Disney’s influence on gender roles and stereotypes

Photo by Haley Phelps on Unsplash

In today’s episode we’re talking about a study that was conducted on Disney’s influence on gender roles and stereotypes. 

During this episode we’ll discuss:

• Our own upbringing and gender roles when we were kids

• Our thoughts on the findings of the study

• How we handle gender roles and stereotypes

If you like what you heard, please consider subscribing, writing a review, and sharing the podcast on social media.

Resources:

·     Let It Go? Disney Princess Culture Isn’t Toxic, Study Finds

Transcript

[music]

Host: In today's episode, we're talking about Disney's influence on gender roles and stereotypes. Everyone, welcome to the Papa est Fatigué podcast, the podcast for dads by debts. We recently saw a study that looked at Disney princess culture, and its effects on children's view of gender roles, but before we get into that, here's my deal. I'm Dave, I have an eight year old daughter and a five-year-old son.

Guest: I'm Jim. I've got an eight year old daughter, and a five-year-old daughter.

Host: As a synopsis of the article, it talked about a study that was first conducted in 2012 and Dr. Sarah Coyne, who is a human development professor from Brigham young university questioned 307 girls and boys when they're in preschool, and her goal was to measure their views of gender roles by having them sort gender, stereotypical toys based on what they most or least liked to play with. Then she went back later on and interviewed about half of them five years later.

Surprisingly for Dr. Coyne, even she found that kids who were really into princesses at around age five were more likely by the age of 10 to hold progressive views about gender roles, and to reject the idea that boys should stifle their emotions. Interestingly, this held true for both boys and for girls. The first study found that for both boys and girls high engagement with Disney princesses was associated with more female stereotypical behavior a year later.

Now in the second wave of the study, when the participants were about 10 years old, the children who had watched Disney princess movies and played with princess toys the most as preschoolers had more egalitarian views towards women later on, compared with children who didn't have a high level of engagement with princesses, and those who had more princess engagement when they were younger, also indicated more than the others that they felt men should show more emotion.

Dr. Coyne's theory is that while men in Disney princess movies are saviors, they usually have secondary roles, right? In a 90 minute movie, they're on screen for 10 minutes sometimes, and this quote from her, "Princess culture gives women key storylines where they're the protagonist." This is all very interesting, but there are some other professors that weighed in on this, and Rebecca Haynes, who is a professor of media and communications at Salem state university. She felt that there were some limitations with this study.

First of all, that there was a small survey size, small sample size and the fact that 87% of the children in this study were white, and they were all from Utah and Oregon, which makes it really difficult to apply these findings to a broader population. The other thing she said, Dr. Haynes, was that the challenge just in general of studying media's influence on people's beliefs is that it's really impossible to tease out the other factors that shape a person's views, and that's actually a point that Dr. Coyne also agrees with.

Before getting into the topic and talking about our thoughts on this study, we just wanted to discuss our own upbringing, and provide a little bit of insight into the gender roles when we were growing up. Can you talk a little bit Jim about what your family life was like growing up, and the roles of your mom and dad when you were young?

Guest: This is a really interesting topic, and I think as dads of daughters, this is probably pretty forefront in our minds, particularly coming into the ages at we are now, at eight years old and seeing what the 10, 12, 14 years are going to look like, and how we can be intentional about that, and how we can shape our daughter's a worldview. The study is a great starting place for this conversation. I agree with the point about the other factors. Who's to say that watching the Disney movies is really going to change the daughters, or the girl's views about women?

Again, it's an interesting starting point and I think that thinking about my own childhood, I think most of those, I didn't get gender role stereotypes and models from popular media, I don't think. I probably got them from mom and dad, relatives, friends' parents, the more of community things, seeing how the mom and the dad behaved in the community, and interacted with others, but having said that, I think there is the question of representation.

It's interesting that they talk about just having the female lead role, and that maybe that overpowers the needs to be saved thing of Snow White. Anyway, just thinking about the modeling that I had, my dad worked, both my parents worked, my dad traveled a lot, so my mom took care of a lot of the domestic responsibilities. Then my mom for a large part of my childhood was also going to school in the evenings. My older sister took care of us.

We all took care of each other, but that was not the, I guess what we'll call the traditional dad goes to work and mom stays home and takes care of the kids. In fact, in thinking about that, I think of my close friends growing up, I maybe had one or two. One in particular that I can remember, but she probably wasn't the only one who was a stay-at-home mom.

Everybody else, I think we'd come home in the afternoon, or go over to a friend's house to play after school, mom was working too. I think that that's probably where I got most of my ideas and probably what's informed a lot of my role as a parent.

Host: I think we're that generation of the latchkey kids, right? With the dual income households, and I think there is something to be said also for what you're saying, that you look at the world around you, and you know that those gender roles are different than what even what might see on TV. You might be watching, I don't know, reruns of Leave it to Beaver.

Guest: Yes, that came to my mind to June.

Host: This is this is the, "Woman's work, and this is, "The man's work," but then when you look at your own family and you're like, "Well, that's not, I don't recognize any of that in my life," and so, like you, both my parents worked, they were professionals and they both held executive level positions. The other thing too is that my father was very egalitarian in the household chores. He cooked, he cleaned, he shopped, he did a lot of that stuff and so growing up, it just was natural.

