to think that Cbeebies is sexist

[noonki]

I have 3 DS's and get so annoyed at the portrayal of girls and women on Cbeebies.
The main things that rile me are

No. 1 - the token girls (upsa-daisy from In the Night Garden and Wendy in Bob the Builder for example)

No. 2 - The overload of leading males (Fireman sam, tommy zoom, bob the buider, pingu, sportacus, tellytubbies and the list can go on and on)

No. 3 - the amount of pink and frillyness worn by the girls (eg - The tweenies, upsadaisy, etc)

There are a few exceptions but only a few - check out the Cbeebies character page and just do a quick comparision...

does anyone else agree or am just feeling lost in my house of boys?

Yes Wannabe - that is a valid point.

Consumerism, I believe, is a cause of unhappiness. It feeds our propensity to craving. I know, I know - very Buddhist but the more I think about it ....

also, while you can ban the television to rule out the attitudes you don't like, the associated merchandise will still be in the shops, and chances are the children will still want it. And you can't really ban the children from the shops, .

pah!i cant wait to spend my consumerist capitalist pig wages at the mac/benefit counters

makes putting the LO i nuresery worthwhile

Count yourself lucky you've got cbeebies.
Over here it Wiggles this, Wiggles that, Wiggles bloody everything. Damn them their twatty outfits and that ridiculous dinosaur/octopus/dog trio in badly made fancy dress. I'm off to get meself a real man - aka Fireman Sam. Hold that thought - nah, a Bondi lifesaver..hmmmm

get yourself over to Five in the mornings or Nick Jr - loads of feisty girls there like Dora, Fifi, Peppa Pig etc. CBeebies is not the only channel!

Does anyone remember long distance Clara from Pigeon Street? The female lorry driver who used to come home and practice ballroom dancing with her husband after he'd cooked her dinner? Now thats feminism!

To use your own logic, wannabe, if you think a topic is unworthy of your intellect you don't have to reply, especially if you can't do it nicely.

pineneedles. It's a discussion board. are you only allowed to take part if you agree with everything?

I LOVED wannabes comments and thoroughly enjoyed reading them as they were full of that thing that is missing so much these days, COMMON SENSE.

If you can't take the negative points, don't post the question.

I'm with the OP and Edam.

If you really don't think we live in a gendered and sexist society, I give up.

I think we live in a sexist society, i just don't think my under 5's are able to pick that up from a series of childrens programmes. I also think like missmollymoo and if you think yours can, then you have the ability to not let them watch it. Can't see how you can think it's all wrong for them but then still let them watch it.

quite new here aren't you pineneedles? just 14 posts in all I see.

But to quote you here: "if you think a topic is unworthy of your intellect you don't have to reply, especially if you can't do it nicely." pot calling the kettle black don't you think?

So exactly what inteligent contribution did you make to this discussion? Why did you click on it apart from to specifically have a pop at me?

As you're new you may not as yet be aware that personal attacks are not permitted on mumsnet.

Now run along back to the fluffy sites, there's a love.

I think YABU a bit. From what I can see CBeebies works excruciatingly hard to be PC (and I'm pretty pleased about it). I think the female role models are generally better and more credible than the male ones. Who would you rather be: PC Plum or Edie McCredie?

If you want to see some really bad gender portrayals you only have to switch to one of the commercial channels or watch some Disney. Cbeebies looks a radical feminist channel by comparison.

i think cbeebies has some good female role models. wendy off the bob the builder has concvinced my dd that she should be a 'blonde haired girl in a hard hat job' or at least i think that is why she wants to be a builder? i really should sit and watch tv with her more often. half the time i dont have a clue what she is watching. it took me ages to work out what a 'noo noo' and a 'nonky nink (?)' was

fifi is a strong role model she is inteligent and likes gardening and things and hates pink as far as i know? and stefanie on lazy town is the only one with more than half a brain cell. isnt edie mecredie or whatever she is called a mechanic aswell as a bus driver?

I think society is still quite sexist. I don't think CBeebies is - I think it's fairly balanced tbh.

Teletubbies - 2 male, 2 female (though one of the males is a bit questionable). In the books they refer to Laa Laa and Po as 'she' and Dipsy and Tinky Winky as 'he'.

