Lead characters in children's picture books are twice as likely to be male while females are more often sidekicks

  • A study analysed the top 100 bestselling children's picture books of 2017 
  • It revealed the casual sexism ingrained in the most popular reading material 
  • The research found males are likelier to have speaking roles while females were excluded from 20 per cent of the books 

Lead characters in children's picture books are twice as likely to be male, a study has shown.

It also found males are more likely to have speaking parts in books aimed at children, as well as in stereotypically masculine roles - while females tend to be sidekicks.

The study, conducted by The Observer with the help of market research company Nielsen, revealed the casual sexism that is apparently ingrained in children reading material after analysing the 100 bestselling children's books of 2017.

Lead characters in children's picture books are twice as likely to be male, a study has shown

Lead characters in children's picture books are twice as likely to be male, a study has shown

It found that a thieving duck in a Peppa Pig book is one of very few female villains out of all 100 books – and that female characters are missing from 20 per cent of them.

The 2017 list includes cult favourites The Gruffalo, Guess How Much I Love You and Dear Zoo, all of which the study found use male pronouns by default.

Newer books – including The Lion Inside, The Lost Words and The Koala Who Could have no female characters.

The research found that a thieving duck in a Peppa Pig book is one of very few female villains out of all 100 books 

The research found that a thieving duck in a Peppa Pig book is one of very few female villains out of all 100 books 

The 2017 list includes cult favourites The Gruffalo, Guess How Much I Love You (above) and Dear Zoo, all of which the study found use male pronouns by default

The 2017 list includes cult favourites The Gruffalo, Guess How Much I Love You (above) and Dear Zoo, all of which the study found use male pronouns by default

What's more, the research found males are more likely to be represented as powerful and possibly dangerous creatures – such as dragons or bears – while females tended to be smaller and more vulnerable creatures, like birds, cats or insects.

Dierdre McDermott, picture books publisher at Walker Books, told The Observer that while many of their new books do feature strong female characters, they didn't make the bestseller list.

Mr Men in London was published in 2015 and has 13 male characters and just two female

Mr Men in London was published in 2015 and has 13 male characters and just two female

She says this is perhaps because parents tend to gravitate towards the books they loved as kids for their own children.

'They should seek out recommendations for new titles,' she said.

'If anybody wanted to put a weak girl in one our books, I'd whack them over the head.' 

 

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