To be angry about sexism on kids TV

[Antoniacaenis]

Feeling very sad that DD (3) has just told be that the pink pig on her plaster must be George and not Peppa because it's in an astronaut costume.😡.

I am angry about what has made her think like this and In part I think it's the TV she watches, nearly always CBeebies and I thought these were ok. But when I think about it - where are the strong characters in lead roles? I guess I'm thinking about the cartoons mainly. Where are the girl characters in Peter Rabbit, Mike the Knight, and even DDs favourite Octonauts? In supporting roles... the fun , active main characters are nearly always male. I was liking Go Jetters until I realised that the only female character ( out of 5) never does anything except drive the car and worry she is not good enough ( non of the other characters have confidence issues and need constant reassurance from the team.

When the main character is female we get Kate and bloody Mim Mim. I know there is the likes of Katie Morag to balance things a bit but AIBU to be getting angry about this subtle conditioning?

Can anyone tell me about any good fun cartoons on other channels that don't follow this crappy pattern?

[RoboticSealpup]

And it really makes me laugh when Discord turns into "white afro"-painter Bob Ross

[implantsandaDyson]

Mine also love MLP between dd2 and dd3 I could talk my way through it We also have the music! We also watch Home (tv series not film) on Netflix.

[GherkinSnatch]

Thinking about specifically Paw Patrol (because after 4 years of avoiding it with DS, 2yo DD has watched it with her cousins and now loves the bastarding programme), I've noticed Skye on merchandise quite a lot. But it's only ever on pink merchandise aimed at girls.

I like the Go Jetters, but agree that out of four why does it have to be 3-1 boys to girls?

I'm very interested to hear what MLP is actually like. I had automatically written it off based on the pink/purple. What age is it aimed at?

[penstemon]

Tell me more about MLP. Is 7yo DD too old for it? I have always steered her away from the pink, sparkly, glitteryness (glitteriness?) of it but it sounds like I may need to reconsider.

[TheMasterNotMargarita]

My DD is 10 (just) and still loves it!

[Heygirlheyboy]

I'll bet boys would watch shows with female leads though, if that was the norm, a 50:50 split. mydslovvvesmylittlepony

[penstemon]

With regard to the sexism on TV, an unexpected benefit of it is that DD is quite happy being the only girl playing with a group of boys as she has seen that happen on TV (even if they were dogs or octonauts) whereas some of the girls in her class either don't play with boys at all or only if boys are in the minority.

[VestalVirgin]

To be fair George is a bit of an idiot and peppa pig is cool. And as far as I remember mummy pig could turn her hand to anything and daddy pig was always the butt of the joke - 'oh daddy!'

But that's sexism, too. Sexism against women, unlikely as it seems.

It teaches children that men can be stupid and incompetent and no one will care, in the long term.

Look at the Simpsons. Marge is much cleverer than Homer, and can get all kinds of great jobs, but in the status quo that gets repeated over and over, who is the one with a paid job? (and one that should be done by a more responsible person, at that) Homer.

Someone here mentioned Peppa Pig's dad is an architect while her mother is ... scared of spiders. Yeah.

Idiot male characters teach girls that they don't deserve a man who is as intelligent as them, and that furthermore, they'll be expected to submit to men, no matter how stupid those men are.

Women are allowed to joke that men are big babies, but only if we still coddle and nurture them like babies, while simultaneously allowing them to run the fucking world.

You can see from the message that OP's DD got that female children do NOT learn to feel superior to males by watching Peppa Pig say "Oh, Daddy".

[implantsandaDyson]

Dd3 is 6 and watches MLP, dd2 is 9 and will watch it with her, unlike most other stuff. It was actually dd2 who ignited the MLP mania when she was younger. She still has all the castles, dolls, horses, bookshops, playsets - they've all stood the test of time and lots of playing. They are just about to be rehomed permanently with dd3.

[AntiHop]

Exactly vestal

[Aeviternity]

You have to keep an eye on it all. Get shut of Peppa Pig because it's a really poor quality show; no decent lessons being taught, a lot of rudeness and disrespect.

I started switching off trash like Everything's Rosie (sole female goes around fixing males' bratty problems for no thanks) and after a while, I ended up switching to downloading/DVD ripping my chosen shows and now the kids watch those. Channels exist to sell merchandise; I just don't have them on at all.

[TakemedowntoPotatoCity]

Another Pegasister here!!! (female brony)

If you've never given My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic a try then do. It's as far removed from the traditional stereotyped glittery, flouncy ponies of yore as you could imagine. Equestria Girls is a spin off where the ponies are actually humans in a parallel world so has the same main characters in human form. MLP is better though. It's honestly very enjoyable and intelligently written and I enjoy it more as much as DD does.

[craftsy]

When DS started watching tv and came to love superheroes, I was very careful about this. I actually downloaded a bunch of 80s cartoons as weirdly, many weren't as sexist as today's stuff. A big favourite is Spider-man and his Amazing Friends, where Firestar is a main character and I interspersed episodes of that with Spider-woman, where Spider-woman is the main character and only occasionally joined by Spider-man. As he got older we watched The Batman, where Batgirl is the main side-kick not Robin. Then the 90s series of Batman, Superman, Justice League and the X-Men but with particular focus on episodes that include women as much as men. As he's gotten older we watch Young Justice, which starts out with a token female character but equalises so much that it has the dubious honour of being the only series in history to be cancelled because it's ratings went up. (They went up because more girls watched and Cartoon Network panicked that more girls watching would put off boys and kill merchandise sales.) The New Avengers series is great because instead of just having a token Black Widow, Ms Marvel is the pov character and it also has the female Captain Marvel and Wasp as main characters.

