These pictures with an old time charm, are from a graphic children's book "I'm Glad I'm a Boy, I'm Glad I'm a girl" by Whitney Darrow in 1970. This book was very popular at its time which was pretty strange as this book comes across as very sexist and it was written right at the height of second wave of feminism. The graphics from this novel portray the roles of males and females that would be acceptable to a very orthodox society that did not value women. At the time that this book was published, the views expressed in it were very normal i.e. nobody was offended by it. However, when these graphics from the book reemerged some 45 years later, it had an entirely different reaction, readers expressed a strong dislike towards them. Digging further about the book and author, there is reason to believe that Darrow wrote this book to show the absurdity of gender norms at the time and not because he wanted to impose these gender stereotypes on the minds of young children. He mocks the society and its gender roles, something we can contemplate from the colour, tone and messages portrayed by the images.

I will now analyze these pictures to figure out what Darrow was trying to represent. The pictures shown are only a few of the many illustrations from the book. When we look at these pictures we can see that they are very cartoonist, almost simplistic which makes sense as it is a children's book but it is not as colourful or attractive as you would expect it to be. The graphics are in an analogous colour scheme in mostly orange and black. The main characters are a young boy and girl probably because it would be easier for children to relate to them. They are shown doing things that usually an adult would do and that is where the problem arises. All the pictures portray the girl doing jobs that are less important while the boy plays all the lead roles. In the first picture, the boy is shown to be a pilot in a crisp black suit and a hat while the girl is shown as a stewardess who is running around serving people. The same way in the following pictures, the boy is shown to be a policeman and a doctor while the girl is shown to be a meter maid and a nurse. Which kind of implies that women are not sharp or capable enough to operate a plane, fight crime or save lives, they should just stand there and play the sidekick, serving snacks, writing tickets and changing bandages. The author justifies all this at the end by showing a picture of the boy and girl together on a swing together labelled "we need each other". This is the general idea that any reader would have on reading this children's book for the first time. Left to one's imagination, it is pretty obvious that this book is the most sexist children's book of all time and the author is a male chauvinist pig. However, everything completely changes when we learn about the cartoonist. Whitney Darrow jr. was a cartoonist for the New York Times for 50 years and loved to incorporate ludicrousness of everyday life in his work. He was one of the people who wanted society to overcome its absurd norms and stereotypes. He wrote this book to mock the way society relates gender and their roles. Now that we know Darrow's true intentions, one incredible thing happens, every single thing that we interpret from these pictures has a whole new meaning. We realize that this book wasn't popular because it was sexist but because it supported the feminist movement using sarcasm to make people rethink their values. 

Darrow's work always had some sense of optimism or in more simple words pleasantness, the cartoonist aspect of these illustrations accounts for that part. We can now say that the he picked more of a dull colour scheme to highlight the irony and achieve his goal. The expressions on the faces of the characters are very pleasant almost as though they are very passive aggressive, especially the girl. One of the other pictures from the book even shows that boys only play with trucks and girls only play with dolls which again conveys the same message. Another way, a non- feminine way, of looking at this would be that the boy too is being forced to play only a certain role. So, if we focus on the boy we realize that he too is suffering from the same problem as the girl is. The boy is being expected to hold up a certain type of image in the society, he is constantly under the pressure to appear manly or masculine, what if he doesn't want to? At the end of the book, recall the "we need each other" phrase, Darrow once again mocks society. It could be thought that, after making all those comparisons between the boy and girl and highlighting the irony, he makes a snide comment about how men and women "need" each other to get on with their life. The entire book has a cynical vibe, somewhat like faking a smile when you actually want to scream out in anger. On reading this book for the first time, no reader would ever pick up on this vibe, which makes it a bit more unique as it translates into something completely opposite to the initial idea.

These illustrations were put out there for people to look at and hopefully rethink and realize that the way they think is not really appropriate. We can more specifically say that Darrow used these pictures for a satirical purpose to stress on the issue. Even though this book was characterized as a children's book, it plays a much bigger role. It makes one ask questions like, can a woman not be a pilot, a police officer or a doctor? Is there really any role that a woman cannot play? Is it really fair to women? These illustrations are a great example of how art has affected many revolutionary movements and how it still continues to do so. Darrow has used a lot of techniques in this cartoon to balance out the negative and positive sides and cleverly highlight his main issue. We cannot say that he achieved his goal as the readers took his book literally, in fact even when these images resurfaced a few months ago, it was still taken in its literal sense. Maybe it is the optimism that is misleading or the lack of knowledge about the author's intention that makes it hard to actually understand the motive of publishing this book. Regardless, these illustrations support feminism and equality for women in their own unique way, given the reader gets the idea. 

