4. Disempowerment in Children’s Literature
The disempowerment in children’s literature is presented in order to
understand more about the empowerment which is the opposite of it. Children’s literature may empower children by placing them as the center of
the story. Children’s literature should make children understand about life in
order to prepare them for the future. Nodelman 1992: 29 criticizes some disempowerments existing
in children’s literature by mentioning some situations. These conditions may help people understand about children
because child empowerment is the antithesis of these situations such as inherent inferiority, inherently adult-centred, inherent femaleness, silencing
and inherent silence, power and domination.
a. Inherent inferiority
Children’s literature is written by adults for children as the readers. Most adults perceive that children have inability to speak, write, think and study for
themselves and believe that the inability make them inferior. Thus, Nodelman 1992: 29 argues th
at “the inability of children to speak for themselves is not inferiority at all, but a wonderfully state of innocence”. The researcher feels
certain of Nodelman’s statement because the inability does not show the inferiority at all. In addition, most write
rs underestimate children’s ability to read the text. They make stories as simpler as possible, portray obvious bad
and good characters and conclude conclusion of the stories explicitly. However, adults who write children’s literature with child empowerment may
consider children to own certain capabilities gained through their education and experience and make stories more difficult, challenging and complex.
Moreover, they should represent children with the “real” description and
powerful characterization.
b. Inherent femaleness
Adults become the representation of children in order to speak and write for them. Adults try to define children and the childhood by recalling their
own childhood or by interpreting what they see and observe. Yet, Nodelman 1992: 30
states that “there is no representation can be truly objective”. It happens in the some children’s literature where children are represented
subjectively: they are charming, passive, cute, docile, kind, innocence, honest, irrational and so on. Children in the stories exist to please adults and are
manifested as what adults’ want. However, children should be empowered by empowered with strong but critical characters.
c. Inherently adult-centered
Nodelman 1992: 30 suggests that “we encourage in children those values
and behaviors that make children easier for us to handle: more passive, more docile, more obedient
—and thus, more in need of our guidance and more willing to accept the need of it”. The researcher believes that children are
represented to benefit adult. Thus, they want children to imitate what children in the stories do. Child empowerment
puts children’s literature as the child-
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