Kids want to see heroic, female protagonists

Yesterday, I posted about A Mighty Girl’s news that kids’ underwear with female superheroes on it sold out. I also posted about a dad shopping with his 5 year old daughter who complained about the lack of cool female characters on clothing.

SPIDER-GIRL_69

He bought his daughter boy underwear. A commenter expressed the same frustration: her daughter is fan of Spider-Man and she started a petition to get girl underwear designs integrated with boy underwear. I signed this and I hope you do too, but I want to recognize the deeper issue here and make sure this info isn’t misconstrued into: See, girls like boy characters, so let’s just keep making them and let girls go missing.

All kids want cool characters. They want to see exciting narratives where heroes take risks, make choices, and act.

Why is there no Spider-Girl movie and 5 movies about Spider-Man? Where is Spider-Woman? Why are there 7 Batman movies while Batgirl, like Supergirl, is practically invisible? And why, for God’s sake, are we still waiting for a major release of a Wonder Woman movie in theaters? Not to mention multiple sequels?

I read this on Pigtail Pals Facebook page, Melissa Wardy’s talk with her daughter, the Original Pigtail Pal.

“Mom? Every time I watch that Spider Man movie I can see there are no girls in it. I get really mad! I just don’t get why there can’t be more girls in it.” -7yo Original Pigtail Pal Amelia, girl and Spider Man fan
“I think it is really important that you noticed that. There should be and easily could be more girls in it. How could we change that?” -Me
“Oh. Oh ho ho. We’ll just show them what girl super heroes look like.” -OPP
“Maybe that could help them have more balance with girls.” -Me
“Yeah, they need more bad ass girls.” -OPP
“Uh no, I said ‘balance’.” -Me
“I know. I said ‘bad ass’.” -OPP

Hollywood and Target, are you listening?

 

6 thoughts on “Kids want to see heroic, female protagonists

  1. I just got back from the fabric store. You can’t MAKE your daughter superheroine things, either. It’s either princesses or superheroes. Great, if you like Batman. Not great if you like BatGIRL. (I have seen WW fleece, on a very pink background, but the store I was in today didn’t even have that.) It’s so frustrating…

  2. Thank you! It’s very true. We are raising some kick-ass girls. They want to see themselves in media. It’s only natural. And thanks for posting my petition. My little girl wanted Spider-Man underwear for her birthday and when I told her I could only get her the kind she finds uncomfortable, she got MAD. She asked me to get them to change their minds about making that stuff for girls. I said OK. She just asked me this morning if they started making them yet. I got to tell her that we’re a little bit closer now. 🙂

      • Thank you! We’re almost to 500 signatures with your help! I’ve also emailed the companies directly. It’s a baby step, but I’m so happy and relieved to see so many people agree. If we are going to tell our kids to be themselves, then we have to put our money where our mouth is and give them every chance. Starting with the smallest things, we move up.

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