Playing Gender?

“We are no longer like our partisan elders; by and large we have won the game”, Simone de Beauvoir declared the overall victory in the game of women’s*1 equality more than 70 years ago while analyzing the social mechanisms of the development of gender (Beauvoir 1953 [1949]: XXVII).2 However, contemporary discourse – spanning newspapers, magazines, academic articles, and the vast expanses of the internet – still shows persisting issues such as the Gender Pay Gap, gender-specific academic choices, and instances of sexist aggression up to discussions of the Gender Health Gap and Female Pleasure Gap. Since Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe the discourse has expanded to encompass gender identities beyond the traditional male*–female* binary, considerations of linguistic representation, nuanced beauty standards, and a critical examination of images of masculinity. Although decades have passed since social and legal, even constitutional gender equality was established in various societies, gender remains an enduring facet of social inequality. The expression of one’s personality still elicits, at the very least, a sense of disquiet when it transgresses widely acknowledged gender boundaries, for instance when it challenges clothing norms or embraces non-binary gender identities, especially in the Western hemisphere. However, the free expression of personality becomes significantly more attainable when societal expectations tied to gender are acknowledged as socially constructed and consequently become less rigid.

Social constructionist perspectives underpin this understanding: conceptions of gender, along with their associated (gender-specific) (behavioral) norms, are shaped by and depend on cultural beliefs and thus are always in principle changeable (cf. West/Zimmerman 2009). Gender-related perceptions and beliefs are shaped during childhood and adolescence in particular (cf. Elsen 2020: 107–111, 165–179), and their formation occurs as children and adolescents, often subconsciously, encounter gender-specific expectations and norms from their surroundings. As Elsen (2020: 103) says, “The parental home and other groups and institutions involved in socialization, as well as the media, provide information and react to behavior, generating, reinforcing, and internalizing stereotypes.”3 According to the doing gender approach, gender notions are in a perpetual state of (re)production, as all behavior is evaluated against gender categories – making the non-production of gender impossible (cf. West/Zimmerman 1987). Living in a society where gender serves as a ubiquitous category of identity and structure, children and adolescents inevitably acquire notions of gender. However, they possess the capacity to learn that these notions are culturally contingent and, therefore, subject to change, thereby engaging with the inherently constructive nature of the gender category. In the educational realm, the inescapable process of learning gender can be shaped and guided through a deliberate approach to teaching gender (cf. Bartsch/Wedl 2015). In conclusion, this means that images and conceptions of gender as they are (re-)produced in quite a tangible manner in popular media among others need reflection. This especially applies to media that directly or primarily address children and adolescents.

In this essay I will therefore introduce two children’s series that are quite popular in German-speaking countries and then exemplarily apply a model that shows dimensions of gender construction and their interactions in (fictional) media focusing on the gamified adaptions as smartphone applications. I will conclude with some ideas on how to address the related gender issues in educational contexts like schools.

The two kids’ detective series, Die drei Fragezeichen (lit. ‘The Three Question Marks’, originally invented by Robert Arthur in the USA under the title The Three Investigators) and Die drei Ausrufezeichen (‘The Three Exclamation Marks’), can be seen as tripled phenomena in popular culture due to the crime genre, the seriality, and the classification as children’s literature. The protagonists of Die drei ??? are three male* teenagers, in the early episodes roughly 12 or 13 years old, in the later ones approximately 17, living in the fictional town of Rocky Beach, California. They investigate crimes like theft or kidnapping, solve riddles or get to the bottom of mysteries. While this is a topic that invites literary scrutiny, it undeniably presents an interesting subject in media education. Die drei ??? has been on the German scene since 1968 (in the USA since 1964, exclusively in Germany since 1991; for the series’ backstory, see Rodenwald 2019) and can be described as an intergenerational sensation. The audio plays have such a pull that live performances fill large venues across Germany (see Rodenwald 2020), and as of 2023, a new movie, Die drei ??? – Erbe des Drachen (‘The Three ??? – Legacy of the Dragon’) (Muesch/Dünschede 2023), hit the theaters. As of late 2023, 229 book and 224 audio play episodes (plus various specials) have been released, plus three movies, several smartphone/computer games, and other products as part of the media franchise. For younger readers, there is the spin-off series Die drei ??? Kids. Since 2006, there is also the female* counterpart, Die drei !!!, with three female* protagonists at the age of 13 and 14 living in an unnamed fictional German city, solving crimes as well. Like the original series, the books are published by Franckh-Kosmos-Verlag, and the audio plays by EUROPA. This series boasts 107 book and 85 audio play episodes, along with various digital and analog products. Both series are hugely popular among children and teenagers (cf. mpfs 2021: 29–30).

