No Cartoon Girls
See, now I’m getting angry.
I started this blog because my brain was gushing with toxic spewage that no one I knew was interested in listening to. My very first post was me being pissed off that Veggie Tales had NO, ZERO, ZIP, NADA admirable female characters (very few of the unadmirable ones either). And frankly, it pissed me off more that no one I talked to about it noticed or cared.
So I started a blog, and a community (hi sisters!) and now we can all be pissed off together. Ready to get steamed?
I just read an article in the Spring Issue of Ms. Magazine about gender balance in kid’s movies. Here’s the quote that’s turning my generally blustery self into a conduit of seething rage:
Research showed that in 101 top-grossing G-rated movies released between 1990 and 2005, three out of four characters were male. Girls accounted for only 17 percent of the film’s narrators and 17 percent of the characters in crowd scenes. Only seven of the 101 movies were nearly gender-balanced, with a ratio of less than 1.5 males per 1 female character. “Although many people would argue that things seem to be getting better, our data shows that this is not the case,” says the principal investigator, Stacy L. Smith, an associate professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, where the research was carried out
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? Less than 7% of the movies kids watch are are even nearly gender balanced.
Progress, huh? This is better than what, exactly?
I knew it was bad, but this is obscene. This, right here, is the reason those “you feminists are taking things too far and you don’t know when to stop” types make me want to claw my own eyeballs out.
Like it’s not bad enough that my kids open a magazine and see that all the leaders of the world are men, and all the owners of the companies are men, and then go to church and see that all the pictures hung on the wall are men, and the quotes are by for and about men. Open the scriptures and read about more men.
No that’s not enough. Let’s just heap the pile even higher and make women disappear every-freakin’-where. Our stories aren’t interesting, our voices are silent, even our faces in a crowd are undesirable. And we teach this to kids from the moment we sit them in front of a TV. Which is, of course, as soon as their eyes focus and they figure out how to turn their face in that direction. And from that moment on they learn that boys matter, and girls vanish.
Do you have any idea how much TV kids in this country watch?
I’m just sick and tired of it, and I’m freakin’ pissed off at all the people telling me We don’t need feminists anymore, It isn’t true, We don’t value boys more than girls, We’ve achieved our goals, Girls can do anything.
Anything but be heard, anything but be seen, anything but be a freakin’ cartoon.
I think someone on fMh mentioned they noticed Hayao Miyazaki’s films had several female leads. They are favorites in our family–and animated to boot!
7% is sad–Miyazaki’s films are fabulous but relatively few spanning three decades.
I’m with you on the steamed part–now what do we do about it? Can we do anything?
Comment by Téa — May 16, 2006 @ 1:40 am
Of course this (old school preservation of the status quo despite exponentially exploding frontiers of knowledge, worlds without end) doesn’t help. Sigh…
Comment by Rich — May 16, 2006 @ 2:01 am
Well,
There’s always Sailor Moon …
Comment by Seth R. — May 16, 2006 @ 6:09 am
With all respect, statistics never tell us anything…or rather, they tell us what those who are producing them want us to know.
A more productive question to ask would be to look at the top 25 or so grossing children’s movies over the last 25 years, the Disney films, Pixar, etc. Those are the one’s kids watch.
I also think that quantity of women is much less important than quality. If the female characters break the snow white/wicked witch (or, madonna/putana) typology, that is more important to me than how many women are in “crowd scenes.”
Comment by TrailerTrash — May 16, 2006 @ 6:55 am
I think its just all money. Little boys generally want to watch stories about boys. Little girls just want a good story. Cartoons with more males sell to a larger audience, plain and simple.
Comment by Darryl — May 16, 2006 @ 7:28 am
With all due respect, Darryl, little girls want stories about princesses.
Comment by Robin — May 16, 2006 @ 7:53 am
Darryl,
But you skip over the important questions completely, WHY do stories about boys sell to a larger audience. What is it about us that makes us value boys more, and when does that happen? Is it natural, inevidable that boys find girl’s stories unimportant and uninteresting. Or do we teach them by showing them that girls are unimportant from day one, by making most of the stories about boys, and by telling boys that girl stories deserve derision.
And don’t give me any of the boys and girls are just different crap. If girls can watch and enjoy movies about boys, why can’t boys watch and enjoy movies about girls?
TT,
I would agree that quality of female characters is important too, but that doesn’t mean that quanitity tells us nothing. The fact that girls simply aren’t there matters, a lot, and frankly (yes I’m angry) it just pisses me off.
And I honestly can’t see how your top 25 grossing question is “more productive” than the top 101 grossing films over the last 15 years. Those are also the movies kids watch.
Comment by fMhLisa — May 16, 2006 @ 8:19 am
The quote in Ms. is from this report.
Comment by Edje — May 16, 2006 @ 8:19 am
Lisa,
I guess my point is that movies like the “Little Mermaid” may meet the criteria of quantity of female characters, but that it doesn’t meet the question of quality. Something like Shrek II may not meet the quantity criteria (all those pesky crowd scenes), but the quality is much better IMO. Based on the way that the data is sliced in the Ms. article, I am not ready to get upset quite yet.
I don’t deny that quantity is important, I just think it is a silly way of measuring success. It is quotas gone wild with no regard for the type of people filling the posts, just thier genitals.
As for my suggestion about the top 25, you may be right. I just don’t know many kids movies.
Comment by TrailerTrash — May 16, 2006 @ 8:44 am
TT,
I didn’t have time to read the whole report, although I think I will. You should follow Edje’s link, they do actually look at the way the genders are portrayed. Off to preschool!
Comment by fMhLisa — May 16, 2006 @ 8:52 am
My comment is related to #5, and perhaps a bit of a tangent. Some people complain that men are paid more than women in Hollywood, and that it is evidence of sexism (there are more $20-millon-per-movie men than women). But it is capitalism, not sexism, that is to blame. Big male leads are bigger box-office draws than big female leads. That is partly due to the demographics (men spend more on movies like “The Rock” than women spend on movies like “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”). But I also think it is partly because of What Darryl said in #5. In any case, I doubt it’s the result of studio executives pushing an agenda, consiously or subconsiously.
Hollywood follows the money. And when you look at the “top-grossing” movies, then it’s all about what people are willing to pay to see.
Also, the statistics are just a summary. I visited the See Jane website and they don’t have much more information there. But as an example: over 70% of the movies featured “fantastic content”. Using The Incredibles is an example (yet, it’s PG, but it’s an illustration), the gender imbalance is created by the fact that the bad guys are all male. Among the protagonists and bystanders, the gender split is about equal. I wonder how much that is the case for the movies surveyed.
Comment by JR from Dallas — May 16, 2006 @ 8:55 am
Right, JR. I had the same thought about The Incredibles. Also, what kinds of crowds are frequently seen in kids movies? All I can think of is angry mobs and sporting events. So I have a hard time caring about a gender disparity in crowds or overall disparities in characters. If a movie’s protagonist(a?) is an admirable female and all the crowds are male, there would be a huge gender disparity in numbers of characters, but that would have to be considered a feminist-friendly movie, no? Isn’t The Incredibles feminist-friendly?
I think I can see why a large disparity in numbers of admirable female protagonists might be upsetting. But I have paid attention to the movies and cartoons that my little boys watch and they do watch some boy-centric stuff, which is fine with me, but they also watch some good balanced stuff. I haven’t found much cause for concern. But that’s just me.
