Some reflections on representation of gender roles
particularly in children's media.
As I have young sons and I am extremely interested in their development into gender roles as well as their attitudes towards women and girls, I decided to take as my main focus for the day representation of women and girls (as well as men and boys) in children's media. The data I collected in the course of the day - a content analysis of the day's transmission on the CBeebies television channel - will be written into a more formal report but I wanted to capture here, more informally, a series of observations made during the normal course of the day of action - 3rd July 2007.
*Warning* - some of the content of this web page is not suitable for children to read.
I am painfully aware of the absolutely relentless diet of gender-stereotyping that goes on all around young children, in the media and educational materials as well as from peers and adults. In children's media, boys and men are active and visible: there are fewer women and girls. Sometimes the women and girls are portrayed as normal individuals but often they are pigeonholed. In day to day life, 'deviant' or transgressive behaviour is surveilled and pronounced upon time and time again. I have watched my sons being ridiculed by their peers for having a pink bell on a bike (aged 3), for dresssing up in a friend's thrilling floaty dress with matching shoes and feather boa (aged 4), for asking to watch a DVD of Sleeping Beauty (aged 4), for playing with girls instead of excluding them from a game (aged 6). In my hearing they have been challenged by adults for transgressions such as wearing nail varnish (aged 4), or for reading books about fairies (aged 6). For their birthdays and at Christmas they are given football paraphernalia, guns, swords, warrior figures, tanks and bomber planes to play with. They are exposed to endless pronouncements about "what boys are like" and "what girls are like". Against this backdrop we are often treated to folk wisdom from fellow parents, neighbours or relatives who inform us that this is how nature made boys and girls: boys are instinctively violent, competitive and athletic while girls are instinctively soppy, nurturing and VERY INTERESTED IN THE COLOUR PINK.
To a feminist whose vision of the world as it could be for our children is different from the way the world is now, these distortions of gender difference and exaggerated reflections of the status quo are significant and damaging. They matter because they interfere with children's ability to develop into free individuals, and to respect the individuality and personal qualities of others around them.
The day begins with getting ready for school and nursery.
07:45 – 08:15 - reading school books
There is no available list of the books contained in the school library. This morning I took a quick look at the contents of the book bags of our 5 year old and 6 year old.
5-year-old
Library book – self chosen
'Meg and Mog' - a well known illustrated children's book. Meg the witch (F) and Mog her cat (M) go off to a wild Hallowe'en party with all the other witches (Jess -F, Bess - F, Tess - F, Cress -F). The spell they cast goes off with a BANG! (they turn all the other witches into creatures).
Verdict: Hurray! Female characters take the lead roles and the only male character is a sidekick cat. While I suppose there has been plenty written in feminist theory about women as witches, these are sympathetic characters. While they do take care in dressing up, carefully putting on their Hallowe'en regalia, at least it is all black stuff (not a hint of pink in sight).
Oxford Reading Scheme book #1 – illustrated text
'Naughty Children'. Featuring the child characters Biff and Chip the twins (M and F) plus Kipper their brother. Mum is at home with her three children. A man in a pinstripe suit drops off a girl and a boy to spend the day with the family. The kids behave badly until mum takes them out to a park. Later the man in the suit comes to pick the visiting children up.
Verdict: I do wish that sometimes mum would swap her dangly earrings and comfy gear for a sharp suit, but to be fair when dad makes an appearance in the series he is never in a suit either. That is left to the father of the 'naughty children'. Thankfully, all the children are equally rumbustious in this story. It is by no means a 'Peter and Jane' nightmare of the kind I recall from my youth.
Oxford Reading Scheme book #2 – illustrated text
'Book Week'. Kipper (M) enjoys book week at school: the children make stories, have a visit from an author and dress up. One woman features: she is a teacher. Every other adult is a man. I recorded, page by page, the number of times that male and female characters appeared in the illustrations, whenever I could tell what gender they were.
Boys |
Men |
Girls |
Women |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
6 |
0 |
5 |
1 |
5 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
9 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
6 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
6 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
41 |
10 |
12 |
6 |
Verdict: Gosh! There seem to be significantly more men and boys going about their business and doing stuff than women and girls. Perhaps there was a female-specific virus doing the rounds in Kipper's home town that day and they were home sick in bed, or maybe they had just gone shopping.
6-year-old
Oxford Reading Tree: Patrick and the Fox.
This is an illustrated story which is about a boy character who discovers a fox in the garden. His mother and father both feature.
