Beyond Princesses and Pirates

In order to promote gender equality, we have created Beyond Princesses and Pirates, a guide to children’s picture books, to assist parents and carers in challenging the culturally ingrained ideas about appropriate behaviours for females and males.

The content of many children’s picture books keeps gender stereotypes alive, depicting boys as active, physically strong, heroic central characters, and girls as pretty, passive characters in search of a prince.

This guide provides parents, grandparents, carers and teachers with a range of stories that are available at Maribyrnong’s libraries that present alternative ideas about what children can be, what they can be interested in and what they can achieve.

These books can be used to encourage discussion, broader thinking and directly challenge harmful gender stereotypes with children in a way that is easy to understand.

Additional support and practical guidance is available to parents and carers at OurWatch #BecauseWhy. The site includes tools and resources for all types of 'family' and for all adults who 'parent' a child that would like ideas on how to challenge gender stereotypes.

Download the guide below.