Comment by Tom — May 16, 2006 @ 9:24 am
Hmmm… Maybe it is just because 75% of my children are girls, but I was thinking all the popular kids movies features female characters lately!
Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocohontas, Mulan, etc. Not to mention all of those new Barbie videos… Then there are strong female characters like Dori, Mrs. Fantastic, Jesse the yodlin’ cowgirl, Lava Girl, Sandy the Squirrel, Cindy Vortex, basically all the non-evil characters in “Home on the Range” (Oh yeah, I know them all…)
I suspect these are stats that have been massaged for effect. One mob of angry male villagers with pitchforks will skew the overall count quickly I think. And have you noticed that all of the above characters are very strong willed and determined? That can’t be bad…
Comment by Geoff J — May 16, 2006 @ 9:31 am
In Bikini Bottom, Sandy is outnumbered by quite a bit. (Offhand, the only other regular female character I can think of is Plankton’s wife, but she’s a computer.) But Sandy is the only one that isn’t a complete silly-head. Plus she usually gets the best of SpongeBob in their karate fights. Adding up the number of characters is a profoundly bad way to figure out what’s going on on television vis a vis gender.
Comment by Armorabs Krabs — May 16, 2006 @ 10:03 am
WHY do stories about boys sell to a larger audience?
Because girls are more willing to watch “Harry Potter” than boys are to watch “Henrietta Potter.” It’s got nothing to do with how much we value boys or girls; it comes down to their immature, cootie-laden attitudes. Changing that would be good but I don’t see how to do it. The best we can do is offer things like “Harry Potter” that attract both genders. It’s gotta have emotion AND action.
Maybe this means we need to change how we do girls movies– whenever a girl is the focus of the story it’s more about relationships than it is swashbuckling pirates or what have you, and there goes your male audience, sneaking out the back as fast as they can. On the other hand, I LIKE girl movies just the way they are because they’re more reflective of my experiences. If the boys don’t like it, tough; we shouldn’t have to change our narratives of ourselves just so the boys will pay attention.
Comment by Proud Daughter of Eve — May 16, 2006 @ 10:18 am
It’s not that entertainment is not gender balanced, it’s that entertainment that has a female lead is so derned stereotyped.
We have princesses, or “strong women”, or steel magnolias, or cute, or divas, or sexpots. There are very very few multi-dimensional roles for women in entertainment. When you consider cartoons, which are basically all stereotype and generalization because drawings are symbols, it’s all the worse.
There aren’t women, housewives like me, in entertainment as lead characters. But then, who wants to watch a bumbling housewife unless she lives on Wisteria Lane?
This is one of the reasons I’m liking the female characters on “Big Love” lately. There is no mold and that’s so refreshing.
Comment by Becky..Absent Minded Housewife — May 16, 2006 @ 10:21 am
Re #15 about Harry Potter. I think that if the lead had been a girl and none of the content was different boys still wouldn’t be wiling to watch/read it just because the lead is a girl. Content really has very little to do with it. If you can’t get boys in the theatres because the lead is a girl then it doesn’t matter how great the story is. J.K. Rowling was asked to publish with just her initials so readers wouldn’t be able to tell her gender and would assume she was a man. Why? because boys won’t read a story written by a woman. Why? Not because women don’t write stories boys would be interested in, because women do write stories boys like (case in point, Harry Potter). Somewhere, somehow they learn that they shouldn’t like girls, and anything that is girlie. Where do they learn this? Probably from the movies and social scripts we give them. It’s a big vicious cycle.
Comment by Starfoxy — May 16, 2006 @ 10:49 am
I know it’s kind of unrelated, but going on “The Incredibles” tanget…the daughter’s power is to become *invisible*. After watching the film twice with two different undergraduate film studies courses last year (I was a teaching assistant, and no, this is not at BYU), I was a bit distraught with its message about women. There is a deleted scene where the mother feels as though she has to ‘defend’ her decision to be a SAHM (Personally, I’m so sick of the Mommy Wars that I could rip all of my hair out.) The villanous woman who ends up trapped has to be rescued by Mr. Incredible, and the daughter, Violet, is more concerned with saving her parents’ marriage than their lives (the reinforcement of patriarchial constructs - better to be dead than outside of the order.) While I give the film kudos for its effort, I think that we might be overestimating its contribution to feminism just because it features women alongside of men. It goes back to the quality vs. quantity issue.
Comment by VirtualM — May 16, 2006 @ 11:10 am
See, I just don’t see this as important or worth spending any time on. Going for a walk or sitting on your porch would be time better spent.
Comment by annegb — May 16, 2006 @ 11:43 am
Did anyone happen to see the Ellen Degeneres show last week where Geena Davis talked about this very topic? Ms. Davis has begun a crusade of her own, take a look for yourself at http://seejane.org/
Comment by Blue gal — May 16, 2006 @ 12:07 pm
Sorry- I didn’t read every comment before I posted that link.
Comment by Blue gal — May 16, 2006 @ 12:24 pm
VirtualM-
You were “distraught with [The Incredibles‘] message about women”? The movie doesn’t have a message about women. The girl is a shy teenager. It fits with being invisible. Isn’t one of the points of the movie that she learned to gain self-confidence and overcome some of her shyness?
Sometimes it just seems that some disgruntled viewers read far too much into a simple animated movie. I struggle to understand what kind of female character in a children’s movie would be acceptable to them. Can’t be too strong without being the “strong woman” stereotype. Can’t be too weak, either, or she’s the “damsel in distress”. You could apply the same kind of overanalysis to the male characters to find fault if you were really looking.
Comment by JR from Dallas — May 16, 2006 @ 12:45 pm
First time commenter….and I am failing to see why there is an uproar.
…I tend towards apathy, I suppose. I do, however, notice girls in leading roles in several cartoons I catch a glimpse of on occasion. Kimpossible,. for example. And I agree that people tend to read too much in to things. We should all focus on being ourselves and making ourselves known in the immediate world around us rather than trying to equalize the representation of males and females in cartoons. There are more important things to consider, methinks.
Good job on the blog.
Comment by Rob — May 16, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
Just to throw an interesting little twist into this …
In the world of online gaming, MMORPGs, etc.
Female characters far outnumber the male characters. Yet the audience for such games is overwhelmingly male.
In fact, in COMPUTER type games, the distribution between male and female protagonists, enemies, sidekicks, etc. seems pretty even.
I have no idea what that means, but I’m sure it means something …
Just so you know: movies and TV are sooo last century. No one but retiring baby boomers really cares what’s happening with the “mainstream media.”
The video and computer game industry regularly outperforms Hollywood in revenues each year.
Starcraft grossed far more than ANY of the major movie blockbusters that came out that same year (and that’s including video and rental sales).
TV is dead. Movies are dead. People just don’t know it yet.
Computer games are the real entertainment concern of the the 21st century. That is where the focus needs to be.
But games are almost never discussed in Priesthood or Relief Society classes. It’s as if the adult population in both Church and America generally is completely blind to what is going on in this industry.
Who cares what Spongebob is doing. He’s already an anachronism. Ask what Mario is doing though, and now coming closer to the real pulse that moves our youth.
Comment by Seth R. — May 16, 2006 @ 1:21 pm
Maybe its just a reflection of reality.
How many secret agent / spy / assasin / explorer men have there been vs. women? Besides, lets be truthful. The majority of these kinds of stories revolve around about 30% brains and 70% brawn. Men genetically win in the brawn catagory.