But alongside the excitement, criticism has been growing in recent years. Critics have pointed out issues with the representation of identity categories such as ‘class’ and ‘race’, especially in the older episodes, as well as gender-related concerns. Katharina Brunner et al. observe, “Girls hardly play a role in the Drei ???, and women only do when dealing with catering” (Brunner et al. 2019: Seite). Almut Schnerring and Sascha Verlan, on the other hand, draw a critical comparison between Die drei ??? and Die drei !!!:

The coexistence of both series, connected not only by similarities in the series’ titles, narrative structures, and marketing but also through explicit references within, especially, the early Die drei !!! volumes, allows for an interesting comparison regarding gender-related assumptions. The creation of female* identification options in the realm of children’s crime literature is initially to be welcomed in terms of equality. However, this comes with differences in the series’ conception and marketing. As I am going to point out, Die drei ??? can be described as an androcentric children’s crime series, where children who happen to be male* – because boys* or men* were considered the norm for a long time, and girls* or women* as ‘the other’ – act as detectives, mostly not in gender-specific contexts. On the other hand, Die drei !!! is a differential feminist girls’* crime series following the motto ‘Girls* can (now) do it too – just differently’ (for different forms of feminism see Pimminger 2019).

Gender is represented and reproduced in various dimensions, as I develop in my PhD thesis. The outermost is the one that is most likely to be overlooked when dealing with gender in media, because it deals more with the outer shape of media rather than with their content: the paratextual elements. In accordance with Genette (1989) and Ewers (2012), for children’s media this means non-content signals towards mediators like book retailers, librarians, or parents as well as the intended young readers themselves, and takes shape in cover design, cover text, title, advertising etc. Especially in popular (children’s) media this includes the association of different media like books, audio books, audio plays, movies, games, and other non-book articles like toys. Applied to Die drei ??? and Die drei !!! the relevance regarding gender is most evident in the cover designs: deviating from the classic black design with mostly mystical-dangerous motifs in the original series, the covers of Die drei !!! stand out with their changing, often soft colors. The focus is always on the three protagonists, slim, well-styled, with big eyes and usually open mouths, while the details of the case are only hinted at through accessories or the background, although after a design relaunch this last point has become more balanced.

Noticeably, the themes in Die drei !!! often revolve around fashion, animals, or love, whereas Die drei ??? tackle puzzles or conspiracies in various settings. Regarding media association, the Franckh-Kosmos-Verlag also offers detective kits (some kind of experimentation kits) as part of the Die drei ??? media franchise – this category is absent in Die drei !!!, but their website features, among others, cooking, baking, and crafting tips (cf. Franckh-Kosmos-Verlag 2023, 2023a). The target audience for Die drei !!! is explicitly stated: the series is aimed at “girls aged 10 and above” (Franckh-Kosmos-Verlag 2023, subsection “Kim, Franzi, and Marie”), whereas Die drei ??? only set the age recommendation without naming a gender.

The cases of the two detective trios are also available as mobile and PC games: as point and click adventures with integrated minigames. The player has to take a close look at various locations, find objects and use them wisely in order to make progress. To solve the case, additional tasks such as Sudokus or arranging picture snippets have to be solved. At an earlier stage of this study, one app per series was played: Die drei ??? Rätsel aus der Geisterwelt (‘The Three ??? Riddles from the Spirit World’) (USM 2016) and Die drei !!! Auf der Spur (‘The Three !!! On the Track’) (USM 2017). It could be stated that the Drei ??? game took significantly longer to play and was elaborated not only visually but also auditorily, with the original speakers from the audio plays, which is reflected in the price (€ 7.99 as opposed to € 4.99). The graphic design aligns with the general design concepts of the series, and the choice of pink as base color for the Drei !!! game underlined the gendered target group orientation. Due to the long history of the series and the consequently intergenerational reception it is possible that besides children, adult players are also anticipated in the production process of the Drei ??? games.

Entering the intersected dimensions of plot, characterization, and language it became clear that in the Drei ??? game, much more complicated actions or sequences of actions were required for progress. There were several characters, and these were more detailed, whereas for example the family of the missing girl in the Drei !!! game was not characterized beyond the role of relatives. The Drei ??? app tended to involve activities typically considered as male* such as changing car tires or shooting at bottles, most of the tasks in the Drei !!! app were stereotypically female*: sorting the manga collection, choosing a suitable outfit, or styling from a photo.

