Geena Davis, best known for her role in A League of Their Own, has started a very cool foundation worth checking out, See Jane.
See Jane mission statement on their website is, “Improving Gender Portrayal’s in Children’s Media” and they have some pretty ambitious, but realistic goals:
- On average, half of all characters (both major and minor) in the most viewed media made for young children (0-11 years old) will be female.
- Both female and male characters will display a range of attributes/qualities and will not be limited by traditional gender stereotypes.
- Entertainment creators will make these goals integral to the projects they choose to produce.
- Parents and educators will actively demand and selectively purchase media products that meet the first two goals.
Lately, See Jane, has been doing some fascinating research on ‘G’ Rated movies that I would highly encourage you to check out (pdf links):
- Where the Girls Aren’t: Gender Disparity Saturates G-Rated Films
- G Movies Give Boys a D: Portraying Males as Dominant, Disconnected and Dangerous
- The G-Rated Job Market: Occupational Aspirations for Girls and Boys in Children’s Films
Here are a few charts to get you interested:
Check out the Research today, it’s easy to read and well worth considering.
Wow. This is great info. Thanks.
Thanks for stopping by and reading it. I’m glad you found it useful. Out of curiousity what’s your take on the research?
A couple of years ago I mentioned similar research to some folks at the church I was attending at the time and they didn’t think it was a big deal. I was really taken aback by that. I think its a huge problem that our children are getting such a disproportionate view of reality. I think it shows how sexist our society still is in spite of the rhetoric. And I’m troubled by the push for boys towards violence. Even though I don’t have any boys now, I want all of my children, including any future boys to be brought up to be non-violent which I think is in the best tradition of folks like Jesus, MLK, etc.
A lot of the films out there trouble me as a parent. I watched Pocahontas, which is rated G, recently. Pocahontas is totally sexualized and the film is full of violence and race warfare. These are not easy things to explain to my three year old and they are certainly not things that should be found in a G rated movie. I have also had to become very selective about the Christian stuff that I let her watch. Veggie Tales, for example, grossly overrepresents male charactors and sometimes crosses the line into racial stereotyping (who would have thought that would be possible with vegetables).
There are so many other issues that I have with children’s programming. PBS is supposed to be a commercial-free environment and yet they show commercials for things like McDonald’s and Chick-fil-a. Even more insidious are the parent tips which are often sponsered by some company. The “healthy” snacks that they recommend just so happen to all come from General Mills and (surprise, surprise) it is sponsered by General Mills. We finally just got rid of our big TV (we donated it to our church) and are keeping the little TV around for very rare use (storm warnings, election coverage, the occasional baseball game).