Comment by James — May 16, 2006 @ 1:21 pm
Weird, and surprising, Lisa. The only other thing I’ve read about gender balance in kids’ animated features was a complaint that Disney puts all their efforts into princess movies because they sell so much better than all their other animated features, which annoyed me at the time because IMO, their princess movies tend to suck (Little Mermaid and Snow White are the only ones I can stand. Well, and Mulan, which wasn’t really a “princess” movie, but was marketed as such.).
I second the hearty endorsements of the Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli movies. They’re well-made, fun, less melodramatic than average Disney movies and their female protagonists have more important goals than finding something to wear to the ball or even finding the prince.
Comment by Allison — May 16, 2006 @ 1:25 pm
Games will always be a revinew generator, but never the creative leader. The vast majority of games are still based on movies, tv and books. For kids games will rule, for adults - and those becoming adults - real stories will always be king.
Comment by James — May 16, 2006 @ 1:27 pm
James,
That’s exactly what they said about TV.
Comment by Seth R. — May 16, 2006 @ 1:29 pm
I think being invisible would be quite the handy power to have. Think of all the places you could go!
I think we women sometimes read too much into things. I don’t think the world is out to put us down or get us. Some do, and if you look hard enough you will find it. My sister and I were both raised in the Church, and are both opinionated. We aren’t afraid to say what we think. I know many women like that. I don’t think society is trying to oppress women (now, please don’t send a string of hate replies my way - that is what I think. I didn’t be little your opinion, please be respectful of mine). I don’t think the cartoons are either. But, that is just me.
Comment by Amy — May 16, 2006 @ 1:35 pm
RE: Incredibles. Look at the cover: all the family is gathered around a very large, central patriarch. Violet is afraid to use her powers.
Finding Nemo: The mother is DEAD, and Dory is CRAZY.
Bikini Bottom: Sandy Squirrel is indeed a girl, but the girl is a FOREIGNER.
My daughter can’t stand the Princess/Barbie movies because she just can’t (although she said to me the other day, “men are just better than women, right?” WHERE did she get that idea from??? Which of the DEAD, AFRAID, CRAZY, or FOREIGN women hanging around our house said so???)
To be fair, at least Pixar films seem to see the irony of what they’re doing. But I have to agree with Miyazaki fans. If you want to transcend all of this, to a realm of art & spirit, watch Studio Ghibli films and be carried away to the REAL world.
Comment by pele — May 16, 2006 @ 1:54 pm
It is certainly a fact that we are a male centric society, patriarchal to the end, no matter what our faiths.
Black men were given the vote before women were. Black people are still not equal to whites in too many important societal ways. Even the church took too long to finally give them the priesthood.
The point is that women will not be an equally important part of society for a long time. We are getting there, but equality is not yet ours to have.
On another thread, I mentioned that in the 70-s when I was devout, the church was very politically active against the Equal Rights Amendment. Part of the devious preaching was that the effect of equality would be to diminish the rights I already had…would actually take me down from the pedestal on which I was placed and make me ONLY as good as my husband. If I truly understood, then I should clearly appreciate my status and not ask to be equal.
It’s an insidious method of diminishing your feelings, of demeaning your intentions…making you feel ultimately foolish and childish in your thoughts and efforts…
Such as TT in # 4 & 9 suggesting that you are giving too much worth to otherwise meaningless statistics, and you should look at quality vs quantity…
And #5 Darryl also agreeing that male protagonists are what the moviegoers really want…
And #11 & 22 JR also agreeing that it’s just capitalism at work…all the bad guys are male (oh? I think not) and that you could overanalyze the male characters for extremes if you wanted.
And then, #19 totally dismissing your anguish with the flip comment that it’s just not worth your time to worry about all this.
Seth R, I was expecting more from you than the first short comment, given your background. You make some good points about video games having females, but I’m wondering if the point of those characters is to combine the violence the males typically want in their games with the incredibly sexually charged females they fantasize about.
I belong to the group of those who are concerned about how females fit into our society, but don’t know what to do about all this. I strive always to be a strong woman, and teach all that I encounter that women are no more special than men, and that we are equally as wonderful and equally as mundane and equally as human. (I’m even finding that we are fast becoming equally as violent, which concerns me. Maybe the video games give permission to this, too?)
I strive to recognize the injustices done to all, whether it be because of gender or race (I’m white) or sexual preference (I differ from many of you here in that I do not believe it to be a sin to be homosexual) or faith, or any other civil rights type of difference. I am libertarian by practice.
If we don’t speak out when we see the injustice done, we are tacitly allowing it and that is tantamount to approval. We are not sheep. We must speak and be given due consideration as is our right and requirement. But as far as what more to do to be effective for a change for the better, I’m at a loss.
Comment by Darlene — May 16, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
I should’ve pre-empted my comment earlier by saying that I’m trained to analyze films. It’s what I studied and it’s what I do and it generally doesn’t win friends. I don’t worry about people not agreeing with me and I think that the ensuing discussion is far more important than whether or not I am right. I am also a feminist, so I tend to focus on that aspect of the films I watch. I’m not apologizing for my opinion, just giving it context. The fact that Violet’s superpower is invisibility still bothers me, confidence at the end notwithstanding. It always has. As FHMLisa stated, “Girls vanish,” here literally. I will end my threadjack there.
I completely second, third, whatever number we are up to, the Miyazaki recommendation. I watched “Nausicaa” with several animation history students a few weeks ago and they were amazed and in awe. Although the title character does have a somewhat ‘anime’ body, it is not sexualized and she doesn’t have romantic goals. It is one of the most uplifting films I think I’ve ever seen.
Also, although not for kids, there are some fantastic feminist animations. Check out the work of Johanna Quinn and Candy Guard if you’re interested in how women are responding to mainstream animated works. (I would like to re-emphisize the not for kids part, although they are not necessarily offensive, either.)
Yes, there is a problem, not just across animation, but across most media forms. The solution, as I see it in my un-expert state, is until the media changes, we have to discuss these things with those around us, especially children. I had a film professor (with many many children of his own) who once said that anything can be appropriate children’s media, but a discussion must follow. I know, easier said than done, but it’s got to happen.
Comment by M.E. — May 16, 2006 @ 2:25 pm
Sorry changed my blogging name awhile back….I’m now going by VirtualM. Last comment was mine.
Comment by M.E. aka VirtualM — May 16, 2006 @ 2:26 pm
Disney’s [non-pixar] cartoon women are either 1) young and beautiful, 2) old and evil or 3) dead.
Yes, this is true of fairy-tales in general. But that’s what makes it so powerful; these fairy tales, whether retold through movie, story or book are part of our society’s mythology.
And traditionally a myth was a “true” story [in a deeply held societal/cultural sort of way] that is not factual.
If we want to genuinely change society, we need to change society’s naratives.
N.O.
Comment by not ophelia — May 16, 2006 @ 2:36 pm
Miyazaki rules.
He has great movies for the younger set.
He also has great heriones for older kids [Chihiro (Spirited Away), Nausicaa (Nausicaa and the Valley of the Winds), Princess Mononoke] I’d recommend waiting until your girls are 10 or so before you break these out. They’ll appreciate more.
N.O.
Comment by not ophelia — May 16, 2006 @ 2:49 pm
I’m curious. What would be the perfect cartoon woman? A SAHM? A working mom? A career woman with no kids? A teenager with a blaster? A little girl with Superpowers? A little girl who is slightly off kilter and then befriends an alien? My point is this: Any message the media sends out about women is going to tick SOMEBODY off, including you. So it just doesn’t pay to put in women, and we all know that the media is about what pays.