The mini games were also much more challenging in the Drei ??? game when they are comparable. In both games, for example, square puzzle pieces had to be arranged in such a way that an overall picture is created – in the Drei !!! rope pieces in four different shapes, in the Drei ??? a circuit board with complex patterns. Also, the Drei ??? game required real memory skills, such as transcribing names in Braille or dialing a phone number from the phone book without turning back the page with the necessary information. As the apps were recommended for a similar age group, but the one specifically for girls* was lower in quality, scope, and task level, this was an extremely dissatisfying finding with regard to the reproduction of gender stereotypes, implying that girls* need or want significantly shorter and easier games than a non-gendered group of the same age.

For this essay, two apps published more recently were examined in detail to confirm or qualify the earlier findings: Die drei ??? Plan der Chamäleonbande (‘The three ??? Plan of the Chameleon Gang’) (USM 2022) und Die drei !!! Picknickdrama (USM 2021).

At first sight, the findings regarding graphic design can be corroborated, as the starting screens show. Plot and tasks will now be described in more detail.

The two chosen series work well across different levels of secondary school, making them suitable for younger students who may actively follow the series and older students who can critically reflect on their childhood media consumption in terms of socialization processes. This extends beyond traditional literary or media education contexts to encompass interdisciplinary educational objectives anchored, for example, in the Bavarian curriculum for all schools and subjects like values education, political awareness, vocational orientation, and self-directed consumer behavior (everyday competence and life economics) (cf. ISB 2023). Apart from the analysis of paratextual aspects and media networks concerning gender-related marketing strategies, the gender category can also be explored across the dimensions of representation, character portrayal, plot, and language, creating a stronger link to literary didactic aspects – in various media forms from books to smartphone games.

Within the dimension of ‘representation’ shown in the model analysis above, students can, for instance, approach the series through a research-oriented lens. They can read, play or listen to an episode, apply the Bechdel-Wallace Test (cf. Rughiniş/Rughiniş/Humă 2016), and/or quantitatively examine occupational distribution. With class sizes of up to 30 students, thoughtful observations about the series’ conception can be made when every student analyzes one episode. In the context of politics and society classes, comparisons can be drawn between horizontal (subject-related) and vertical (related to leadership positions and income) gender inequality in real-world occupational distribution, with discussions of the reasons behind these differences. Given the long history of the Drei ??? series, a diachronic perspective is also suitable, focusing on evolving portrayals of gender over the last few decades.

The intertwined categories of ‘characterization’, ‘plot’, and ‘language’ can be explored through action- and production-oriented tasks. For instance, students can reenact an audio play or game scene with reversed role assignments (male* characters portrayed as female* and vice versa) or rewrite text passages along these lines. This exploration can reveal points of confusion and areas where students might assume there are changes needed in attributions or plot besides the mere change of the characters’ gender, which may lead to a discussion of the reasons behind this impulse. Analytical questions can play a crucial role in visualizing usually unspoken rules of the fictional world: in what spaces do they act, what hierarchies and dependencies exist, and how do characters develop throughout the plot? Language usage can also be critically examined, thus addressing linguistic asymmetries (e.g. the so-called generic masculine in the German language) or gender-related implications. Creative tasks can be linked with art and music classes, encouraging students to envision what the cover of a Drei ??? book or starting screen of a game would look like if designed in the style of Drei !!! and vice versa. Similarly, students can explore how the title song of Drei !!! audio plays (it starts with “Girls / see many things differently, / can do some things better, / always stay on the ball”) might sound without referencing gender.

When critically engaging with popular series like the ones under consideration as outlined above, it is crucial to approach primary literature with respect. If students feel that their reading preferences or preferred media are being dismissed, this may negatively impact both their willingness to actively engage in the lesson and their overall reading motivation. Given the sensitivity of students to developmental and potentially culture-related factors, discussing gender requires a nuanced approach.

It is also crucial to ensure that addressing the gender category doesn’t lead students to assign more significance to it than is already the case. Therefore, following Hannelore Faulstich-Wieland’s three-step process of dramatization – reflection – de-dramatization is essential:

Consequently, de-dramatizing can consist in allowing children to design a game (or book, or movie, ...) both graphically and in terms of content and level of difficulty that they believe can appeal to all (or at least: most) children of their age. In any case, there should be enough room for (self) reflection, open thought, and self-expression, creating a trustful atmosphere without judgement. Being a boy* and liking horses is as fine as liking the color blue, and a girl* preferring the color pink is as fine one as liking football. When children can accept themselves regardless of gender marketing strategies or similar gender conceptions, we will have made a huge progress towards gender equality and the free development of young personalities.