My youngest daughter and I used to have a schedule where, after the older 2 went off to school, I put on PBS while I did morning chores. PBS is good for kids, right? Educational and all. Sadly, all the three shows in the morning line up had a male protagonist whose name was featured in the title: Caillou, Clifford, and Curious George.

For a while, instead of Clifford, we had…Arthur!

All year, I’ve been doing drop-off, so now I leave the house with 3 kids at 7:10 (and don’t get back until 9AM but that’s another blog rant.) Today, our schedule is off so I have the little one, and I turned on the TV with an eye roll, expecting the bald 4 year old (don’t get that) the giant red dog, or the monkey with his yellow buddy-man, or the aardvark with no nose. What did we find? A new show! “Daniel the Tiger.” ARGH.

It’s really shocking to me how unimportant (or should I say “important”) gender is to PBS programmers. Thanks, PBS, for the early morning lesson in sexism for my four year old daughter. It’s great to know we’ve got a channel dedicated to education that teaches kids males are front and center while females are sidelined or not there at all.