My 6 yr old dd said 'Can girls be doctors?' earlier...

[FuppyGish]

We were watching television, can't remember what, and she asked that question. I was quite but said 'Of course they can, girls can have whatever career they want. Why do you ask?'

She said 'You only ever see boy doctors on tv mummy, I thought girls had to be nurses'

Out of the mouths of babes....

When I was small, I thought only mummies could be Prime Minister

Almost half of doctors are women (about 40%) so yes they can

children's tv is very sexist.

my dd came up with something similar recently, despite the fact that:

1. she has only ever been treated by woman doctors
2. 2 of her best friends have dads who are nurses
3. we have lots of very pc books with non-stereotypical characters.

I managed to convince her that she wanted to be a doctor not a nurse by telling her that doctors earn more money and are in charge. She likes being in charge.

Ah! dd likes being in charge very much too!!

I've been trying to redress the balance of children's tv by reading her some books recommended to me by this board, the princess smartypants one, hopefully that will help

I used to think only women could be Prime Minister too

Sad and surprising though that children are still getting messages like doctors=male, nurses=female, surely that's not what you see in reality or even on TV these days, all the hospital-based shows I can think of have female doctors as well as male . I don't watch children's tv though - is it that bad?

preschoolers' tv is far worse than grown-up tv.

My dh was a chef and spent all the time cooking in our kitchen (lucky me) but my dc still referred to it as 'mummy's kitchen' even though I rarely entered it. We always wondered where that came from but now think it probably came from watching TV programmes

Haha, I think you'll find it's the nurses in charge

LOL Ednurse.

I kicked the visiting doctor because she didn't have long enough hair.
According to me, Diana wasn't a princess, it was the hair problem again.
But I was ashamed of it for some reason and made up excuses- so my parents couldn't diffuse my prejudices at the origin!

Awful!

At one point I was worried that my DDs would think that only women could be health professionals since our GP, plus HV, MWs and nurses were all women.

But I guess I needn't have worried if TV stereotypes are contradicting real life!