I understand where you are coming from, Lisa, but there are so many evil messages coming at our families from mainstream media that it seems almost meaningless to get worked up over just one particular message. You talked about racial biases once. Noted. Lack of mothers. Noted. Lack of women in general. Noted. Lack of families portrayed in anything other than a silly family where the father is pratically retarded and certainly incapable of parenting effectively while the mother is a condescending bi***. Noted. There is absolutely no way you can control the messages the media sends out. The only thing you can control is the diet of media consumption you put your kids on. And then the role model of womanhood is the one who want them most to see–you.
Comment by Heather O — May 16, 2006 @ 3:02 pm
Just a few fired-off thoughts for everybody:
What’s so bad about being crazy or foreign? Huh?
What’s keeping us from turning it off, if we don’t like what it’s teaching our kids? Or from sticking with shows with female characters we like?
Do you think it’s possible our kids could pay more attention to us than to the TV/XBox/whatever? (And Seth, I think you’re right about gaming, which means I am going to have to figure it out if I ever want to relate to my boys!)
Me, I have boys. I love having boys. I love giving them exciting, multidimensional female characters to think about, whether it’s Mulan or Ramona Quimby or Hermione Granger. And kids notice and embrace the really great characters. My younger son, a 5yo superhero nut, went through a whole phase where Wonder Woman was the coolest one in the Justice League. He made up his own Wonder Boy costume complete with bracelets (packing tape) and magic lasso (shoelace). Lucky mommy (me) got to be Wonder Woman all the time.
On a more intellectual level — is it possible that male characters dominate popular media because a male-oriented narrative is easier to tie up in 30 - 80 minutes? If you’re going to talk myth and archetype, a masculine narrative is linear with a beginning, middle and end. There’s a goal, a conflict. When that’s resolved, it’s over. A feminine narrative is cyclical and complex, maybe even epic and multigenerational. Not easy to fit into the movies or the Saturday morning cartoons.
Comment by Ana — May 16, 2006 @ 3:13 pm
Since I have no kiddos, I’m rather uneducated about cartoons and animated flicks, but I do recall a seething rage when I first viewed *The Little Mermaid* and digested the idea that little girls everwhere were excited to emulate a princess who wins her prince’s heart by literally giving up her voice and simply looking pretty. Then, of course, there’s the subtextual message that it’s fine to sell your soul/voice to the devil (a girl!) because when the going gets tough your patriarchal figure will rescue you just in time for you to get married and the weathered age of 16. I still loathe that movie. At least the original fairy tale involved a Christ parable about sacrificing for others (albeit one where it is, of course, the girl who loses her life in order to assure happiness for her beloved).
When I had a visiting prof gig at BYU for a term, one of my classes had fun dissecting gender roles in fairy tales. Oddly, though, the boys seemed more willing to buy the idea that deleterious gender roles in kids’ stories had any bearing on reality. The same always seemed true for all my classes at the Catholic university I taught at for 7 years. And when I taught Tess of the Dubervilles to Provo high school seniors on year, ONLY boys felt Tess had been raped, and ONLY girls thought she got what was coming to her. That was the most depressing batch of papers I have ever graded in my entire life, although I was THRILLED that the boys seemed to get it.
I just watched Whale Rider last night. Lovely film. I realize most kids under 12 wouldn’t sit still for it, but it DOES make me feel a bit better about the entertainment industry.
Comment by Janet — May 16, 2006 @ 3:17 pm
I’d vote for Chihiro. A real girl doing her best to survive and triumph in a very difficult and alien situation.
Also Sophie — the best and kindest animated portrayal I’ve seen of an old woman — she’s neither evil nor senile nor bitter nor helpless.
N.O.
Comment by not ophelia — May 16, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
Janet, I thought the whole point of Little Mermaid (the movie, anyway) was that, while Ariel is pretty, the Prince really doesn’t recognize her as his true love until she can speak up.
The Disney movie I can’t stand is Cinderella. She’s just so whiny. And she doesn’t seem capable of taking control of her own destiny, which I find frustrating. It becomes a story that’s all about finding a great ball gown and a ride to the dance. OTOH, Snow White at least whistles while she works, and makes a new happy life for herself in the forest. Granted, she’s taking care of a bunch of grumpy little men, but she’s doing it because she wants to. The prince does come save her at the end, but as far as she’s concerned, life’s not bad on her own (until the witch puts her in a poison-apple coma, anyway).
Comment by Allison — May 16, 2006 @ 4:20 pm
The best female cartoon character would be Herself, in many forms. I’d vote for Chihiro, and any of the girls in Miyazaki films — they are, by the way, always characters at the forefront of wading through the possibilities of engaging old, forgotten worlds of magic, spirit, nature, etc. In other words, the feminine narrative. And N.O., I wholeheartedly agree that we need to get busy and write our feminine narratives.
Comment by pele — May 16, 2006 @ 4:20 pm
re: best female cartoon characters:
I love the two sisters in Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. They aren’t perfect characters, they’re real characters. They argue with each other, they make messes, they worry about their mother, they love each other, they discover magic and ways to cope with their problems on a practical and emotional level. Those are the types of characters I love to see in children’s movies.
Comment by Allison — May 16, 2006 @ 4:23 pm
Remember that the Resident Evil in all of Disney movies seems to be a demonic older woman; traditionally that woman was known as the “sage,” but she’s turned into a scheming hag to be feared.
Anyway, Ariel’s bangs are too big for me to take her seriously, and we all know that one day she’ll get old and warty and probably turn into a conniving witch. Let’s wait for the next installment, called “The Old Farts Under the Sea.” It won’t happen, because Ariel turns into an old witch and the prince runs off with a starlet.
Has anyone seen Wicked or read the novel? I think that is a good start into our new feminine narrative.
Comment by pele — May 16, 2006 @ 4:27 pm
Allison–yeah, you could make that argument, but he’s already attracted to her when she’s mute (you know, the whole “kiss the girl” bit). At least they did write in the idea that he wants the woman who saved his life and he realizes that was Ariel when she can finally speak. There’s a dual message, and i prefer your version. But still–the very idea that she thought it was a great idea to sacrifice her voice in order to win his love nauseates me, as does the fact that she needs a male figure to rescue her in order to speak again. And that she left her entire world for a guy she didn’t know. But then, I’m feeling cranky today.
Cinderella is pretty whiney! Have you ever seen *Into the Woods*? I prefer that version of Cinderella–she’s great.
Comment by Janet — May 16, 2006 @ 5:08 pm
FYI: Miyazaki’s next film — Tales From Earthsea — should be released in Japan in the not too distant future.
I’d guess another year for the English translation.
Here’s a link to the Japanese trailer. The soundtrack is choppy, but it’s still beautiful to watch.
N.O.
Comment by not ophelia — May 16, 2006 @ 5:59 pm
Also — you can hear a bit of the unchoppy Tales From Earthsea soundtrack [sans pictures] here.
N.O.
Comment by not ophelia — May 16, 2006 @ 6:06 pm
Great, I’ve finally got a movie to actually look forward to!
Darlene, sorry I didn’t come through for you in the first post. Sailor Moon was really big in Japan when I was a missionary there. It was something of a running joke with the missionaries.
