to feel that Cbeebies is gender biased in its programming?

[fifimcq]

I was marking an essay yesterday which was discussing gender socialisation referring to research conducted in 1972 (40 years ago!) which criticised books for having mainly male main characters. This reminded me how surprised I often am at the blatant sexism in programming on Cbeebies. The plethora of active male main charaters (Mike the Knight, Tommy Zoom, Kung Fu Tom, Justin (in 300 programmes) and many many others) is quite startling in comparison to Rosie (from Everything is Rosie) who is nice but VERY girly. Then I watched an episode of Dirt Girl, in which the girl is the main character and got a bit excited, only to be left jaw open when her water tank had a leak and she got Scrap Boy to fix it!

Have the last 40 years of attempts at equality meant nothing for under 5's television? I find it incredible and genuinely shocking that girls are still given messages that they should be in support roles and that boys are the ones having all the fun and adventures! But am I being unreasonable?

You watch to much tv...

I think that if you consider that men are largely represented by Justin, women have it better.

Actually, most programmes have a balance of genders in them, e.g. Tweenies, Teletubbies, Numberjacks, Show Me Show Me, Me Too, Abney and Teal, Zingzillas.

Tweenies characters are dead spit for Enid blytons george(Bella) ann( fizz) dick(jake) and julien( milo) nothing changes as everyone likes stereotypes.

I think you are conveniently forgetting Nina, Katie, the lady on the toy panda-y one, Aunt mabel... and a few others!
I agree with fluffy and on big barn farm the gender of a lot of the characters is pretty ambiguous.

You're the gender biased one for labelling shows clear cut as "for boys" and "for girls".

I dont really know. My wee one watches cbeebies and a few other channels. She enjoys some of the programs you mentioned. Most kids programmes seem to focus on either education or empathy, I've never really noticed sexism, but I've never looked for it.
There are characters such as Millie (umizoomi), olive (the ostrich), ruby (max and ruby), Dora (the explorer), madeline and Kim possible that all have (I think) strong female roles.
I think that as adults we can sometimes overthink kids tv, it's there to entertain or to teach in some cases. But I agree you may have a point.

YAdefNBU.

In our house we watch 'wooley and tig' and abadas both of which have female leads.

We do NOT watch charlie bear or the story train one which are jam packed full of frail flowers of women needing protecting by their male guardians.

Also in s'bury's we spotted a '100 jobs for boys' book and '100 jobs for girls' I mean WTAF?

Yes and it is much worse now than in the 80s/90s.

you need to get out more

YANBU -

except for Auntie Mabel. She rocks.

I love Aunt Mabel. I sky plused loads of episodes of Come Outside when it was last on TV, my 15mo DD loves it, as did my 10yo DS back in the day. We only really watch TV after dinner but Aunt Mabel seems to have a calming effect in our house.

YANBU as the male characters you have described are the protagonists of the show, where as the older females have more of a presenter type role. It is not to say that these shows are specifically aimed at boys/girls as my DD loves Mike the Knight and Tommy Zoom, however there is definitely a lack of female led shows.

As a side note, I was shocked when (quite recently) I found out Pipppin was a girl, I was convinced it was a boy !

I'm now considering Bagpuss. Is the main character Emily, the girl who owns the 'shop', or is it Bagpuss?

I agree with the OP. We tend to only watch in the morning, so we get (or got - the schedule seems to have changed in the last few days) Koala Brothers, Postman Pat, Bob the Builder - with strong, active male characters and stereotyped women sidekicks.

Sometimes it stays on long enough to get Charlie and Lola, ZingZillas and Tweenies (but not if I can help it). Yes, there are a mix of male and female here. But Lola is the helpless female always needing help from her stronger, cleverer older brother. With Zingzillas and Tweenies, I find that because the characters aren't human, they rely even more heavily on stereotypes to indicate which gender they are - the girls wear skirts and have bows in their hair, for e.g.

it's a bit better where the programmes are CBeebies own productions - the presenters are a good mix and not so stereotyped. But I think the harm is in the depiction of everyday life in the cartoons and other narrative-type shows - women always have a very rigidly-defined role and it's never centre stage.

Ben and holly,
Peppa pig
Dora the explorer

Thinking about it though - in the 80s we had John Craven telling us the news, Tony Hart telling us how to draw (ably assisted by a revolving sequence of much younger women - I particularly disliked Margot, for reasons I cannot now remember), Johnny Ball telling us how interesting maths was - all connected by Philip Schofield in the broom cupboard, occasionally subbed by another bloke. And there was Dungeons and Dragons, which was also quite famous five-ish (Sheila cared, Hank was brave).

What I can't remember much about is the stuff I watched at a younger age - Smurfs had the smurfette, though. What about Bagpuss and Bod - can't remember.

Pigeon Street was quite good though, with Long Distance Clara the lorry driver!

YANBU, in fact I wrote an essay about the very study you're talking about.

It's not about labelling boys programs and girls programs, its about the characters. Even though shows might have female characters, main characters are overwhelmingly male. The male characters tend to be the active ones, the ones who have the adventures, who make decisions, whilst the female ones follow their lead and rarely have the limelight all to themselves.

I have to say, reading about it all for my essay opened my eyes an awful lot.

And Smurfette was distinctive for being a female. Apparently the only thing about her personality worth commenting on. And one woman in an entire village full of men?!

No idea, ds ditched cbeebies when he discovered Cartoon Network, Nick Jr & Caroonito.

Bad mother that I am.

i remember being devastated when I found out Vicky the Viking was a boy!! ( I was about 8 at the time)

I think you may be over thinking this a little.

One word octonauts

YANBU sadly

I haven't paid much attention to CBeebies, but I have noticed that Male presenters do all sorts of stuff (garden, see wild animals, make stuff) and the main female led show is about, er, cooking.

Also, can't remember the name of the show, but some Saturday morning thing I saw a couple of years ago on the Beeb and it was two male presenters and a woman and - surprise surprise - the blokes were 'naughty boys' and the woman was the sensible 'older sister' who was always tutting and having to sort things out. That really annoyed me! Why can't girls be naughty and cheeky too!

I was a member of the Dennis the Menace fanclub and I still have my badge!

We like Joan the fennel in Mr Bloom. However she'll not be much of a role model seeing as how she's a vegetable. There are lots of women in Balamory too, but on balance I agree, few more girls please BBC.

Luckily we have the Dutch Sesame Street - there's a female mouse called Ienie Mienie and she is fab! Smart and funny and (apart fom that wretched Elmo) she's my daughter's favourite.

Is almost two too young for Buffy?