Gender ban on children’s books, toys, characters: good or bad?
CHILDREN’S favourites including Thomas the Tank Engine, Noddy and Winnie the Pooh could be banned for not meeting gender tests. Our columnists go head-to head.
Opinion
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THE issue of gender stereotyping has ignited a lively debate among some of the Herald Sun’s most-read columnists.
Children’s favourites including Thomas the Tank Engine, Noddy and Winnie the Pooh could be banned for not meeting gender tests, under new council guidelines.
The ban of children’s books, toys and characters in a bid to eradicate gender stereotyping by Victorian councils was described by Susie O’Brien as “totally nuts”, whereas Wendy Tuohy believes it’s “healthy” for children.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? JOIN THE DEBATE BELOW.
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SUSIE O’BRIEN writes:
BANNING teachers from talking about boys and girls, throwing out classic books that have been loved for generations and outlawing Disney dress-ups is totally nuts.
It’s cray-cray crazy.
I am all for taking steps to end violence against women, but this goes way too far. I understand such measures, promoted by a number of Melbourne councils, are aimed at ending rigid gender stereotypes which are known to be a precursor for violence.
Such goals are admirable, but we can’t ever hope to stop young children from classifying themselves and each other as boys and girls. Any steps to do so are hopelessly misguided. Gender as a concept is becoming more fluid — whether the conservative right likes it or not — but it still matters.
Kids in the early years have a very strong identity as a boy or girl and erasing this could be confusing and pointless. Sure, there’s no problem with pushing non-traditional interests or views, but erasing gender altogether? It’s wacko.
The extreme nature of these sorts of programs will repel those they are meant to appeal to. It’s all very well having a diversity of books so kids who have two mums or one dad and no mum can feel included. It’s another thing altogether to go through libraries and throw out classic books that have been loved for years by millions.
Thomas the Tank Engine, which my own sons loved, wouldn’t pass the gender audit process: it contains all male characters and expresses stereotypical views about gender. There’s even bit of body-shaming thrown in. Remember the Fat Controller?
It is possible for children to have respectful, equal relationships without tossing Thomas the Tank or Mr Men or other such classics.
Same goes for children choosing gender stereotyped toys. Girls aged three to five tend to be very girlie and it’s the peak time for their interest in dolls and princesses. To take that pleasure away from them is mean-spirited and shortsighted. The four-year-old who wants to grow up to be a princess will learn soon enough it’s not a real career path; but why can’t we let her enjoy such innocent pleasures while she’s young? It’s not as if she will be 13 and still flouncing around the house in chiffon dresses waiting for a prince to take her to a ball. Reality hits soon enough.
Same goes for superhero dress-ups. My oldest son spent years dressed as superheroes, especially Batman. (As I’ve written before, he used to go to the supermarket dressed in his cape and mask when he was four or so. People kept saying: “Hi Batman!” He turned to me once and said: “Do you think they know I’m not the real Batman?”) He’s now 14 and is well past the caped crusader phase which was fun and innocent, not aggressive and nasty as it’s being portrayed.
Let’s give kids of all ages lots of options when it comes to toys, books and dress-ups so they can find their own way. But erasing gender totally won’t ever work, and there’s no point trying.
WENDY TUOHY writes:
WOW, what a massive over-reaction we’re seeing to the suggestion councils may tone down the specific gender imaging directed at boys and girls, anyone would think something actually harmful had been proposed.
Preparing children for the world they will inherit, one in which physical gender will be far less likely to dictate their adult roles everywhere from at home, to at work and in society generally, can only do them good.
No one is suggesting boys will be ‘feminised’ or girls will be made to feel bad about femininity if a few less old-school Disney Princess role-modelling of womanhood or “boys will be boys” language are bandied about at childcare or library story time.
Even the people making the commercial children’s entertainment are keeping up with the real world, of now — a place in which boys and girls can expect to do the same stuff in their play and role play.
Disney is making its princesses assertive independent and in charge of fixing their own problems, not waiting to be rescued like in the bad old days.
Other female characters, such as Emma Watson’s riding boots-wearing, inventor-in-her-own-right on Belle in 2017’s Beauty and the Beast, are far less old-school helpless and needy.
Warner Bros has beefed up Wonder Woman, Netflix kids’cult hit, Stranger Things featured a shaved-headed little girl super hero, supported be an awed cast of boys, and Mattel has released a series of ‘Never Before’ Barbies in March, encouraging girls to shoot for influential jobs never held by women in Australian history, such as head of the Reserve Bank, AFL chairman and chief of the AFP.
Even Bob the Builder, the hit kids’ cartoon series that used to confine the female character, Wendy to the office work, has introduced a lady on the tools (and Bob has less of a dad-bod, which is great, healthy role modelling for boys).
No one bats and eyelid about the this stuff and the dozens of other examples of influencers responding to the way the world has changed to become more equal.
Yet when councils even think about reducing rigid gender stereotyping in the way they talk to and about children, people lose their minds. What are they afraid of?
Showing children they are not limited to certain ideas of what they should or could be is opening them up to possibilities that could enrich their whole lives, not just their kindergarten play.
They are not forced to take up any ‘identity’ they do not feel fits them, nor is there any suggestion children would be directly advised to do or be a certain thing.
The research indicates that introducing young children to the idea of gender equality does flow on to a reduction in attitudes that tolerate violence, but it also frees boys and girls to grow up thinking any pathway is open to them.
More fathers are taking on childcaring roles, or even choosing to stay home with little kids if their partner is the better earner. More women are, slowly, advancing to influential jobs previously held only by men, because that is what was expected.
Laying the foundations for a world in which both of the above is normal and neither gender is seen to be bucking what a man or woman “should” do will only make society more harmonious and individual lives better.
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