I like all Miyazaki’s stuff and concur with the accolades for the protagonists of Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.
However, I’m sorry but, Nausicaa outclasses them all. Admittedly, the movie is a bit dated. The English dub of Nausicaa’s voice also comes off a little less forceful than I’d like. On top of which, the movie is an extremely abridged version of a much longer graphic novel series. Watch the movie, but have a look at the books as well.
I’ve never been more impressed with a female hero. Nausicaa is an amazingly rendered character. And the supporting cast is equally strong. Any one of them could have carried their own story as a hero in their own right. But Nausicaa manages to transcend them all.
Right after Nausicaa, I think Princess Kushana is my favorite Miyazaki character (also from the story of Nausicaa). Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke is also a lot of fun.
Comment by Seth R. — May 16, 2006 @ 7:55 pm
Anguish over there not being enough women cartoon characters? Are you joking?
Comment by annegb — May 16, 2006 @ 9:08 pm
fMhLisa,
Thanks for an interesting post. I am a father of soon-to-be three girls. I consider myself a feminist (ignoring that many people think you have to be female to care about feminist issues). I recall another sad statistic you might add to your already upsetting list: in television dramas, the vast majority of victims of violent crimes are female.
There are some notable exceptions. My daughters watch almost exclusively PBS Kids shows, and I would say that main-characters-that-are-female stands at 50%. The difference is that little girls are happy to watch shows that feature male characters (Caillou, Clifford, Arthur), but boys my daughters’ ages aren’t interested in shows that feature girls.
Comment by BrianJ — May 16, 2006 @ 9:21 pm
M.E. aka VirtualM:
You forget that Violet could create a force-field as well as turn invisible. My daughter (age 4) really liked that Violet had that power. Note that it makes Violet the protector (a typically male role).
Comment by BrianJ — May 16, 2006 @ 9:33 pm
By the way,
For those complaining that Violet’s super-power is invisibility …
I was listening to an informal survey that asked people what super-power they would choose to have.
The majority of the girls chose invisibility.
The majority of the guys chose flying.
Comment by Seth R. — May 16, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
Every time I come back to the comments, the list gets longer and longer.
Comment by Rob — May 16, 2006 @ 9:46 pm
This is why we always do the subtitles for our Miyazaki DVDs. In fact, we always do the subtitles for most every foreign-language film we watch. I’ve never seen Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa in English [and wouldn’t want to. Films can really lose a lot of power and context with that sort of translation]
N.O.
Comment by not ophelia — May 16, 2006 @ 10:30 pm
Another great girl film is the Swedish film Ronja Rovardotter. It’s based on the Astird Lindgren book of the same name [English translation: Ronia Robbersdaughter] It tells the story of the brave and resourceful Ronja and her adventures and heroism and indepenence. It’s also a very different/foreign film: definately aimed at the under 12 set, and very Swedish.
As far as I know it was never translated into English, but young kids should enjoy it anyway. You can also download the subtitles here.
Comment by not ophelia — May 16, 2006 @ 10:54 pm
#48- I don’t think the anguish is simply “there aren’t enough cartoon characters”. It is indicative of a deeper problem. Why emphasize quality rather than quantity with female characters, then say male characters can whatever? There a literally hundreds of different studies I could quote that I read in college, various tests of children’s perceptions of gender roles, etc, based upon what they saw men and women portrayed as doing. Also, the assertion that you can control what the media sends out? You can turn off the T.V., sure. But the T.V. is in school. What about the radio, billboards, the internet, other people’s influence. The media does care about money, and the more people it makes happy, the more it makes, which means that unfortunately the majority of the public either consciously or subconsciously agrees with these themes.
You might say “if it’s unconscious, why get upset? You don’t even notice it” But who knows how these images effect you. So many strong feminist mothers (like in a comment earlier somewhere up here) say “WHERE did my daughter even HEAR that??”
It is a monumental task to change the media. But it starts with being aware of the way they manipulate us, and then taking action by telling others and refusing to intake that junk. But it is also crucial to let our anger be known. I wrote into Cloroxx bleach after all of those insipid commercials “Mama keeps our house bright like the sunshine, Mama’s got the magic of Cloroxx” showing a smiling mom skipping around the house happily cleaning up after everyone, her “magic” being a cleaning product. Did it change anything? Maybe not. But at least I felt I was doing something, and one day I can teach my daughters to do the same.
Even if change doesn’t happen, the act of trying to make it happen is empowering.
Comment by sophia*rising — May 16, 2006 @ 10:57 pm
However, it took her the entire movie to get the courage to use it — she had serious mental and esteem blockages going on. After all, that was an enormous power — she was able to protect her entire family. I think Pixar really hit on something. Women have been fed subtle, destructive messages that our power is something to be feared — because it is so great.
Speaking of something to do…I get the sense that Pixar is swinging around, but they’re blindfolded, and the great, imaginative feminine story is elusive.
If you ask me, the goofballs at Pixar are open to a freer feminine narrative. At the moment, they are just working out of the same discourse we all are. I wonder how we could suggest it? I think I saw Miyazaki visiting Pixar studios in the latest studio Ghibli DVD . They’re getting close.
Comment by pele — May 17, 2006 @ 1:12 am
I agree that the Japanese anime movies tend to have strong female characters in addition to their male characters. My youngest daughter majored in Japanese, spent time in Japan as a college student, and still (years later) is devoted to her manga and even draws it on her website, with strong female characters (although she is very enamored of Detective Conan and calls herself the Tantei Kid).
She also watches them undubbed, because she thinks the English versions are badly/over done. However, since she can speak the language, when she watches them with me we have to have the English subtitles. (I like to have a clue!)
Seth, Sailor Moon (who was good enough for BNL), was a good comment, it was just a bit cryptic given that you usually weigh in with a few more insights. I commented because I was surprised at the brevity. (Lunch hour?)
Our United States society is not the worst for civil and equal rights but we certainly are not the best, or even good to the level I would like to see. I hope my grandchildren are able to effect more changes than I was able to, and that we continue to have these discussions when we see there are still areas which could be improved.
Comment by Darlene — May 17, 2006 @ 5:35 am
I think one thing that most people posting miss, is the fact that we have to be the gateway for what comes into our homes. My husband treats me with lots of respect, does his fair share of household jobs (or more, since I am pregnant and SICK), and this is the example my children are seeing. He never yells at me (or I at him), we discuss things together, and try to be a united front when dealing with the issues that come up with our 3 children. It has been MY idea to get pregnant each time I have (not that our kids would necessarily know it), but my point is that the influence they see in our home is what I hope will lead them in the future. They see my husband treating me with respect, and I treat him with respect too (both are equally important, IMHO) Yes, my daughter loves princess movies… she is also much more “boyish” than my oldest son. She loves sports and playing with swords. LIkewise, my boys love the pretend kitchen we have, and frankly, play with it more than she does.
I am grateful for what many feminists before me have done in getting women to be more recognized as contributing members of society… not to be relegated to the top floors of our homes and rarely seen in public (as was the ancient Chinese custom in a book I just read). But I do not believe that men and women are equal. I believe that women have strengths, and men have strengths, and we should capitalize on those. My aquaintance with ERA tells me that it would not have made men and women equal ( there will always be cases of inequality, no matter what the lawbooks say), but would have made it so we all had to use the same bathrooms, so that all dorms would have to be co-ed (a trend I find quite disturbing), and other invasions of my privacy.
