HOT TOPIC OUTCOME: 'Gender Binary in developing content for children’s television'
- Mana Nguyen
- May 31, 2022
- 11 min read
Abstract
This blog examined gender stereotyping in portrayals of boys and girls in the media while children are spending lots of their free time on TV. Gender binary is always an issue in making content for children and it is always a controversial topic that producers, writers, and content creators are facing when they come to developing new shows and programs for children. Many movies and cartoon series on several famous children's channels like Disney or Cartoon Network always show bias among men and women. Male has to be a stronger character and has power versus the female character who usually solves problems by magic or waits for someone to come to help. Despite knowing that children will be exposed to TV at an early age and they will shape their very first knowledge of identifying themselves by their favorite character, the gender stereotype is continuing to dominate in children's TV shows.
Introduction
For a long time, gender representation in children’s television and merchandise has always been spoken about and argued about ‘what is the right and appropriate thing to do for children's development?’ in terms of entertainment and education. There are many articles and books discussing gender binary in popular children's TV shows across different cultures showing that ‘female characters appear between a quarter and a half as frequently as male’ (Jane 2015, p.231) while equality is progressive when boys and girls are treated equally as well as consider having the same roles and opportunity on television (Lemish 2010). Besides, on children's television, male is a stronger character and has power versus the female character who usually solves problems by magic or waits for someone to come to help, according to Lucas 2019.
Understanding the importance of gender representation on children's development, I chose it as my hot topic for my blog despite the difficulty and complexity. This blog generally discusses gender binary in developing children’s content including films, shows or television, etc… that will cause a tremendous impact on the way children see and align themselves to their absolute favorite characters.
1.1 Background Research Description
Television programming for Australian children has been researched throughout the year to identify the fact that gender binary has always been used in the making of children's films until today. According to The Landscape of Children’s Television in the US and Canada, cited in Lucas 2019, television is geared toward children from an early age from two to 12 years old. The author mentioned that a majority of male characters are still dominant on the screen, particularly for non-human characters like 72%, especially non-human characters whereas female human characters were more racially diverse. He pointed out the issue of gender imbalance due to the lack of female directors in the film industry which is about 80% of those directing content were male and content creation is also dominated by male which leads to gender binary in developing content for young children.
On top of that, the research from Dr. Tania King from the University of Melbourne in 2018 also identified that gender stereotyping can be the possibility that children can see for themselves. She argued that children of both sexes believe boys are better than girls as long as they keep watching TV which demonstrates the idea that gender binary in children's TV is still heavy although it has changed in recent years. She also mentioned that for little boys, watching television appears to reinforce their already positive self-regard, while for girls, watching television appears to dampen it.
I do believe that Australian children are currently facing the same gender stereotype as other children around the world. You may not notice that there are 68% of male characters dominant in children’s TV shows across 24 countries and 69% is a valuable number for Australian writers and producers like me who need to look at and learn from it for better development of children.
Furthermore, although television isn’t maintaining its power as before, parents and children still spend lots of time watching TV together. In 2021, ‘TV is children’s main form of screen time, accounting for about 60% of total screen time. By 13 years of age, the daily average was 150 minutes watching TV compared to 60 minutes on a computer and 45 minutes gaming.’ especially, during the lockdown in the pandemic, families even spent ‘more time watching TV and movies than before and that children were spending 35 minutes more time on screens a day on the weekends.’ (Australian Institution of Family studies 2021, p.1).
Based on this background research, I could not deny the fact that TV still has a great influence on children’s perception of gender and abilities. And gender binary is still a problem that needs to be addressed and spoken in different media platforms to hopefully minimize the gap between a basic gender model and neutralize the bias between males and females. I will analyze the impact of gender binary on children more in the literature review.