My merchandise rule is that I am fine with him having merchandise of a male character like Spider-man, Superman or Hulk. But if a team consists of male and female characters and the females have been left out, like Avengers of Justice League with only males, then I'm not buying it new and if I get it secondhand I'm adapting it. So I made custom Batgirl and Batwoman figures for his Batcave and I found or photoshopped suitable pictures to print our as posters for his bedroom. I've done the same with most of his toys, like gone out of my way to get female fire-fighters, doctors, police figures for his playsets, etc. I'm just not having him grow up thinking that only boys get to do cool things.

Consequently, he still has no idea that there are girl things and boy things. As far as he's concerned girls can be great superheroes and he's a huge fan of Barbie, Equestria Girls (which he's watching right now) and Elena of Avalor as well as superheroes, wrestling, Star Wars and cars. And that's really how it should be as far as I'm concerned.

Lastly, a surprisingly non-sexist movie is Cars 3. I actually got a little teary eyed when I realised that the plot was heading in the direction of Lightening realising that his trainer Cruz was a great racer and he should be her coach. It even scrapes a pass of the Bechdel test by having Cruz ask racing veteran Lousie Nash how she managed to become a racer when she was banned.

[Joey7t8]

I was thinking this exact same thing yesterday specifically about Peter Rabbit whose 2 sisters are expected to stay at home and clean/cook/sew/wear pretty dresses while he goes out having adventures

Beatrix Potter really needs to get with the times, doesn't she?

[20nil]

My DS loved MLP until he was around 11! It took me a while to see it as feminist, but it really is. Mona the Vampire is good too.

[TenForward82]

Joey, current adaptions of Beatrix Potter do need to move with the times, yes.

I'd love to do a study on girls in children's TV.

[silkpyjamasallday]

Puffin Rock and Wanda and the Alien are lovely wholesome children's programs which have female main characters and presumably male sidekicks though this is ambiguous other than the use of 'he'. Puffin Rock is particularly nice as it has lots of educational narration to go along with the storyline about camouflage and animals sleeping/eating habits.

I don't think Peppa is actually that bad, mummy pig is far more capable than daddy pig who is a bit of a clot.

I had assumed My Little Pony would be a terrible program in terms of its girlyness but actually I think it's great, the ponies have a range of personalities and skills and in their society women reign supreme.

Dd is actually only 11 months old but I spent a huge amount of time when marooned on the sofa breastfeeding 'researching' good children's programs on Netflix, because I was concerned that a lot of programs nowadays seem very gendered in comparison to what I watched as a child (Little Bear, The Really Wild Show etc) I also wanted to avoid American children's programs as from my experience working with children, far too many of them pick up pseudo American accents and vocabulary from watching too much American TV.

[CheshireChat]

Might put MLP on for DS as I'm sure he asked about it.

I hate that Everest and Skye are left out, especially as DS is now a fan of pink courtesy of the latter and his favourite pup is the former.

But the t-shirts either only have them two or the male pups. Grrr.

Doc Mcstuffins is great and let's mention the fact the main character isn't white either so double win.

[CheshireChat]

Morphle is a YouTube only series that isn't sexist, admittedly I can't seem to grasp what DS likes about it .

Bubble Guppies are pretty good as well actually and can be quite educational to a young tot.

[HurryUpAndWait]

@VestalVirgin

You had to look really hard to find the sexism there! Really hard. Sometimes I almost admire your tenacity!

@Joey7t8

[CheshireChat]

How is peppa pig not sexist?!

Daddy Pig can't cook, Mummy Pig has to make the pancakes for everyone and he manages to fuck up his own.

He gets lost/ in trouble because he's a MAN so he doesn't listen.

Peppa plays with dolls, George with cars and rockets.

There's this fucking undercurrent of men are adorably incompetent at anything relating to running a household and women just know better. But they mostly don't work outside of home...

It's pretty much the only age appropriate thing I've banned.

[slightlyglittermaned]

I don't want my DS to grow up with Daddy Pig as a role model.

[HurryUpAndWait]

@Cheshirechat - why does Daddy Pig get lost / in trouble? I think you saying because he's a man is simply you putting your own interpretation onto a children's cartoon.

Do we need absolute equality in every situation? Does every car need to be fixed by a male and female mechanic (with, of course, neither in a position of authority).

Do you wonder about how you come across to other people when you ban Peppa Pig in your house?

[slightlyglittermaned]

Comes across to me as a fucking genius. Why didn't I just ban the piggy?

[slightlyglittermaned]

@CheshireCat Morphle is just baffling. The main prob with it is that it's hard to prise DS away and he'll get crappy suggestions like Blaze and the fecking Monster Machines. Plus Youtube requires watching him like a hawk for anything dodgy.