Anyway, I will get off my soapbox, but I wanted to emphasize how much parental influence determines the roles our children see, and that hopefully we give them more of that than cartoons!
Comment by Ginger — May 17, 2006 @ 6:55 am
Ginger-
Just to clarify- when you say you don’t believe that women and men are equal, and that we have different strengths, do you mean we can’t compare one another, and so “equal” is a word that doesn’t apply effectively? Like when people say things like “men and women are not the same, and can’t be compared, but they are equal in importance?” I’m asking because I was just wondering what you feel we as women are to men, and vice versa, if we aren’t equal. (this really is a genuine question out of curiousity, nothing snide or sarcastic in it at all :).
Comment by sophia*rising — May 17, 2006 @ 8:55 am
The purpose of ERA was to make men and women equal before the law.
Also, I don’t understand how saying that since “there will always be cases of inequality no matter what the law books say” we shouldn’t even bother with trying to get the ‘before the law’ part right.
N.O.
Comment by Not Ophelia — May 17, 2006 @ 9:26 am
So, I went to a school with coed dorms and coed bathrooms, and you know what? it didn’t really hurt me. The things that really hurt me were the messages that said I’m not good enough because I’m a girl, and told me that women can’t really succeed in science, certainly not without abandoning being women. Those attitudes start pretty early, I think, and as much as we may want to dismiss cartoons, they do perpetuate a lot of our culture. It actually worries me that we’re accepting of the imbalance in our cultural imagery, and that some of us women even defend it or blow it off as unimportant. Girls may be more willing to accept a good story without worrying about the gender of the main character than boys are, but we’re also, I think, more willing to accept men as role models in general. That’s not good. Our little boys should be looking up to women as role models as well, and not in the condescending “put you on a pedestal because you’re perfect” way that’s so often employed at church.
As a scientist I don’t have all that many female role models. It’s better than it used to be, but I remember as a child ALL the scientist characters in cartoons (who I admired and aspried to be like) were male. I rejected my femininity because femaleness and seriousness are, from everything I’ve ever seen, not compatible. That attitude started in childhood, from cartoons.
Comment by kristine N. — May 17, 2006 @ 9:36 am
My mother, my wife, and so many other women I know just aren’t bogged down by a lingering desire to find lingering stereotypes where there are none, or maybe where there are. They seem to get along very well by working hard and pursuing their interests. I guess there is value to parsing out what cartoons say about gender. And I guess it’s okay to have this as part of a random college course somewhere.
But in reality, it just doesn’t seem to be an issue. But maybe I live in a made up world where men and women are equal and plodding side by side to achieve very real goals.
And the “condescending . . . pedestal . . .” kind of respect that is so “often employed at church.” I’ve heard this before, but I don’t get it. Can you give examples of this kind of behavior that is so offensive? My inclination is that my thoughts on the divinity of motherhood and the value of womanhood would fall in this category if I were to, say, talk about them in a church talk. Am I wrong?
Comment by rd — May 17, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
Huh. I never thought about this. My concern has always been the lack of women in the scriptures.
But for what it’s worth, my little boy’s favorite cartoon is the Power Puff Girls! (I had to ban it, however, because I suspected it was making him act agressively…)
Comment by Beck — May 17, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
Of course cartoons and other stereotypes aren’t important, and we can and do influence our children in the home. The point is, these cartoons and stereotypes are reflections of the general conscious and subconscious understandings of a larger society. You could ban all TV and keep your children in the country, where they saw no billboards, and listen to no radio, but you might be surprised at what their internal receivers will still pick up.
I know a little boy who has no TV in his home. Somehow, he is the most violent kid on the block, and has already developed a strong sense of misogyny. It was from him that my daughter picked up on the message that boys are better than girls, vaginas are gross, etc. Both of his parents are religious, and lead outwardly conscientous lives.
Perhaps this is a more extreme example, but you can see that if we think that cartoons & culture in general are reflections of the real narrative going on within, you can understand why we find it so disturbing.
Comment by pele — May 17, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
rd–check out the link in post #2. that’s what I’m talking about wrt condecending pedestals.
just out of curiosity, what sorts of goals are your wife, mother, and other women you refer to seeking?
the point of my (rambling, disorganized) previous post was more about my frustration as a young girl trying to find role models that resonated with me, that I wanted to emulate, and that were not male. I’m a nerd. Always have been, always will be. I like science and have always wanted to become a scientist. Most scientists are male, and the ones that are female have, until fairly recently, had to choose between having a career and having a family; in other words, women have had to choose between being a scientist and being what, in this culture, quintessentially makes one a woman: motherhood. a lot of women in science (myself included) signal our willingness to forgo motherhood to be a “serious scientist” by presenting oursevles as gender neutral to masculine. If you want to be considered serious in science, don’t look girly.
I’m not blaming that on cartoons by any stretch of the imagination. What I am suggesting is that by showing very limited invovlement of women in our cultural narratives we suggest femininity is less desireable, less serious, less cool. For me, that’s encouraged a rejection of femininity. I see most of the trappings of femininity as of secondary importance at best, undesireable at worst. By only presenting male characters, we elevate the masculine characteristics and suggest femininity is undesireable.
Comment by kristine N. — May 17, 2006 @ 5:07 pm
#59 - I definitely feel women and men have equal importance, especially in God’s eternal plan. I just feel that we each have different roles to fulfill in society.
#60 - The 14th amendament of the constitution already guarantees equal rights for all… the ERA is not needed. I don’t think that we should let ourselves not be treated equally before the law, but I think the law is already there. To me, the wording of the ERA opens up a whole other can of worms.
#61 and 65 - I really believe that the real-life roles we see contribute to our sense of worth as a woman, rather than what we see on the cartoon shows. Since elementary school, I have had female and male teachers in all subjects, including sports and science. In fact, if I wasn’t so dang bad at chemistry, I might be a fellow scientist. I had positive real life role models, and that is what made me believe I could be a marine biologist, or anything else I wanted.
I think when you ask what sort of goals we are seeking as women or mothers, it is important to recognize that some of us believe that raising a family is a full time job. I do have goals other than being a mom, but feel there is a time and a season for everything. I made sure to get my degree before I had children, and now have put future career plans on hold to raise my family. I don’t judge the choice of those who try to balance a career and a family, but I certainly couldn’t do both at the same time and expect to be good at both. I read an article the other day about a high powered career woman who gave up her career to garden her 2 acre home. When her teenage son was told her plans, he said to her, “Let me get this straight. When I was younger and wanted you around, you weren’t here, and now that I don’t want you around, you will be.”
Sorry FMHLisa… this has kind of hijacked your original topic, but I just want to get out the idea that the real life role models we have are more important than the cartoon images we see.
Comment by Ginger — May 17, 2006 @ 6:00 pm
This isn’t just about cartoons. Very few movies and tv shows at all are gender balanced. Those that are tend to be geared toward women (personal observation–no statistics to back this one up), so the pattern that’s set in cartoons seems to be continue into adult programming.
Comment by kristine N. — May 17, 2006 @ 6:28 pm
Darlene,
Sorry, I’ll try to be more wordy next time.
N.O.
The new dub of Nausicaa is worth checking out. It was actually very well done. Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman … Nausicaa was just a bit too weak-voiced for the part. But she did fine as well. But check out the books.
Castle in the Sky however … I wouldn’t touch that dub with a ten-foot pole. I think Disney deliberately vandalized the film to make their own offerings look better.