1.2 Literature review
Content Analysis
Children identify themselves through a television at the early age
For many people, TV was the main source of information, although TV lost its dominance over other media platforms, children still find the TV is their main medium to explore the world and information that they have never known. As for myself, I grew up watching TV and used to identify myself as my favorite character, Shiro because I thought she is intelligent and had a petite body like I am. Until today, I’m still living with her image in my mind and continue to love Japanese Anime Culture. I told my story as proof for ‘television programs are among the factors that have positively influenced their attitudes towards their interest in the future (Gibson & Chase, 2002, cited in Steinke et al.,2008, p.4). Therefore, the way people portray gender on the big screen unsurprisingly affects young children who are on their way to identifying their identity. For many children’s movie, male characters usually have more acting space and appear more on-screen, they somehow highlight women usually lack masculine skills and traits (Steinke et al.,2008), likewise, female characters are often presented as ‘hyperattractive, hyper-sexual, thin, and/or via cliche´s such as “the helpless blonde or the cheeky red-head’ (Go¨ tz et al., 2008. See also: Lemish, 2010, pp. 1–7; Smith & Cook, 2008, cited in Jane 2015, p. 231) or ‘feature women and men interacting in ways that reveal both overt and subtle forms of stereotyping and discrimination against women’ (Steinke, 2005, cited in Steinke et al.,2008, p.7). Moreover, girls usually appear as a subject that has permission to express their weakness, to be vulnerable, sometimes helpless, and to wait for help while boys are embedded by masculinity such as restraint, strength, and fearlessness that prevent them from showing their emotion, fearless, tenderness and softness which is seen as feminine (Lemish, 2010). As a scriptwriter and content creator, I have to acknowledge that children learn about gender roles not only on the TV but also from their family members, friends, and other factors. However, according to Gender Schema Theory cited in Steinke et al.,2008, children have a tendency and readiness to process the information they learn about gender based on the information that is associated closely with their gender schemas (Bem 1981, cited in Steinke et al.,2008). Therefore, media such as TV or children’s shows plays such an important role in the development of gender schemas, Ruvolo & Markus 1992 assert:
During identity formation, as adolescent girls develop “possible selves” (Ruvolo & Markus, 1992) that represent who they “could become, would like to become, and are afraid of becoming” (p. 96), media models can shape their conceptions of self.
Interestingly, I had asked Olivia McLardie in the interview, who worked with children and created content for the website of a children charity for a couple of years, what does she think about gender binary in creating content for children, she said
‘There’s an important phrase “you can’t be what you can’t see”.
If we take disability, often the only people with disability are the villainous characters on TV, so if you think having a wheelchair or walking stick, or even a facial difference means someone is evil, you can internalise that about yourselves or others.
Gender works in the same way. If you think the way to be a woman is to be sexual like Femme Fatal in the Powerpuff Girls, or the way to be a man is to have big muscles like in Johnny Bravo, they will accept this as the norm for themselves or others. Your brain is still plastic as a child – you’re developing how you see the world and how you should act in it, and the TV you watch moulds those ideas. So looking at some of the sexist cartoons I watched growing up, it’s not great to have those gendered stereotypes.
I think it can affect children into adulthood too. You’re not conscious why you have certain ideas about gender and it’s passed down through generations. Looney Tunes cartoons from the mid-20th century, heavily dominated by male characters, often showed Bugs Bunny is women’s clothing to seduce the male characters. If the only women in these cartoons were highly sexualised character tropes, that may be the only way you learn to see women as you grow up. As Loony Tunes was popular when the Boomer Generation was growing up, it may show why older Australians have a harder time adjusting to new ways to think about gender.’
She also mentioned that sometimes it is not necessary to present gender on the big screen, she said ‘a lot of children’s characters don’t need to be gendered. In cartoons, for example, many characters are animals and their gender isn’t that important. She has the same idea as Hughes and Dvorsky 2008, ‘there is no need to encourage children to ever choose either male or female gender roles.’ (p.3).
These reinforce my belief in developing future content creation work, especially for children, and media like television does matter and leave a gender pattern on children's developing process.
Toys and television
The next controversy towards children’s television is toys and toys are ‘used by children as an aspect of what she calls ‘gender category maintenance’ (Francis 2010, p.327). Children choose toys to play with according to their gender (Francis 2010) and what they see on TV which once again asserted that subjective gender on TV affects not only terms of receiving the gender information but also the way children choose to act and play in real life. Before categorizing toys among boys or girls, it is necessary to ask these questions ‘a) what content is specifically educational; b) what
broad activities/subjects they address, and c) what social discourses they perpetuate.’ (Francis 2010, p.327). Because of traditional gender stereotypes, it’s even harder to distinguish between ‘entertainment’ and ‘education’ toward toy selection for children. In terms of toy selection as an education object, gender binary will prevent children from exploring their true abilities. For instance, boys want to play with toys on the girls' list like nurturing a baby doll whereas girls want to play with the Thomas the Tank Engine train set to gain their technical skills. From all of the information they approach from an early age on TV, children have the “desire to be like or behave in ways similar to the character”(Feilitzen & Linne, 1975, p. 390, cited in Steinke et al.,2008, p.11). Because of that, they will lose interest and limit their future potential.