Verdict: Just another story where the main character is a boy. Nothing wrong with that, but if I had access to a list of all the stories in the library I would be willing to bet that they are in the sizeable majority. While Patrick's mum initially disappoints by instructing dad to put the rubbish in the dustbin (perhaps she is allergic to rubbish, or maybe not strong enough to lift the plastic bag), she later redeems herself by washing the car.
Today my sons will be taught by:
1: two female teachers
2: a female teacher and a female learning assistant
3: a male teacher (the only man on the teaching staff) and two female assistants.
09:15 – 09:45 – The nursery run
On Tuesdays I drop our youngest child at nursery, which is a
Sure Start Children's Centre. On
the wall as you enter the building is a gallery of photographs of the
staff. Of around 30 staff there
are three men pictured. One is the
caretaker, one is the business manager and one is a childcare
practitioner. This reflects
national and local statistics. In
Bristol 80% of the total city council's children's workforce is made up of
women, although this varies across sectors. Learning Support Assistants are the
poorest paid profession of those included, and 96% of this workgroup is female.
We consider ourselves very fortunate that our son gets cuddles and nurturing care from male as well as female role models in his nursery setting.
09:45 – 11:00 – The shopping experience
One of our children was due to attend a birthday party for a boy and a girl in his class in the coming weekend. These days children bring a present, worth a few pounds, to give to the birthday boy or girl (not like in my day, when you were lucky to get a smelly rubber and a pencil... but that's a gripe for another day). I thought it would be interesting to take a trip to the big out-of-town Woolworths emporium, where so many kids' gifts are sourced, and have a look at what was on offer. I tasked myself with finding a gift that I could buy twice; equally suitable for a boy and a girl. After all, at five years old surely there would be scope for some non-gender-specific toys???
The first aisles you come to on entering the store are those displaying children's clothes. I took some photos of the 'girls' aisles' and the 'boys' aisles'. I should point out that there are no generic aisles for children's clothes, and that extends to babies too.
When I took a trip to the boys' clothing aisles, things were not much better. At least there was a more imaginative variety of colour here (blue, khaki or black) but again character branding was everywhere, from Bob the Builder slippers for the toddlers progressing through Fireman Sam to superheroes and fighting heroes emblazoned on everything from pyjamas to casual wear.
The celebration of excess testosterone is a theme that gets repeated in the menswear section:
There is a huge range of 'action figures' available in the store for children to play imaginatively with. They are mostly superheroes complete with weaponry, but I did manage to find some figures who were not carrying weapons: the charming 'World Wresting Entertainment' collection. As you can see, we can choose between 'Adrenaline', 'Ruthless Aggression' and (if we have a bit more to spend) 'Deluxe Aggression'.
In some despair, I got to the end of the aisle and then stumbled across the MegaBloks 'Rescue Tech' figures.
In class this year, the children have been learning about 'people who help us' such as firefighters, nurses, police officers, so at last here were some appropriate toys accompanied by the tools of their trade (not weapons!) which would make suitable gifts. The range ('building heroes to save the world') features 'Policeman', 'Fireman', 'Paramedic' and, er, 'Construction Worker'. The figures are obviously not female but, what the hell, I bagged a Policeman and a Paramedic and got out of there.
11:00 – 11:40 – Communications technology
Before embarking on the children's TV analysis, I sat down to catch up with a few bits of work on the internet.
Skype
Email
When I signed on to my email today I received just the one junk mail advertising porn:
Subject: Re: t,een with perky
tlts gets fuiked on bed frogs
From: ahcatchwater@mail.com
To: ***@virgin.net
Hello,
mature babe
abusing blond t,een dyke
http://****.jjjmgdmqj.info/por_dol_geo/index.html
------------------------
This is by no means a rare occurrence – I had two last week. They use mis-spellings of known porn words to get around the software content filters:
Subject: Re: brunette t,een gives
head for messy faciaI boxes
From: goodvaskegg@as9105.com
To: ***@virgin.net
Hello,
pretty t,een in
towel stripping in bathroom
http://*****.tfqxwrbuu.info/por_dol_geo/index.html
---------------------
Subject: Re: blond t,een
fingering for orgiasm on bed seven
From: shakerushgate@dodo.com.au
To: ***@virgin.net
Hello,
innocent busty
t,een sucikeds dlck for orgiasm
http://****.acihqzkfq.info/por_dol_geo/index.html
--------------------------
11:40
At this point I had had enough of documenting the extra indignities and outrages on top of the task I had actually set myself to do, so I settled down with the Cbeebies programme schedule for the day, which I hope to report on soon.
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