Comment by Seth R. — May 17, 2006 @ 7:37 pm
I just want to point out that everyone on this thread was given the same limited movies growing up….and yet……we don’t think women “should” be invisible, and we know we have value.
Honestly, I never knew girls weren’t supposed to be good at math because I was good at math. It never came up until the whole talking Barbie “Math is hard, lets go to the mall” came on the news.
I think that the media is powerful, but when it comes to respecting women or thinking women are competent, kids’ views are formed from other sources as well.
So, why did all of you not buy into the media’s portrayal of women? Was it because of what you saw at home, or what seemed right from within?
Comment by jks — May 17, 2006 @ 8:39 pm
Kristine,
President Packer, I think, was trying his best to describe what he believes to be gospel standards for womanhood. But he never trivialized, I don’t think, personal challenges. As for the pedestal, I guess when he called his wife “perfect” that may have fit your description. Okay, I’m cool with that. But I think his wife probably took it as a bit of hyperbole founded in love. Honestly, that is what most of us men who speak of our wives in public places are doing, fumbling. I try to mention my wife in every public presentation that I give. I thank her for making so many things possible in my life–family, career, etc. And I do so publicly. Is that a condescending pedestal?
My mother is a physician who, gratefully for me (she certainly didn’t need to make this decision, but did) dropped her practice for a season to care for me and my brothers during our formative years. I know many who choose to work and raise a family___for whatever reason____are equally impressive. Those choices are just none of my business. But I consider many working mothers to be close friends to me and my wife. My wife is a mother and a freelancing photographer (a career that certainly does not pose the clear challenges present in your persuasive description of the sciences). Each of them diligently pursue professional and familial goals. And I rarely hear from them the concerns that you raise. But I do sympathize with your challenges in the sciences. That cannot be easy. Best of luck.
I think in most wards and stakes you will (should) find people who are very supportive of your choices. As much as these blogs rail on the “establishment” for a failure to understand, communicate, or try to get to know faithful people of all stripes, I don’t see it. I think there are very careful, understanding, loving people in the church that try very hard to reach out to all. A lot of times I think we choose to turn down the offerings of support because, in a way, it is easier.
Comment by rd — May 18, 2006 @ 11:41 am
How willing are most men to take on women’s work (housecare, childcare, etc.)? How are men that take on those roles portrayed in the media? I have a new favorite commercial–a bunch of men are standing around a trampoline, asking each other if they think it’ll hold. One guy hops on, jumps a few times, makes a girly pose and is immediately squashed by a beer can. End message–”men should be men, and beer should be beer. ”
In another installment, a bunch of men are standing around a lawnmower, trying to get it to start. One guy’s underwear is showing and it’s–gasp!–tiger striped. He gets squashed too, followed by the same “men should be men, beer should be beer” voiceover.
Is this important? does it really matter? It’s a funny commercial, but why? We have a man getting squashed in front of his buddies for expressing femininity. Obviously the beer-can smashing thing isn’t going to happen in real life, but in real life the onlooking friends would ridicule the guy, which might make the beer can look like a good option.
So, here’s where the ‘condescending pedestal’ comes in: we revere women for doing things that, if a man did them, would earn him ridicule. Man doing housework? he must be whipped, or have a lazy, good-for-nothing wife (if you doubt that, watch wife-swap some week. that’s a great education in societal norms for parenting and gender roles).
I have no doubt Pres. Packer and you are trying to be sensitive and generous–I appreciate the sentiment. The hyperbole sounds, to me, fake and insincere.
I also have to ask, if it’s not a big deal that there are no girls in cartoons, why is there so much resistance to adding them?
Comment by kristine N. — May 18, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
I don’t know how meaningful this is. Take a TV cartoon show like Dragon Tails. There’s a little boy, a little girl, and a bunch of androgynous dragons. If most of the voices are male, could it be that there are probably more men working in the cartoon voice industry.
I think that if we ignore the question of what these male and female cartoons are doing, then we have no basis for pointing to any bias at all. If it’s common to portray men as being stupid and women as being smart, then the disproportionate number of men equates them with the rabble and the women with the elite. There are just too many confounding variables to make any real conclusions based on numbers alone.
For example, there’s been some talk about the Incredibles, which shows predominantly male super heroes. But most of the super heroes shown that are not members of the Incredibles family are the dimwits who are flashed on the screen to demonstrate how un-wise it is to use a cape. If my memory serves, only one of these super heroes is a woman.
Comment by DKL — May 18, 2006 @ 5:20 pm
“There are just too many confounding variables to make any real conclusions based on numbers alone.”
Bull Shit.
This might be a credible arguement if there numbers were anywhere even reaching equitable. However they are not, they are massivily violently hugely enourmously imbalanced. Only 7% of movies are even NEARLY gender balanced. You can make very real conclusions about our society based on numbers this massively screwed up. Namely, we watch boys and what boys do Vastly vastly more than we watch girls and what girls do. Even if that’s the only conclusion you draw it’s still massively screwed up.
Comment by fMhLisa — May 18, 2006 @ 5:39 pm
Let’s talk specifics: So the movie the Seventh Sign is sexist because most of the characters are women? Or Walk the Line? Or Broke Back Mountain? Or Back to the Future? or Rambo? Or is there just some nebulous sense in which this is evidence for some underlying sexist?
Comment by DKL — May 18, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
I think that portrayal of females in children’s programming still has a long way to go but that it has improved, and this improvement is itself largely a question of “following the money.”
Basically, today there are tons of moms out there who are on the lookout for how females characters are portrayed. (See this thread for example
). Both of my kids are boys, yet I’m concerned about the how they see girls and women, so I generally mentally do a little feminist analysis of the shows they watch.
For example, with “the Wiggles” — there’s only one female main character (Dorothy the Dinosaur), but she seems positive and not stereotyped, so it could be better but this show passes muster.
However, I disagree with this idea that boys will only read about male characters whereas girls will read about either gender. I remember when I was in third grade getting angry about being made to read a story in school about the adventures of a group of boys where they explicitly excluded girls. My favorite book around that time was The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin), which is an adventure where the protagonist is a girl.
And speaking of Harry Potter, I recently posted a review of Philip Pullman’s “Dark Materials” trilogy comparing it to the Harry Potter series. Discussing this trilogy on Internet forums, I’ve found that it has plenty of male fans even though the adventurous hero destined by prophecy to do something important happens to be a girl.
Comment by C.L. Hanson — May 18, 2006 @ 10:42 pm
Kristine (#61, #65),
In my high-prestige biology department (I’m a grad student) I find that I don’t have any role models either. I’m a young man with a family and there are no family men for me to look to as examples, as mentors, or as an affirmation that I can be a family man and succeed in science. The men that do have children have very few and they tend to have them after they get tenure. Academic science is just not family friendly at all, for men or women. Although I didn’t know it at the time, my decision to have children at a relatively young age was pretty much a decision not to pursue a career in science. (That’s not entirely true. I could go on and do a couple of two-year post-docs and try to get a tenure track job, but that’s just not a path I want to lead my family down, for their sakes and for mine)
I don’t want to discount your experience since I can’t know your experience without experiencing it, and things may be different in my field or in my department, but I don’t see that femininity is a barrier to respect or success. About 80% of the students that started the program the year I did are women and they seem to me to be a pretty standard lot of young women. People seem to respect ingenuity, precision, thoroughness, articulateness, and general smarts no matter what package they come in. Of course, that’s just my perception. That’s my attitude and that seems to be the attitude of everyone I talk to. What is a (surmountable) barrier to success is having kids before tenure.
