William Leith article in today's Times

[RibenaBerry]

I can't link because of the paywall, but this article made me so f'ing mad. The old 'men are in crisis actually, it's not women who have difficulties' line.

And Mr Leith, just in case you google yourself and find this, the mouse in the Gruffalo is male. It says so in the Gruffalo's child. It's a story about two male characters - one smart, one stupid. It says nothing about the undermining of men in society

To be honest, I don't think it's a particularly helpful response to accuse the guy of (variously) being a 'tool', having 'a porn habit', 'blinded by his privilege' or thinking that 'women aren't quite human'. Or do you think it's ok to diss any guy you don't agree with in this way? Isn't respect a mutual thing?

In Outnumbered the parents are mocked - not just the dad.

90% of the characters in the Office where men. Dawn was in it as a "plot driver", to highlight how unhappy Tim was with his life.

Madmen is a homage to the good old days when women had to know their place and be the secretary - all the important jobs are held by men.

Never seen Modern Family.

PoppaDave, your supporting examples are laughable.

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How strange. I get a lot of books from the library for DD and nursery provides one a week as well, and it's noticeable how many of them have no female characters whatsoever. When the vast majority of characters in books are male, surely it's no surprise that a range of different types is shown?

Strangely it's the books from nursery, many of which are from the 80s, which are much less sexist (girls as the main characters, wearing trousers shock horror), but then they seem to show lots of other diversity as well, so looking back the idea of the 80s being "right on" in some aspects was certainly true. What a shame things have changed.

This bloke seems to be saying that men should never be represented as anything other than intelligent and dominant ever. Meh.

@TheCrackFox, if you really think Mad Men is a 'homage' to those 'good old days' you haven't been watching it. It's actually about all the very strong women in the show and what they have to deal with in their lives.

I think Don bailing Pete out was more payback for Pete's help with the Feds and his little identity problem than anything... personally I don't think that Don is presented as someone to like: apart from Peggy, Sally, and to some extent Joan, none of the characters have likeability. Blooming brilliant TV though.

That was the most eejity article I have ever read.

The lost 'authority' he bemoans was built on a foundation of sand, the assumption that men are innately superior to women, women inferior to men. Hope he gets over himself and doesn't transmit his sense of 'them against us' to his son.

There were lots of interesting articles about men in this week's times magazine, what did you think of the others Ribena?

I think the observation in stayfrosty's final sentence is absolutely spot on, and wish to frame it and nail it to the top of every one of these conversations that I have.

lol, I refuse to read DD a book with a male hero in it

Well, not really...

But I've tried to find a good balance for her. I posess some of the few books available with female lead roles in them. The rest, honest to god, the rest of the books that exist for 3-4 yr olds are just default males/persons.

re: Tinkerbell fairies, while it's nice that females are recognized as having inner lives, it's a shame that they are only allowed to do anything if they look gorgeous while they're doing it. There's a really cool cartoon series on in Japan about a group of girls who save the world. IT's all about friendship, but they have to look cute, (most have their midriffs showing). But it's a good start

Hi Sakura - is that Puri-cure?

its funny that Japan is seen to be such a sexist country (well, it is in many ways...) but for children, many of its cartoons/anime have very strong female characters.

if you think of most of the superhero/main character types, they are ALL male (Batman, Superman, Ben10, Harry Potter, LOTR, Toy Story, etc) whereas in the Ghibli series of movies have almost exclusively female main characters (and not necessarily uber-cute).

There is also the iconic Sailor Moon and her gang!

yes Puri-cure!
I've been thinking about the proliferation of strong female characters in Japanese animation and cartoons and I've come to two conclusions. Either it's

a) Because gender roles in Japan are so strictly divided, women are "allowed" more leeway when it comes to other things. What I mean is the status quo is not threatened, so women are encouraged to be strong in some ways .

or b) Asia is more feminized in general. I heard that when an Asian person sees a matchstick figure they assume it's female, but a westerner assumes it's male.

I find it all very interesting.

or c) Japan is market-driven and market-savvy and knows that there are millions of little girls out there thirsty for some real female characters.

ooh, no I haven't, I will get it from Amazon, thank you.
I only read English books to my DD, but all her TV is Japanese.
Thanks

What a load of bollocks.

If I may, I'll add something here from my own field of expertise - Giraffes Can't Dance. I have read it hundreds of times now (thank you DD2), and can catagorically state that -

it was written by a man (Giles Andreae)

it was illustrated by a man (Guy Parker Rees)

the hero is a male giraffe, who is initially laughed at, before he even tries to dance, but who finds his own way thanks to a gender-neutral cricket, and ends up as the best dancer of all. So hardly a bumbling buffoon.

So endeth the lesson today. :)

And I completely agree with StayFrosty, but also want to add that it's ridiculous that Judi Dench is the "bad" option. It just goes to show how entrenched these things are that Judi Dench isn't good enough for the older bumbling man, just because she is the same age. She is so attractive and intelligent, the reason why she shouldn't be paired with an ignorant bumbling man is because she is too good for him!

What a laughable article.

What I found somewhat less funny was my son reading one of the Magic Key stories last month (as part of the school curriculum) where the whole story was based around the fact that only men could sit at the round table because only men could be knights. Took me a week to get my DS' head back round to the thinking that there are no such things as 'girl' jobs and 'boy' jobs. grrr

what a load of old swill this man has written. Wonder how his analysis of female roles in the books went? Perhaps he might have concluded that few publishers will give the go-ahead to books with a female lead character (presumably on the usual "boys have to like it, but girls will lump it" basis), so when the occasional female character does appear it would be churlish to make her a dunce. God these stories are nearly all about male emotional development, how they start off scared or weak or immature - and this could go for films as well - but overcome their weaknesses and become brave, loved, admired, clever etc.

Personally I get fed up with the stereotype of the "sorted female character" as well. She is always expected to be stable and consistent and keep things together while Our Hero is doing his emotional growth thing. Girls never worry about being good at dancing, or being afraid, or in later life about being unpopular at school, or not getting a boyfriend, or dying a virgin, or coping with adult life, or whether they're emotionally ready for marriage or parenthood. Apparently. These stories are not being told.

that's true, can't think of any "unsorted" but cool female characters off the top of my head. All the ones I know of are overly-responsible

And when I think about it that goes with the woman/wife as reward thing. So in old fairy tales, the king gives his daughter's hand in marriage to the man who defeats the dragon/frees the country from a giant/beats all the king's enemies. She is just assumed to be happy about the whole thing. In modern stories, the woman is usually there in the background, but it is assumed that when the man overcomes his personal struggle, she will be waiting for him at the church door, dress on, with a freshly drycleaned suit and set of rings for him.