Girls are taught from a young age how to behave in society and how society wants them to behave. In three stories by Jamacia Kincaid, Alice Munro, and Joyce Carol Oates, we see how mothers teach and reinforce the gender roles assigned to women by society. Annie John's daughters, "Boys and Girls" and "Shopping" are all subject to greater force as they grow up and try not to conform to their mothers' gender roles and feminine ideals. In Annie, John Annie's mother forces Annie to grow up and become a respectable woman; however, Annie refuses to follow the roles assigned to a woman. At a young age, unbeknownst to her, Annie learned some gender roles. While playing with Mineu played secondary characters, In The Refusal and Transgression in Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Wesley states that his daughter's psychological growth towards autonomous individualization is hindered by the image created by culture. We see Annie struggle with how to fit in and how not to fit into her friendship with the Red Girl, who was not the social image of a young girl. In many ways the Red Girl is the beginning of Annie's resistance to gender roles. The Red Girl climbed trees and didn't bathe as regularly as Annie should; he also played marbles. Annie was so intrigued by the Red Girl that she imitated her values; even after the Red Girl left, Annie never tried to become a lady; unlike Gwen, who fully accepted the roles society assigned to her. Towards the end of the story, when Annie says goodbye to Gwen, in her mind Annie calls her a monkey and says she can barely finish a sentence without giggling. For Annie, a woman's roles are beneath her. He doesn't try to silence himself, as Gwen had done for someone's benefit. Annie also refuses to get married, telling her that at first the room she and her brother share is undifferentiated, showing how the two have not yet adapted to their gender roles, and when she daydreams, she is the heroine of the stories , which is the role normally given to man. She works outside with her father and takes pride in knowing that she is more capable of this work than her brother Laird, as her father gave her the real watering can and Laird was given the gardening one. Throughout the story, however, the word girl is constantly used as an insult towards her. For example, when a feed salesman comes to her father, the father introduces her as a laborer and the salesman laughs and says, "'You could have fooled me.' She said 'I thought it was just a girl.'” The mother also reiterates that she shouldn't be out there when she tells the father to keep the girl inside. She sees her mother in a negative light and doesn't want to become her. She hates housework and describes them as depressing and interminable, despite shortly afterwards stating that the father's job is "ritualistically important." The grandmother also tries to force the narrator to act more gentlemanly by constantly saying, "'Girls don't slam doors in that.' way.' «The girls continue