The Influence of Television Cartoons From the Flintstones to the Power Puff Girls The Influence of Television on Children’s Gender Role Socialization

“The gender biased and gender stereotypes behaviors and attitudes that developing young people are exposed to on television will have an impact on their perception of male and female roles in our society.” Susan D. Witt, PhD

Did You Know?? Television is the most influential form of media in shaping ideas of race and gender for children. Preschoolers spend an average of nearly 30 hours a week watching television. By the time children are 16 years old, they have spend more time watching television than going to school. On average, children are exposed to 20,000 advertisements a year.

Do Children Notice they Live in a Boy’s World? Since 1970, research has shown that females have been under represented on television programs, in commercials, and on cartoons. Male characters are portrayed in a much greater variety of roles and occupations. Female characters were seen as the mother, maid, nurse, girlfriend, teacher, and waitress. Research found that 75.5% of the characters in children’s television were make and 21% were female.

Male action heroes have been a staple of children’s television for over 50 years % of the voices for voiceovers and narrations are male The Muppets all have male voices, including Ms. Piggy. In 101 top grossing G-rated movies between , there are three male characters for every one female character; fewer than one out of three of the speaking characters (both real and animated) are female; fewer than one in five of the characters in crowd scenes are female; more than four out of five (83%) of the film’ narrators are male.