Balamory - Nursery teacher - Female
Policeman - Male
Bus Driver - Female
Gym teacher - Female
Inventor - Male
Painter - Male
Shop owners - Both female

Bob the Builder - Bob - slightly bumbling builder - Male
Wendy - highly competent builder - Female

Fireman Sam - 4 bumbling firefighters - male (sam, Trevor, Steele, Elvis)
1 competent firefighter - Female

Nina and the Neurons - science teacher - female

Carrie and David - 2 main characters, 1 male, 1 female, both equal

Tweenies - Bella - tomboy but female
Milo - cool and male
Fizz - pink and female
Jake - young and male

etc etc

Agree on the whole tortoiseshell. Tbh I think my dc do/will see far more sexism in RL than on Cbeebies.

As someone else said, I prefer Milkshake anyway! (with the exception of Noddy and Fifi; they really irritate me)

of course children pik up on stereotypes.

did an of you see the child of our time stuff with robert winston? he has covered it in other programmes he's done too.

Small children seem to have a need for stereotypes as part of their growing into being themselves. I am a girl/boy seems to be one of the first things they pick up. Hardly surprising in our society that shoves pink crap at girls and trucks and guns in khaki at the boys. I had both my two say that girls couldn't do x, y and z when they were 4/5ish, and of course the role models they see on the TV have an impact. It's not as if toddlers are devoid of awareness, like the rest of us they pick up a lot of stuff in a passive way, and most fmilies watch a lot of TV. I don't think that CBeebies is particularly bad (although I haven't watched it for a few years, so it may have changed) but some of the older stuff gives very limited roles to girls. I think it is just as important to ensure boys don't pigeonhole girls as vice versa. These are the values they take with them to school after all.

Who was it said "Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man"? Can't remember, but I agree with whoever it was. (Except that they were being sexist too!) You have to be very careful about what goes into the minds of little'uns. These are the formative years.

Having said that, I think the production teams at CBeebies do try quite hard not to be sexist.

And I think you have to accept the fact that many little girls just do like PINK.

I really don't think Children's tv is that bad. Both men and women do a variety of roles in the different programmes, and not awlays the traditional ones. Take a look at the following...

Women roles... Doctor (Me too), Bus cleaner (Me Too), Taxi Driver (Me Too), Scientist (Nina and the neurons), Race Marshall (Roary the racing car), Builder (Bob the Builder), Minibus driver/mechanic/videographer (Balamory), Underground Supervisor (Underground Ernie), Pilot (Come outside), Vet (Postman pat), Gardener (fifi), Market stall trader (fifi)...

Male Roles... Primary school teacher (Me Too), Nursery Worker (Tweenies), Nurse (Me Too), Cooks / Cafe workers (Big cook)...

I could keep going. But I think there are plenty of good role models for girls to choose from, and probably more than there are in real life! In fact, my daughter says she wants to be a doctor when she grows up, just like Dr Juno - so her influences are obviously not that bad!

I haven't actually analysed CBeebies for sexism; am too busy chuckling at its PCness in terms of ethnicity/disability - it's fab. compared to what we watched as kids, so I'm sure they've thought carefully about getting the right boy/girl balance.

Go and do something else whilst the kids are watching

I'm really shocked at how many people think it's impossible for children's TV to be sexist!

Somebody said to me the other day that Thomas the Tank Engine represented both genders equally. This was based on the fact that out of the 8 main engines, ONE - Emily - was female. That's how distorted our idea of equality has become - that it's a GOOD thing if female characters represent one-eighth of all kids' TV characters. Sexism is normalised to such a degree that people can't even recognise it.

TV might reflect the reality of sexism but it perpetuates it too.

The Revd Awdry wrote the Thomas stories (the Railway Series) back in the forties! You can't blame the beeb for those!

I heard an interview on the radio a couple of months ago (maybe Women's Hour?), when they were discussing the lack of main female characters on CBeebies. They had someone on from the BBC who said the Beeb had a deliberate policy of making the majority of main characters in CBeebies programes male. She said they did this because they had found that when they made lead charaters female, then boys did not watch. Girls apparently did not mind if main characters were predominantly male.