Among the more bizarre commonplaces of kid TV are the abrupt segues from alarmingly belligerent programs about colossal robots battling for galactic mastery to unspeakably adorable commercials for toys like Polly Pocket’s Fairy Wishing World. Even more oddly, the opposite transitions from precious girl shows to pugnacious boy commercials are exceedingly rare. There are simply far more commercials than shows aimed at little girls.
[At this point, you may well be protesting, "Hold it! 'Girl shows?' 'Boy commercials?' Haven't we outgrown these stereotypical gender roles?" Well, I hope you have, but, remember, you're a grown-up. The small children of my acquaintance aren't quite up to speed yet.]
Is this bias toward boy shows the inevitable result, as numerous “social critics” have charged, of the male domination of the profit-hungry entertainment industry? Economists, like Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, generally tend to pooh-pooh such accusations that imply that all firms in a competitive industry would discriminate against a lucrative market segment out of self-defeating sexism. After all, these same greedy male network executives churn out so many disease-of-the-week movies for the primetime female audience precisely because they are greedy. Capitalism encourages empathy: if the capitalist cultivates sensitivity to the differing needs of diverse peoples, he can, well, sell them more stuff.
Yet, in this particular case the feminist media critics appear to be right: Saturday morning’s damsel deficiency does stem from sex discrimination. The unsettling truth, however, is that the bigots who keep girl shows off the air aren’t the often-denounced Old Boys Network, but a Young Boys Network. While most little girls will tolerate boy shows, many little male chauvinist pigs simply will not watch girl shows.
["That's just the way our culture socializes them," you may be interjecting. That may or may not be, but I suspect that if you haven't recently wrestled a toddler for the channel-changer, you might not fully grasp how strenuously -- and often successfully -- each child fights to control which facets of the vast American cultural smorgasbord they are most exposed to. For example, at only 16 months old my first son developed an intense disdain for all things girlish, along with a corresponding passion for watching strong men hit balls with sticks. My wife discovered to her exasperated boredom that our tiny son instantaneously began to whine anytime she tried to flip past televised baseball or, God forbid, golf. When he later began throwing store-aisle temper tantrums whenever his mother denied him a flashlight (or toy sword, gun, spear, rocket ship, baseball bat, bow and arrow, screwdriver, slingshot, or whatever other projection device struck his hormone-warped fancy), she learned there was only one way to silence him. "That's a Girl Flashlight," she'd explain. "They're all out of Boy Flashlights. Do you still want it?" Believe me, dear readers, contrary to what we've been told so often in recent decades, socialization isn't what differentiates the sexes, it's the only hope of their ever getting along civilly.]
In fact, despite all the politically pious rhetoric, boys and girls today may be even more likely to indulge their highly sex-distinct fantasies. Consider games. When families tended to be large, poor and unpermissive, toymakers invented games that brothers and sisters could both stand well enough to play together. Today, though, new games are largely for one sex or the other. We’ve progressed from Monopoly to Mall Madness, from Candyland to Mortal Kombat. Why then, does our capitalist system deliver so few TV shows for little girls? I think because in contrast to games, most families haven’t yet bought each child his or her own TV (although I’m sure that day is rapidly approaching), so the whiniest sexist in the family exercises a veto power over TV shows. Furthermore, when watching alone, many preschoolers can’t reliably change channels, so they tend to watch a single network’s entire Saturday morning slate. To keep the brand loyalty of this captive audience, networks play it safe and avoid programming even a single show that would offend a 3′ tall woman-hater.
Of course, female characters are now fairly common in some crass “entertoyment” series like Pokemon, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and X-Men. (Another perennial question parents ask their kids: “What are you supposed to call those mutant girls on X-Men? ‘X-Women?’”) Girls are suffered to appear, though, only on four conditions: (A) That the girls are knock-outs; (B) That they not outnumber the boys; (C) That a boy is the leader; and (D) Most tellingly, that mentally the female characters really are ex-women, that they scorn icky girl stuff and like only cool boy stuff, such as those giant fighting robots. At its origin, male chauvinism is a fear not that females will act like males, but that they won’t. Intriguingly, orthodox feminists and kindergarten chauvinists — those ostensible adversaries — surreptitiously share two convictions: both want all females socialized to be forceful and aggressive (with the exception of their own personal Moms), while fearing that most girls would really prefer to be gentle and loving. In fact, an appreciation for “stereotypical” femininity would appear to be a sign of relative maturity in males (and maybe in feminists, too).
