Where are the heroines in toddlers cartoons?

[Fabulosososo]

It could just be the cartoons that DS (age 2) is in to, but all the heroes are male. I'm particularly looking at cartoons for toddlers. So we've got Thomas the tank engine, firemen Sam, chuck & friends, postman pat. Where are the female fire fighters, trucks, trains, postwomen? There seems a particular lack of female characters doing jobs (postman, fireman, policeman etc.) and rescuing others. It all seems a bit old fashioned and sexist. There is Care Bears and my little ponies that have a lot of female characters but there seem to be less heroines. As DD gets more into to I'd like her to watch somethin that makes her feel like she can do all these things too. Ideally a cartoon that has both a male hero and a female heroine in equal measure. Does anyone know of any good cartoons like that? We have CBeebies tiny pop and Netflix.

[hellocornflakegirl]

Long Distance Clara in Pigeon Street is not particularly a heroine but a good example of a woman doing what might be considered a male job stereotypically (lorry driver!)

[NerrSnerr]

Long Distance Clara! Down the motorway. You can get Pigeon Street on DVD now.

[NerrSnerr]

X posts with Hello!

[ExplodingIceberg]

Jane and the Dragon

[Birdsgottafly]

For toddlers, there's Wissper.

[Soubriquet]

Oh wissper! Dd has just started to watch that. She loves it

[daisypond]

Not a cartoon, but Stargazing on CBeebies has a real female astronomer as the presenter.

[Ladybunnyfluff]

Erm...
Sarah and Duck (simply awesome)
Katie Morag (ok not a cartoon but Granny Island is a lot like my DM!)
Doc McStuffins
Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom
Sofia The First
Nelly & Nora
Little Ponies
Milly Molly (it's on Tiny Pop late at night - we discovered it after a bad bout of tonsillitis!)
Peg & Cat

[daisypond]

Also on CBeebies, Nina and the Neurons has a female presenter - on science, engineering and coding.

[Roshce]

Wounder pets have a strong female guinea pig leader, a daring adventurous duckling & the male turtle is sensitive gentle & shy- lovely mix up of typical gender roles there

Magic school bus has many positive female roles

Tracy beaker for older kids

Maisie in Morningside books are fantastic- bolshy female adventurer kitten as the main character

There are plenty of strong female protagonists out there for kids that break the stereotypes but it does feel like hard work to find them

[MesM]

Don't know if I'm being a bit rose tinted but I don't think it's so bad. I give you:
Teal (Abney and Teal great character in a great programme)
Xuli (Pilot in Go-jetters)
Sarah (Sarah and Duck)
Koko and some of the other trains in Chuggington whose names I can't remember
And if you've seen the episode Mrs Rabbit's sister does all the jobs on Peppa Pig!

There are also female presenters on science (Nina and the Neurons), footy pups the football show is female, the one on engineering that's being plugged at the moment and on stuff like let's play both male/female presenters get non sterotyped stuff from dressing up box etc

I love CBeebies!

[slightlyglitterbrained]

Got to disagree with the Lego Movie: plotline is basically Joe Average runs into Ms Totally Driven And Mega Talented, who has spent all her life working towards becoming the Special Wossname. So, naturally, Joe Average becomes the Special Wossname despite having never done a stroke of work towards it and possessing not a shred of ability. Ms Talented's task is now to help him actually do shit and become his girlfriend.

It's an awful awful message for girls and boys. Hard work doesn't matter. Boys deserve the Hot Girl.

[Wayfarersonbaby]

DD loves Sarah & Duck, Nelly and Nora, and Charlie and Lola (Lola is the heroine and Charlie the sidekick in this one).

I agree that this is really annoying in Cbeebies shows - all the three main characters on Octonauts are male, there are 4 Go-Jetters but only one is female, only one female in Ruff-ruff, Tweet and Dave; the producers added Lily Bobtail to Peter Rabbit but she's still just a girly sidekick; and so on. Totally fed up with the male default of Mike the Knight and Tree Fu Tom and so on. Too many of the ones which purport to be "girly" are dubbed American twaddle (Everything's Rosie, and the dire Kate and Mim-Mim).

They are a bit better better with female presenters - Jess from MiniBeast adventure, Nina, Katie from I Can Cook - but too many of the "action" roles still go to men (Andy, Mr Bloom, etc.)

Boils my piss it does! That's why we watch so much of the wonderful Sarah & Duck in this house....

[Wayfarersonbaby]

Oh and Katie Morag of course!

[PlumCrumbles]

My Little Pony is a feminist utopia. Full on matriarchy.

[PigletSmall]

Thanks for starting this thread, op.

I haven't seen Sarah and Duck before. I'm going to check that out.

[VioletBam]

Curious George is male Richy!

[MLGs]

i loved long distance Clara.

Always felt the female characters on CBeebies are tokeny, such as the female Octonauts. Would it have hurt them to make at least one of the main three female?

[PigletSmall]

Also, I just thought of Maisy. The one narrated by Neil Morrissey, from the Lucy Cousins' books.

[hholiday]

Agreed! I think the bbc needs to take the lead in addressing the balance. At the moment they pay lip service to the idea and all their heroines - the awful bitz from bitz and Bob - and lily from Peter rabbit- still look so pink! They should come up with more female led shows. Quite how Rebecca doesn’t have her own programme is beyond me - she’s way more talented than Justin. But he gets half the channel devoted to him

[steff13]

Arthur.

[Areyoufree]

Thing is, most of these mentioned aren't super-heroes - my daughter wants female super-heroes.

Paw patrol has Skye in it. Yes, but she is rarely featured on merchandise, and not that heavily in the cartoons.

Someone also mentioned Umizoomi and Milli. That one always gets me - he has the power of shapes, and can make any object going. She ... can change the pattern on her dress. Splendid.

I'll agree with The Magic School Bus though. I love that program.

[Bluerussian]

When my son was small he liked 'Masters of the Universe' figures (& watched the cartoon). He-man, Prince Adam and Skeletor, etc - but there was She-Ra and the Evil Lyn who were fierce women in different ways.

[DinoGreen]

My DS likes Dora the Explorer and he loves Dino Dana which is on Amazon Prime.

[DisappointingBanana]

Paw Patrol ??

It has one token female character (out of six main characters). It is appalling!