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?

Drumlin - if that's true, then I think that's awful. There aren't any credible studies that have been able to prove innate gender behavioural or intellectual differences - it's mostly down to society or conditioning. If the person who's in charge of publicly-funded programming for very young children is not only making assumptions about gendered behaviour, but actively promoting it, then that's really worrying.

In fact the more I think about it, the more annoyed it's making me......

And anyway, what was the 'control' female-led programme that led them to that conclusion. If it was 'Everything's Rosie', then you can hardly be surprised if the boys turned off - it's shit.

Interesting what someone has said about Charlie and Lola, can you imagine it the other way round? Then it would be about the big sister playing mum to her little brother who got into adventures and had be fun.

But Lola is the helpless female always needing help from her stronger, cleverer older brother
Not so - there's the episode where Charlie and Marv can't think of an invention for their school project and Lola can; or when Lola is the only one who can do the memory game; or when Lola finds the really valuable fossil that Charlie thinks won't actually be a fossil; or when Lola saves the halloween party from disaster after Morten squashes the pumpkin, by dressing as a pumpkin.

Ahem .

Charlie is also very nurturing, not all 'naughty, action, adventure' boy stereotype - he's sensitive, a very good role model.

Lola is supposed to be a pre-schooler though no? So if she's helpless it's because she's small, not because she's a girl?

She's blood irritating either way with her creepy insect like eyes.

I like Charlie and Lola because its not totally gender stereotypical to my eyes. Lola messes around and has a great time while Charlie is the older, sensible, nurturing one. I'd have been more miffed if it were Lola and Charlie with their ages reversed.

YANBU OP. I think the people saying "you are overthinking this" and such like aren't thinking about this enough. I want to see more shows with female leads or with equal male/female leads. By the latter I don't neccesarily mean 2 males:2 females, I mean roles in which both get to play the nurturer and the exuberant, fun one. As much as I loathe Justins House, at least Robert is generally the sensible one, the one who looks after everyone whereas Dee is energetic and sporty (with her multitude of skills!) and Little Monster is the naughty, playful one. Justin is just a tit, but that's nothing to do with gender and everything to do with personality IMO

I think Lola's in reception, as she and Charlie go to school together.

I also think it's about age rather than gender with them.

Yes exactly. Charlie is kind and caring to his little sister. If he were a girl that would be gender stereotypig imo

Charlie is clearly pushing a liberal gay agenda.

Maybe it is more about the ages, but Charlie is still the older, paternal, 'authority' figure and Lola is the little girl who needs to be guided and helped. Even if that's a by-product of the characters' ages, it still reinforces gender stereotypes.

But Lola is actually one of the more interesting female characters on the telly - in fact, they should ditch Charlie and just have a show called 'Lola'.

The characters in Octonauts and Timmy Time are mostly male even though there could easily be an even split.

That was what I meant about smurfette: I just expressed it badly.

The BBC has actually been challenged on this. Their theory was that boys will only watch boys but girls will watch both sexes. So, they do deliberately have a sex-imbalance in presenters. Nina, Katie and Cerrie are the exceptions. The Tweenies and other ensemble programs feature more boys than girls so they are hardly representative of 50/50 sex equality.

There was an interesting article linked here a year or so ago that discussed this with reference to the Cbeebies schedule at the time. IIRC the only obviously female characters then were PinkyDinkyDoo (capable but deeply irritating and smug and also pink, which they didn't like) and Upsy Daisy. Who has her own issues.

Just when I'm thinking it's not too bad along comes Bob the builder explaining how Bob was drowning under paperwork so he hired Wendy to sort it all out for him, or Julian does a career day and speaks to all the med about what they do, but bypasses pretty much all the women in Greendale (despite having a fair few to talk to!), or whatever it was he was watching the other day (Tinga tales maybe) where the boys all went to have fun while the girls went to talk about shoes and chocolate..
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yanbu OP.

Why do people keep mentioning Dora? She's not on CBeebies unless they have put her on very recently, and likewise Ben and Holly, Peppa Pig. All the good ones are on Milkshake, only then you have to put up with the advertising.

You find a lot more good girl characters on commercial channels because they're trying to sell products to girls as well as boys, whereas in the wrong hands the public service remit of the BBC becomes an excuse to marginalise them.

Upsy Daisy just sums it up - she lifts up her skirt and has a bed that follows her round!

YANBU. Unfortunately though any questioning of anti-girl gender stereotypes these days leads to 'but what about the BOYS' handwringing whines. The pressure on girls to be 'girly' now is way worse than when I was a kid even, and everything is either 'for boys' or wall to wall fucking pink crap. It's very depressing.

EmilyPollifax - I'd love to see that research on what boys vs girls will watch - especially in this age group. Have you any idea where it is?

It's been a while since I've seen it but I will look it out.

I'm sure it's been linked in the Feminist section. Maybe try advance searching for it here first? I do believe I originally came across it in a response by the BBc to the accusations of sex-discrimination. They used it to defend themselves which is utterly stupid because Nickelodion and Disney have far higher viewing numbers and they have far more programs with female leads [although in the case of Disney, the issue of racism is conveniently ignored]

I'm with the "you guys need to get out more/are overthinking" crew. What does it matter? Unless you're saying that women are so stupid that they can't grow up to see beyond the stereotypes and make their own choices?

I'm sure that my pilot (female) friend watched at least her share of "gender biased" TV as a kid, that my wage earning mother friend with a SAH DH did and I know for damn sure I did, I was raised on a diet of The Famous Five and the like and yet until I became self-employed I managed in one of the most male-dominated industries in the world and I qualified in a male-dominated sport too. If the messages are that women should be in support roles they aren't very successful.

Would the 'you lot are overthinking it' gang be happy with racially biased kids' tv, I wonder? Would you argue that it clearly doesn't have any effect because you can point to people of different races in positions of power, and say that complaining about stereotyping suggests black people are too stupid to see through the stereotypes?
Probably not - these rather weak arguments only tend to be used in support of sexist stereotyping these days (though I would be interested to know whether they used to be used to support racial stereotyping - I wouldn't be surprised.)

Quite possibly, Tunip. Why not? Shit, if your best excuse for not succeeding in this world was "because of the women/black people/whatever on TV were portrayed" there wasn't much hope for you in the first place.

Sorry, "because of the way women/black people/whatever on TV were portrayed".

Wow, aren't you charming with your total lack of political analysis and understanding of how society actually functions.

I'm more annoyed that they changed the 'It's Time For Lunch!' song to 'What's On Your Plate?'!!!!