Comment by Tom — May 18, 2006 @ 10:44 pm
Just a side observation- the many different responses to this topic, as well as the different levels of emotion, from anger to ambivalence, all illustrate the key problem with modern feminism- We have nothing which we can all point to and say “THAT SUCKS, let’s change that”. It was much easier in the days when women couldn’t vote, couldn’t divorce, were beaten and abused and treated as property, to gather together and say “THAT SUCKS, let’s change that” (of course, even then, there were some disagreements).
It is the problem I encounter when people say “You have the vote, you have your rights, you can go to any school you want, why do we need feminism?” We DO still need feminism, and in my opinion it is because of things like these dismal statistics. But, as is their right, many self proclaimed feminists don’t think it’s worth bothering over.
So, it’s much much harder to make changes, when no one can agree on what needs to be changed, or what should be prioritized, etc. etc. This isn’t a condemnation of anything/one, just an observation because this thread and the replies illustrate it so perfectly. A lot of times I think “GRRRRRR, so many things need to change for women!” But there isn’t one huge, glaring thing to point to. Currently, however, for me it would be the “mommy track” and how difficult it is to be a mother and a career woman- quality day care, health care, and education, as well as paid maternity leave and a guaranteed position when you come back. But then other’s would say “Women should be at home with the kids anyway”, as is their right, so once more, what do we rally around???
End tangent
Comment by sophia*rising — May 19, 2006 @ 5:47 am
2 practical solutions:
1: Heavily patronize and promote media which encourages the gender equity you wish to be portrayed– and communicate with the producers of those you patronize (and those you don’t!) the reasons for your choice.
(Assuming most readers here are in North America–) We are after all in a free-enterprise economic system where our wallets do the voting as to which media succeeds long-term. If media shapes culture and attitudes, we can be responsible for which media succeeds, thereby choosing which media shapes culture and attitude.
2: Participate in the creation of media which portrays the gender equity you wish to see. Work hard at making it quality entertainment, so that the content, not merely the presence of gender equity, makes it sell.
Again with the free-enterprise system point.
All else, frankly, is less-than-dignified whining/carping, which does little to promote an image of women of strength, capable of carving their own destinies and having contributions of quality to the world.
Comment by Kevin B. — May 19, 2006 @ 1:42 pm
I’ve also posted some analysis of “Thomas the Tank Engine” on the occasion of my sweet little Leo’s third birthday party…
Comment by C.L. Hanson — May 20, 2006 @ 12:50 pm
Kevin…sometimes it takes a little whining and carping to get to a consensus. Otherwise, we might think we were all alone in our thinking. Collective carping can lead to great things.
You have a great point about voting with our wallets (or handbags, or clutches, or pocketbooks). If we refused to buy the schlocky DVDs and books…WOW.
There was an instance a while back in Japan, where housewives did this exact thing. This was in the 70’s I think. I don’t have time to check facts but bear with me… The Japanese TV manufacturers, in order to gain a chunk of the US TV market, were selling their televisions cheaper than it cost to make them in the US. They made up what they lost by inflating the price of TV’s back in Japan.
Japanese housewives, who traditionally control the household pocketbook, got wind of this, and somehow organized a boycott of all television manufacturers. The end result was that they got the prices of TV’s lowered.
So, this actually happened, but I think this story takes on mythical proportions. My question: how do we organize a boycott of hard to define schlocky kids shows???
Comment by pele — May 20, 2006 @ 4:50 pm
pele,
I might have come across more strident than I intended, and you have a good point– correlation and organization would be necessary for any kind of group boycott.
Although a boycott wasn’t really what I had in mind… More like, a forum of discussion specifically on positive children’s media, where users could nominate, review & promote media which contains the values they prefer.
Actually, if it had enough traffic, such a forum might also attract new creators of media with similar content– killing both birds with the same stone, so to speak.
Comment by Kevin B. — May 20, 2006 @ 5:17 pm
Tom–
I would suggest your lack of role models and my lack of role models are connected. By the way, I do know a few professors who had young children during grad school. All of them are men, and all of them have either a stay at home mom or a less time intensive job (teaching so as to be around during summer, or something like that). I’d also point out a lot of professors don’t get married until they graduate. Married grad students are in the minority everywhere I’ve ever attended school, so it’s probably a good thing they don’t have kids.
Science and acadame are changing, and it’s possible it’ll become a more family-friendly career choice, though given the highly motivated, competitive people that tend to go into science I’m doubtful it’ll change much. From what I’ve seen, the expectation in the sciences is that to succeed you have to give up everything else and just compete. Women are at a disadvantage in the competition because we tend to be less agressive and less secure. Those who I see succeeding by and large adopt a very masculine approach to dealing with people (being a hard ass, being very agressive, never admitting they’re wrong). Thus, my claim that success in science almost requires women to give up their feminine qualities as most of those qualities make one seem soft and less serious.
Biology tends to have more women in it than just about any other hard science. It may be a more fair environment. In fact, my time there suggests it probably is. Even so, I’ve seen plenty of male cheuvanism in biology, though fortunately it’s almost exclusive to the older generation that will soon be retiring.
Comment by kristine N — May 22, 2006 @ 7:23 am
Having spent some time working in the film industry, IMHO the reason so many films have male leads is that the vast majority of producers are still men. Talk about a boys club. The ratio of male to female producers is not even close. And generally speaking men relate more to male characters than they do to female characters. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. It’s just the way men think. It filters all they way down to the way films are shot. I believe the term is the “male gaze”.
Until we get more female producers this is not going to change much.
It is also conventional wisdom that men will not go to see films that have a female protagonist. So it becomes self-perpetuating. By the way, it wasn’t always like this. Anyone remember “Gone With The Wind”?
Comment by Lorelei Lee — May 24, 2006 @ 1:52 pm
Amen, sister…I was leading a book discussion with second graders, and one boy chimed in that he didn’t like the book because it was too girly. I bit my tongue, so as not to eat him.
I’m sick of hearing about “chick flicks.” We don’t talk about “dude flicks” do we? And we don’t say that a film or book is “too boy-y!”
And, yes, it wasn’t always this way. But back when everyone was watching Gone With the Wind, it was not “gay” for men to dance or wear dapper clothes, either. You could also make a film Some Like It Hot with cross-dressing male characters, and not be socially marginalized.
What the h-e-double-toothpicks happened????
Comment by pele — May 24, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
there’s a new poll out on favorite cartoon characters. not that it’s a shock, but the top 5 are all male. in fact, I didn’t see a female character on the list (though I’ve only read the reuters story, not the original survey).
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-06-09T133418Z_01_ZWE835592_RTRUKOC_0_US-BRITAIN-POOH.xml&src=rss
Comment by kristine N — June 9, 2006 @ 12:54 pm
#27 Games will always be a revinew generator, but never the creative leader.
*never* is a strong word. I take you haven’t played very many / any story based games? Game-based stories could be better than any book - kind of like a movie and a choose your own adventure type thing put together, but they need people to take them seriously first. Computer games are actually in the same perdicament that women are in, they are seen as sub-par forms of entertainment, that could never be serious, could never actually *say* anything important etc etc.
#24 But they still wont replace books
(or even tv, I think - or at least computer based programming or some such inovation of the future)
Comment by SusieD — June 14, 2006 @ 5:41 pm