Making Up Men

There has been considerable research on the extent to which male and female school students produce stereotypical representations of women during their creation of visual and written texts in the classroom. Using the technique of discourse analysis, this paper examines a coeducational secondary school drama class in which a process of collective script creation is taking place. Both female and male students advance suggestions which construct stereotypical representations of men, although the stereotype favoured by each gender group differs. It would appear as though these preferences derive not only from textual affinities for certain kinds of reading/viewing material, but also from the personal and collective fantasy lives of the girls and boys involved.