Student Question

How does "Boys and Girls" differentiate between men's and women's work?

Quick answer:

“Boys and Girls” shows men’s work as connected with outdoor activities and with killing. Women’s work is perceived as domestic, largely conducted inside the house, and focused on sustaining the family. Even chores are gendered, as the female protagonist is teasingly called a man when she helps her father. The girl does not feel connected to the traditional women’s tasks.

Expert Answers

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Throughout “Boys and Girls,” a strong gender division of labor and comportment is revealed as the protagonist grows up and is expected to confine herself to appropriate gender patterns. On the farm, men and women work at different tasks. Women are in the house far more than men are. Male roles tend to cluster in the exterior or the barn. Even the daily chores are gendered, and the author conveys that these patterns are widely understood within the community, not confined to the family. To a visitor, the father teasingly calls the young female protagonist a “little man” but does not anticipate that she will continue to do a man’s chores as an adult. Munro shows how male and female roles become more pronounced and rigid as the children grow up, revealing that young children have more flexibility in gendered forms of expression than do adult children.

The arbitrary and unfair advantages that men accrue are shown to increase with age. Both her mother and grandmother encourage her to think about the future rather than dwell on the past. The grandmother especially focuses on the comportment associated with gender, prompting the narrator to be more concerned about her ladylike behavior. Being ladylike includes female proficiency with various, home-related tasks—and definitely does not encompass killing horses.

The girl finds these divisions stifling, like the hot kitchen where she all-too-often must hang out with her female relatives. Although the women work just as hard as the men, their work is associated with cooking and cleaning and lacks the excitement that the narrator finds in the traditionally male tasks.

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