Introduction: Rethinking Gender

Abstract

In 1977 Gene Kemp’s book The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler was published. The book was an immediate hit and it seems all readers at the time, including me, were surprised by what is often described as a ‘twist’ in the ending. Throughout the book, the eponymous Tyke embarks on numerous escapades with loyal sidekick and not-so-bright friend Danny Clover. Tyke is messy, reckless, smart, quick-thinking, agile, fearless, and always in trouble at school. It is little wonder then that when readers discover at the end of the book that Tyke is a girl they feel they have fallen subject to a narrative deceit. Kemp avoids, until the postscript, the use of gendered pronouns when referring to Tyke, and gives her main character a gender-neutral first name; it seems this simple evasive tactic is enough to make readers feel that Tyke must naturally be a boy. The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler serves as a useful marker for thinking about gender and, in particular, the theme of this book, the dilemmas that surround gender and sexuality.