to be annoyed by 'Little' Miss

[bumpertobumper]

my sons are currently very keen on Mr Men books for bedtime stories. It really annoys me that the female characters are 'little... '. Why can't she just be Miss naughty or Miss Sunshine etc.
I feel it's part of the insidious undermining and belittling (literally!) of women.
So I leave out the little when reading, but DP doesn't and DS1 is in yr1 so can see for himself the girls are all little.

Good God. That's taking overthinking to a whole new level!
Chill the fuck out and head over to the nearest DIY store and buy yourself a large grip.
Then grab on firmly with both hands.

And you're part of the problem too little miss Eeel

Life must be miserable constantly looking for issues please take one of the grips offered above.

What piggy said.

AND

The characters are more negative than the Mr Men too. 'Bossy', 'naughty' etc and when the little miss characters appear in the mr men books they are quite nasty characters. I HATE them with a passion and refuse to get them for my DDs

Those of you saying YABU, you are all part of the problem, accepting and dismissing everyday sexism that seeps into our culture and demeans women.

Don't need to look for them Coffee - they're right there in front of you.

YANBU. It's highly unlikely that all the Misses are junior to all the misters, unless they breed in a rather strange way.

Dotty, fickle, vain, contrary, stubborn, scatterbrain

Count them up, there are a higher proportion of negative little miss characters than negative mr men.

Open your eyes people, this sort of stuff affects girls everyday.

I think it's scary that we grew up absorbing these negative messages about femininity without challenge and loads of you are still dismissing it.

Wow, for a split second there, I thought I had upset someone enough for them to start a thread.

Icclemunchy - we owe it to our daughters and granddaughters to make time to be annoyed about this!

And you're part of the problem too little miss Eeel

Seriously, I really can't get steamed up about books that were written in the Seventies.
They were written for their time. Should we just ban our children from reading then, in case they get daft ideas?!
Anything written before the 80's is a no-go area in case they get influenced by subtle digs against the female population.Ban them all.
They're inoffensive, and your average four year old is going to be enjoying the story about Mr Forgetful and the sheep in the lane, or Mr Jelly shaking at a leaf falling than wondering why their friends Little Miss is called Little Miss and how terrible that is and it means they can never aspire to anything, ever, as they're all meant to be little and In. Their. PLACE.
I sometimes wonder why some mumsnetters on here let their kids read at all, as there's plenty of offence to be taken anywhere if you look hard enough.

What's wrong with being little?

It's Mr Tickles fault, that misogynist long armed bastard.

YANBU OP. it's all part of a bigger picture isn't it. I used to buy mr men books for dd1 (now 16) when she was little, and she loved them, but I wouldn't buy the set now for dd2 (4) - I'm not comfortable with the message the "little miss" books send out.

Not so bothered by the "little" but the poster who pointed out the negative names for little miss is right. Where is the male mr naughty, mr bossy etc.? I suspect roger Hargreaves did the male characters first and ran out of good names.

The books are sodding awful to read anyway. The original ones are bad enough, but the additions are even duller if that's possible.

I loathe the last page "comedy" conclusion.

Erm, are you serious?

YANBU, as others have said, it is the cumulative effect of all the 'little things' that might seem insignificant on their own, but add up to a constant background message to / about girls. I am even more acutely aware of this now I have a daughter.

Those who think the OP has 'too much time on her hands' to be worrying about this kind of thing should instead be glad that some people ARE actually questioning things. If nobody questioned inequalities, no matter how seemingly small, where would we be?

YANBU, as others have said, it is the cumulative effect of all the 'little things' that might seem insignificant on their own, but add up to a constant background message to / about girls. I am even more acutely aware of this now I have a daughter.

Those who think the OP has 'too much time on her hands' to be worrying about this kind of thing should instead be glad that some people ARE actually questioning things. If nobody questioned inequalities, no matter how seemingly small, where would we be?

What piggy said.

And flamers, how unsisterly to not even allow another woman to raise concern about one of many many small messages that our children receive daily creating unnecessary gender divides and narrow gender roles.

I think it's more sad that there's parents out there willing to censor their children's reading, when the material in question is completely age appropriate and fun for their age.
I adore reading, and am forever reading something or other. Morning until night I'm reading something, be it a newspaper, magazine, book, or MN or the back of a cereal packet while I'm eating my breakfast.
My children see me reading, they love reading too and emulate that. There are classic books out there, that a whole lot of you would just dismiss and hide away as they're not suitable from your adult perspective. There's a reason they're called CHILDREN'S books, you know.
This thread would do away with Roger Hargreaves, completely inoffensive and innocent family friendly language with funny stories for children.
An earlier thread from a while back did away with Enid Blyton with one poster saying the books should all be burnt because it was sexist.
Where do we end? We'd end up with no literature if we started taking that road.
I'd rather instil a love of learning to read age appropriate books than start to put them off before they've even begun.
Sorry, that turned into a bit of an epic rant

YANBU, as others have said, it is the cumulative effect of all the 'little things' that might seem insignificant on their own, but add up to a constant background message to / about girls. I am even more acutely aware of this now I have a daughter.

Those who think the OP has 'too much time on her hands' to be worrying about this kind of thing should instead be glad that some people ARE actually questioning things. If nobody questioned inequalities, no matter how seemingly small, where would we be?

Woops, apologies for multiple postings.

least they're not called Little Miss Big Tits.

Little miss scary, bad, whoops and princess were published since 2003.

Mr mean, mr grumpy...can't think of any other negative mr men off the top of my head (too tired to google).

To not be aware of sexism in children's literature is one thing. To be aware and say "oh well never mind" and not challenge it because it was more accepted at the time of publication is just odd.

I bought a "Goodies" album from a car boot sale in a moment of nostalgia and was horrified at the blatant racism in it. I binned it. I could have read it to my children and thought "oh well never mind" cos the world was different back then but that would've been irresponsible. Why is this different? And why are they still being published? Roger Hargreaves son is still writing them! for the money

I don't see them as a problem - I loved them in the 80s and have fixed aeroplanes for the last 19 years (have moved up the ladder too, so supervise and independently check said aeroplane fixing these days) so I can personally vouch for the fact that they didn't limit my ambition!

Eeel - you seem to have decided that choosing not to buy/share certain books with our children is "censoring" as an adult, of course I choose what books to buy and read with children, we all do and that choice is based on personal taste, access etc. The word "censor" is a bit of an overreaction. If my children select little miss books themselves when they are older, that's a different situation.

As a parent I choose to limit my children's exposure to violence, war, racism, sexism etc etc we all "censor" our childrens' worlds to a degree.

Would you read Irvine Welsh or Barbara Cartland to your 5 yr old or would you "censor" the reading material they can access?

It's not difficult to choose a few books not to share with my dc. You make it sound hard work. I also don't let them watch telly after the watershed and I choose not to read "thomas the tank engine" books because they are dull.and Annie and Claribel are passive coaches being moved about by the male engines come to think of it

We have hundreds of books and read a lot. So what? Doesn't mean I have to accept everything that has ever been written, including sexist shite and feed it to my kids!