The Story of Ferdinand

        The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, when first published 1936; the book was labeled as subversive, stirring an international controversy. With several message; One of peace, the second, it was attacked as anti-fascist propaganda because of its implied satire on violence and war given the eruption of the Spanish Civil War. Though the author always denied that he had such intentions and declared only that he wrote the story for his friend Robert Lawson to illustrate, A third approach would be to argue that Ferdinand’s decision not to battle his opponents is analogous to caving to social demands of gender norms.  Exemplified by the failure to fight the story suggests just such a meaning; overcoming the pressure to confirm and the certain victory of self-identity.

Normative social influence involves conforming in order to be accepted or liked by a group, not necessarily because one actually believes the things one is doing or saying. This tendency is due to the fact that one of core instincts is to long to be in a social group of some sort. While Informative social influence is when one makes decisions about how to behave. One may just conform to the way others or a group are behaving; one looks to the behaviors of others who are also in the same or similar situation to see how they behave.

Upon opening the book, the picture (Fig.1) is of a small town, rural setting with a mountain range in the distance. There are ten young boys, some are running up a cobbled street to join the others standing in front of a huge poster announcing El Toro Feroz FERDINANDO (The Ferocious Bull FERDINAND). It is an image of a massive, muscular bull with long sharp horns angrily huffing. The narrator remarks, “All the other little bulls he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together, but not Ferdinand.”(6) Male bulls, like male humans, are expected to be aggressive. Ferdinand isn’t. Gender role norms affect the way people act, feel, and think. They are instilled in us at an early age and can affect our day to day lives.         

In early childhood, children have already developed clearly defined ideas of what constitutes appropriate behavior for men and women. These ideas, called “gender role norms,” affect the way people believe they are supposed to act, think, and even feel depending on their sex. As children grow up, their knowledge on gender norms and judgments on which norms can be violated generally increase. Gender role norms can in turn help develop their identity.

One study found that even in the most trivial situations, having a high-identity with either male or female sex-norms can affect behavior. Participants in their study either identified strongly or weakly with their same sex-norms. Men who identified strongly with masculine traits reported and showed that they had a higher pain tolerance - a masculine gender norm. When one is under high social influence to identify strongly with a specific sex-norm, their behavior and characteristics may change to match those sex-norms.

“Sometime his mother, who was a cow, would worry about him. She was afraid he would be lonesome all by himself.” (16) Perhaps it’s difficult to raise a girl who is considered to be a tomboy, or a boy who is considered not masculine enough. It seems more socially acceptable to be a girl who gets dirty and likes bugs than to be a boy who likes dolls rather than footballs and does not want to get dirty. For many parents and other adults in the lives of boys who are not traditionally masculine in their interests and behavior experience denial, or fear of being alienated, being feminine is considered a negative trait for boys growing up in a patriarchal society.  

The writing provides the cure for today’s society, when his mother asks, “Why don’t you run and play with other little bulls and skip and butt your head?” She would say,  but Ferdinand would shake his head. “I like it better here where I can sit just quietly and smell the flower.”(18). In this sense, Ferdinand suggests that parents ought to support their children, irrespective of whether those children conform to social expectations about gender. The plot is resolved with love and the acceptance of difference.  “His mother saw that he was not lonesome, and because she was an understanding mother, even though she was a cow, she let him just sit there and be happy.”(20).