Gender and Kid's Literature

Do you know what makes me want to rush right out and buy *Have You Seen My Duckling*? The fact that it is the only Caldecott winner with a standalone female character since the award was established in 1938.

A study by Florida State University found that male (humans) are central characters in 57% of children's books published each year, with 31% having central female (human) characters.

It's worse if you're a cute little bunny or a teddy bear. Male animals are central characters in 23% of books each year and female animals star in 7.5%.

Ho hum, apparently 'mothers reading to their children' make it worse by labeling gender-neutral animals as male. Possibly journalists also do their little bit by labeling those reading to children as mothers?

Gender and Kid's Movies

The Geena Davis Institute says that in G-rated films produced 1990-2005 fewer than one in three speaking characters (real or animated) are female and more than four in five of the narrator's are male.

For G-, PG- and PG-13-rated films released between 2006 and 2009 there were 2.42 male speaking characters for every 1 female speaking character.

Why?

Hint: not because they are spending their time making non-racist films as 85.5% of the characters in 1990-2005 G-rated films are white.

Actually they went and asked 108 content creators (writers, producers, directors, executives) what they thought was happening. They responded that male stars attract, that male content producers are more likely to make male focussed films, that movies are made for male audiences, that female-oriented films repel male viewers and, overwhelmingly, that 'girls will watch stories about boys, but boys won't watch stories about girls'. 86.7% agreed with that one and a further 10.5% thought maybe this was true.

I don't know whether that is true or not, but certainly it seems to be the accepted wisdom for Hollywood.

See: http://www.thegeenadavisinstitute.org/

Faux pas about the nature of the middle class

So, whoops, I managed to put my foot in my mouth the other day.

I went to an upmarket park near us, very nice but always full of women who irritate me enormously. Last time I went I overheard a woman bitching that her husband had cut back on her annual two week holiday on her own. Instead of going to New York she was just going to Bali. And, OK, Bali is a big step down from North America but, seriously, an annual holiday *by herself*?

Anyway, this time I overheard a woman complaining about missing out on the baby bonus which 'ridiculously' is not available for those earning over $150,000 a year.

So the next day I met up with the women in my mothers group and one of them was complaining about how hard it is to make ends meet. Oh, how I am down with that.

To cheer them up I told them about the out-of-touch women who considered $150,000 to be struggling. And, of course, you can guess what happened next. She had to confess, shame-facedly, that she didn't get the baby bonus for her latest child because they earn over the cut off. Cue embarrassment all round.

Since then, I randomly happened on a blog article on what middle class income is: http://mattcowgill.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/what-is-the-typical-australians-income/

Have a guess.

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I live in more of a community than I thought I did

Pearl was sitting in the common area garden this afternoon when she was startled by a terrible, horrible, no good chicken.*

She let out a cry of great fear and ran towards me. By the time I calmed her down two different women had emerged from their houses to see if she was OK. I was really pleased to see that they were willing to get involved in someone else's child's problems.


* She wasn't afraid of chickens when younger - she used to feed the one at my parent's house - but now she is old enough to imagine terrors.