Queer culture and non-binary content
Outside of the understanding of traditional gender stereotypes, genderqueer is a sensitive topic that is being restricted in children's shows and if the show has homosexual characters, they will be represented as an ‘as being impulsive, and stupid, and ugly, and horrible and just all these terrible things. Basically a freak…’ (McKeage et al., 2018, p. 80) and yes, I used to experience that kind of queer character in my adulthood that truly impact me negatively for a long time. Showing this gender discrimination on TV will accidentally make children either feel bad about themselves if they see themselves doesn’t fit in the tradional gender category or ‘makes self-identification for young people even harder’ (Robinson et al., 2014, p. 16, cited in Nicholas 2019, p.172) and they may learn about gender through shame (Alok 2020)
I had a chance to interview Jacqui Shelton, who was a content creator and currently is working as a 'Sessional Academic’, about this topic, she said
‘I think it is important to undermine this binary – to show different representations of what it means to be ‘male’ or ‘female’, but also to include more representation of non-binary people within children’s content. Many children are not exposed to queer or non-binary people as they grow up, which can enforce discrimination from a young age. Most children’s ideas and learned discrimination come from their family or the context they find themselves in, and a natural inclination to be 'fearful' or what is ‘different’. If there is more diversity in television, both in terms of gender but also religion, ethnicity, and socio-economic representations, children are less likely to find experiences other than their own unusual.’
I personally think gender binary or stereotypes need to be either subdued or reformative, also knowing that the lack of diverse gender in production was and continues to raise the gender imbalanced content for children, Shelton also responded when I asked her ‘Is it important to have gender diversity in the film industry? And why?’
‘100% yes. It is imperative that the industry is more diverse so that the people making the content are sharing diverse stories, and diverse points of view going into producing what people access. If the whole industry is white men, even if they strive to be diverse in their representation of people, it will be a white man’s interpretation of LGBTIQ or culturally diverse issues, rather than being led by the community itself.’
2. Conclusion
In conclusion, it is obvious that gender binary has been a problem since cartoons and television became more and more popular and it has not been solved until today based on lots of evidence that I have shown from the beginning of the blog and during the interview. There is a lack of cartoons or children’s TV shows looks as Adventure Time where Bubblegum princess is represented not only powerful and independent but also active, diverse, and complex (Jane 2015), she also ‘displays no contemporaneous interest in romance, there are strong hints of a previous lesbian relationship between her and Marceline the Vampire Queen.’ (Jane 2015, p.237). Even like Finn, the male protagonist has his own hero's story but he is a multidimensionality, complex, and frailties character who is ‘ a far cry from the dominant tropes associated with masculine leads. Apart from a high-pitched scream, Finn is color blind and terrified of the ocean.’ (Jane 2015, p.237). It is a successful cartoon that children can relate to every part of our adulthood.
References
1. Lucas, F. ( 2019, May 02). It must be magic: gender portrayals in children’s TV send strong messages. The Sector.
2. Mackinlay, V. (2018, May 07). Where are all the girls on children's TV?. SBS
3. King, D. (2018, May 22). Breaking News Gender Stereotype. Early. The University Of Melbourne.
4. Lemish, D (2010). Screening Gender on Children’s Television : the Views of Producers Around the World. (1st ed). Routledge.
5. Siebler, K. (2012, 30 Jan). Transgender Transitions: Sex/Gender Binaries in the Digital Age. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 16(1), 74-99.
6. McKeage K, Crosby E & Rittenburg T. (2018). Living in a Gender-Binary World: Implications for a Revised Model of Consumer Vulnerability. Journal of Macromarketing, 38(1), 73-90. doi:10.1177/0276146717723963
7. Jane M. H. (2004). Early television exposure and subsequent attentional problems in children. The Journal of Pediatrics, 145(5), 679-680.
8. Francis, B. (2010). Gender, toys and learning. Oxford Review of Education, 36 (3), 325-344.
9. Jane A., M. (2014). “Gunter's a Woman?!”— Doing and Undoing Gender in Cartoon Network's Adventure Time. Journal of Children and Media, 9(2), 231-247.
10. Nicholas, L. (2018). Queer ethics and fostering positive mindsets toward non-binary gender, genderqueer, and gender ambiguity. International Journal of Transgenderism, 20 (2-3), 169-180,
11. Alok, V. (2020). Beyond the Gender Binary. New York: Penguin Workshop.
12. Karen, R. (2011). The Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Media 1st ed.Chichester u.a: Wiley Blackwell.
13. Steinke,J., Long, M., Johnson, J., M., & Ghosh, S. (2008). Gender Stereotypes of Scientist Characters in Television Programs Popular Among Middle School-Aged Children. Paper presented to the Science Communication Interest Group (SCIGroup), 3-39.
14. Hughes J., and Dvorsky, G. (2008). Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary. Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 1-18,
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