career, or else, without the threat of being alienated by the society. This research concludes in Little Women, the March family serves as an
example of a reformed, egalitarian family in which women exercise self-reliance, employ their non-domestic talents, and still maintain their femininity.
The second research is an undergraduate thesis by Endah Ratnasari in 2015 entitled
Parvana’s Struggle against Gender Equality in Taliban Society: A Feminist Children’s Literature Study. This research focuses on the main
character’s struggles, Parvana, a female child who lives in the cruellest patriarchal society, Taliban group. This research reveals the harms caused by gender
inequality, the struggle of Parvana against gender inequality and the significant meaning of the struggle. The results show that Parvana suffers from three harms
of gender discrimination that are fear and lack of confidence, desperation and unwillingness to struggle and dependency. She also does some struggles to fight
against gender inequality and get some significant meanings from the struggles. The third research is a feminist study about gender discrimination from
Nurul Istikomah entitled Women’s Attitudes towards Gender Discrimination in
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns; an undergraduate thesis in 2015. The aims of this research are to identify the kinds of gender discrimination and
women’s attitudes on facing gender discrimination. In addition, this research focuses on the expression depicted to express the form of gender discrimination
and women’s attitudes. The result of this research show four types of gender discrimination suffered by the characters, which are violence, subordination,
stereotype, and marginalization and it also, reveals the attitudes toward gender discrimination such as acceptance and struggle.
The three works above have the same focuses that are about feminism in literature. However, the way the author analyses the works are different.
Bethany S. Wester
’s deals with feminist view in one of the timeless children’s literature,
Little Women. It focuses on analysis toward domestic feminism and patriarchy in Little Women. Some agree that Hermione is a dependant and weak whereas some
others believe that Hermione is independent and strong. Whereas Endah Ratnasari is analysing the struggle of Parvana against Taliban society in order to gain gender
equality. She depicts the harms of gender inequality and the struggle of the main character to change the condition of women in that society. On the other hand,
Nurul Istikomah deals with discrimination in strong control of patriarchal society where women suffer from different kinds of discrimination. She identifies the
acceptant and the struggle of the women. The researcher believes that there are some issues that have not been
discussed by those three studies. The issues are about gender discrimination faced by female child in modern patriarchal society, the struggles of female and the
impacts of struggle against gender discrimination. This research which is entitled “Beauty’s Struggles against Gender Discrimination in Patriarchal Society in
Jaqueline Wilson’s Cookie” will analyse the kinds of gender discrimination suffered by female child, the struggles to cope with the problems and the impact
of the female child struggles in diminishing gender discrimination. The approach used in this study is feminist literary criticism featured with the theory of
children’s literature that consists with children and children’s empowerment theory. The researcher will focus on the action of the main character to reveal the
child struggles against gender discrimination.
D.
Theoretical Framework
Jacqueline Wilson’s Cookie
Objective 1: kinds of gender discrimination faced
by Beauty in patriarchal society in Jacqueline Wilson’s Cookie
Objective 2: Beauty
’s struggles against gender discrimination in patriarchal society
in Jacqueline Wilson’s Cookie Objective 3:
the impacts of Beauty’s struggles
to gain independence in Jacqueline Wilson’s Cookie
Feminism and Postfeminism: -
Patriarchy -
Gender Discrimination a. Marginalization
b. Subordination c. Stereotype
d. Violence e. Work Load
- Struggle’s against Gender
Discrimination -
Feminist Literary Criticism
Gender Discrimination in Patriarchal Society
Children’s Literature: -
Children in Children’s Literature
- Children’s Empowerment
- Feminism in children’s
Literature -
Children’s Powerlessness
Beauty’s Struggles against Gender Discrimination in Patriarchal Society depicted in Jacqueline Wilson’s Cookie
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
To make a research becomes reliable and scientific, it is important to create a research design. Research design helps the researcher to accomplish the aims of the
research. This research used qualitative research design instead of quantitative research design because this research does not deal with calculations and
measurements. The data from this research were taken from Jacqueline Wilson’s Cookie novel in the forms of words, phrases, clauses and sentences.
The approach of qualitative and quantitative research are quite different, while quantitative research relies on statistic measurement on one variable to another
variable, qualitative research focuses more on the interpretation of the research participants who are the researchers and other people who are involved in the
research. Vanderstoep and Johnston 2009: 167 state that the purpose of qualitative research is descriptive
. People’s interpretation about the problems becomes the main elements in this research therefore, the data are in the form of descriptions. To
describe the data, people used their experience, knowledge and background. It is possible to have different interpretation from one people to another about the
problems that are discussed in the research. Description is the source to get deeper understanding about the interpretation of the research participants.
