female leads for toddler

Moana and Spirit - riding free (on Netflix) are DD’s favourites

Rebecca Patterson - My Big Shouting Day.
Shirley Hughes - Moving Molly, plus Dogger features an excellent big sister

Do children still like Charlie and Lola? She was definitely in charge!

Netflix have a 'girls take the lead' section.

Moana is another film with a strong female lead character

A Mighty Girl preschool list

Check out the A Mighty Girl website and FB page. They have excellent lists of books for all ages on all sorts of different topics, but all promoting strong females. Really helpful.

Frozen is also a fab film for strong Disney princesses!

Another option is Barbie films. Barbie is a very strong character in many of them, and doesn't need a male character to save her, she saved the day. They are a bit pink and glittery.

Peppa pig is a little shit though. Just pointing that out.

My littlest is a bit older and we haven’t had a proper telly since before she was born but she loves these books, most of which are about women who did marvellous things:

www.waterstones.com/booklist/377114/little-people-big-dreams-series

Some titles come in board books for toddlers.

If you are reading 'gender neutral' stories eg about animals, you can just turn the lead into a female using pronouns and perhaps changing the name.

You've really got to concentrate as you read which can feel like a step too far if it's been a busy day (!) but it suddenly a) opens up loads more options and b) makes the patriarchy surrounding us depressingly obvious.

Also, I've read goodnight stories for rebel girls to my kids since they were little they love it (apart from one story in it which I avoid)

Nella the princess knight
Do you know
Caties amazing machines
Bitz and bobs
Cbeebies have loads of great programmes with female leads....

Another vote for Doc McStuffins. The little girl is a toy doctor and her mother is an actual doctor rather than a toy one generally speaking all the strong roles in this are female.

Thinking about it I'm surprised men haven't maligned it for being male critical.

Another vote for Emily Brown books, we loved them.

I don't know why that crossed out! You get the idea.

Cbeebies has made quite an effort with this (with a few exceptions, looking at you Peter Rabbit) add Do You Know to the list. For little ones Woolly and Tig? Second Sarah and Duck. Apple Tree House has 2 out of 3 of leads as female although good for slightly older kids. Let's Play is also good as they are sharp on not corresponding to gender stereotypes so Sid will be a ballerina and Rebecca a builder. The lead in Yakka Dee is a girl.

Books-the Mighty Girl website has a massive list, although quite American in flavour. Some of our favourites are-
Handa's Surprise/Hen
My Big Shouting Day
The Grace books (older kids really)
Rosie Revere engineer and the others in that series
Maisy books
My 3yo still loves The Baby Catalogue--really about families and so you can have a chat about different things mummies and daddies do (eg some go to work, some stay at home)
Some of the Babette Cole books
Come away from the water, Shirley
The way to the Zoo

Some to go on with!

Puffin Rock is lovely. Masha and the bear as mentioned, Dino Dana perhaps?

Lauren child’s books are really good.
Clarice Bean that’s me
I will not ever never eat a tomato
Pesky rat
Etc

Another vote for Katie Morag.

For tv/dvd my girls loved Balamory and Come Outside which was quite educational and I don't recall any obvious sexism in either programme.

I fact DD1 loved Come Outside with Auntie Mabel, her dog Pippin and her plane so much....one day I accidentally locked myself outside - I called in through the letter box - get a chair...climb up...open the door...but we'd been waiting for Come Outside to come on and she heard the music and plonked herself down in front of the TV oblivious to my entreaties. Ended up very embarrassed, as local fire station regarded an unsupervised toddler as an emergency and deployed a team to break in...

Also much loved, the Chatter Happy Ponies, they had a very droll sense of humour - programmes featuring animals don't tend to be sexist as far as I can remember. I assume all these are available as dvd these days.

Books - love Katie Morag. And lots of books by Debbie Gliori - not particular female roll models but again, animal neutrality on the whole.

Everything's Rosie

Little miss books

Guess with Jess has a mix of characters, and was science based but is not on now.
Alphablocks also mixed.
Older kids:
I can cook
Nina and the neurons

I often change the characters to my kids name tho so at that age any book could be about either sex.

Is the thing with raggles the rabbit still on?
Also when she's a bit older, brave