The Secret Garden is often seen as a story about girls’ and boys’ gender roles, which are beliefs about the activities, behavior, and feelings that boys or girls should have. Most stories for girls at the time the book was written idolized good, kind, and loving girls who sacrificed themselves to care for other people, such as  Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggins and Pollyanna by Ellen H Porter. In both those stories, orphaned or unwanted girls were sent to live with disagreeable relatives, but Rebecca and Pollyanna were both so good and kind and happy that they transformed the unhappy people around them. On the other hand, Mary is angry, assertive, selfish, and insensitive to other people’s feelings. She has never learned to sit quietly and read or knit or sew, which are the kinds of things girls were expected to enjoy.

When the story was written, one of the common stereotypes or beliefs about women was that women—especially upper-class women—were frail and frequently ill. However, all the women in The Secret Garden are physically and emotionally strong. Most of the men, on the other hand, are weak and sickly. For example, all the reader knows about Mary’s father is that he was sickly.