I would see him folding clothes, or doing laundry or things like that, and so you just grow up in that. I think we certainly have, I don't know if benefit is right word, but being the ones that have grown up having both parents in the workforce and seeing that, "Oh yes, it doesn't mean that mom has to stay at home," and I certainly want to make sure that as my daughter grows up, that she has a very strong view that both parents should be equal partners in the raising of a child.

Equal partners in running the household as much as possible. There's always some levels of constraints like you and I both have right? Where our wives have jobs that are all the time running, running, running, but within that, as much as possible, we should have a Egalitarian households. I think the reflection of what we grew up with as well. With that in mind, do you want to share with us your thoughts on the article and what you took away from it?

Guest: Earlier today, we were talking about the video game analogy and whether or not watching media or playing violent video games somehow makes people more violent. I think that's a stretch. I don't know enough about the issue to know whether there's some causation there or not, but back to the idea of seeing role models in our lives rather than on media.

I think that it's hard to believe that girls watching Disney princess movies were influenced in such a way that it affected their world view in such a drastic way but again, this is an interesting place to start for the conversation. The idea of representation I think, is important and so seeing if all the media was June Cleaver, and I think even for our generation growing up, that was still--

It was all black and white, that was some old TV, but there are other films and TV shows where maybe the mom was the stay-at-home mom, and the dad worked that traditional roles or the historical roles, and that being able to see women, for girls to see women in in roles of power and authority and in STEM work and stuff like that, I think is really important. That idea of representation is pretty powerful, whether or not watching-- Again the Disney stuff, particularly for young kids, it's hard to believe that that's really making a lasting impact.

I think playing princess is something that, that little girls like to do, they like to dress up. It just happens that Disney has capitalized on that innate interest of kids, I think. Again, back to the representation, I think it's really helpful that there are more progressive princesses that have come out in more recent years with the Disney genre. Brave is the one that comes to mind. We watched that recently, and I think that was one of the first ones where there was the strong female lead that wasn't the damsel in distress.

This is an important topic to me at this time in making sure that my daughters see that they can be scientists, and see that they can be astronauts and things like that, and that probably was not the case when my sister was growing up. Right? Even when I was growing up. My dad, he worked for the airlines, and the idea of seeing a woman pilot was unusual, was really unusual. Now it's not at all obviously.

I think having that representation, it's helpful for kids to see that they-- I guess what I'm saying is seeing women in traditional roles probably is less limiting than seeing women in progressive roles is encouraging, if that makes sense? I think that the Disney movies in particular have these classic storylines that may have more benefit than not seeing the women in the positive roles.

Host: I remember one time I was traveling with my family and we were in the airport, and there was a female pilot walking by. I pointed that out to my daughter who was, I think three at the time, because I'm like, "Remember women can be pilots. Here's an example of, if you want to go be a pilot, you can do it." I think there's something to be said about representation. I think the thing about this is while it certainly shows-- Again, with some sort of caveats to it, it shows that kids are not necessarily negatively impacted.

I'm not sure I'm going to go rush out and buy a bunch of classic Disney movies or anything like that, but I think that the issue about video-- When I first read it-- Certainly, when my daughter was younger, I felt like I really want to steer away from Disney Princess Movies. I just feel like it's teaching the wrong message, and this and that and the other. I think certainly having read this article as we talked about. One thing that I reflected on is the whole argument that comes up every once in a while about violent video games makes people more violent.

I don't agree with that at all. I think if you just extend that thinking, and again, there are some differences, I think between a lean forward video game experience versus the lean back movie watching experience, but if I don't feel that video games make people more violent, I'm not sure that I could think that Disney Movies are going to necessarily negatively impact my daughter so that when she's in her 30s, she's looking for somebody to come rescue her, and take her out of her day-to-day existence, and be swept off her feet.

I think that at some point there's a sense of this was my childhood and now I'm growing up and I'm whatever, 16, 18, 20, 30 years old, and this is reality. I don't think there's any lasting negative impacts, but like I said, I'm not going to go rush out and buy the whole classics library. That being said, I think that certainly Disney has done a good job of updating the the female role in their movies. I think for me, one of the earliest ones which I would say as a strong female lead was Aladdin.

You have Jasmine, she knows what she wants to do, and she's going to go do it, and then you come with Mulan and then Lilo & Stitch. I think at that point it starts to turn, I haven't seen all the movies, but those are kind of-- I think the earliest ones where I had a sense of like, "Okay, there's a different role for woman here." Certainly, for our kids these days, it would actually be hard to find, I think a Disney movie with a weak female lead. Ethnic Princess is aside.

That's a whole another issue, but I think that in terms of just these days, it is a strong female lead. As you pointed out in other conversations that we've had. The Frozen, so it doesn't always have to be about a princess falling in love, I guess, Moana too did that too. The journey is not about finding your soulmate. The journey is much, much deeper than just, "To be happy, I need to be married, or I need to find a partner." I think all of those things contribute, again to how we look at those roles.

As much as I think we'd all like to have our kids be exposed to good role models. That's just another way of reinforcing that. Yes, I'd much rather have my daughter be whatever Rya, or Marietta than Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, or any of these princesses who just-- Yes, the story was about them, but it was about them cleaning up after seven guys, and then being so pretty that somebody decided to kiss you, because this woman, when she was asleep and save her life.

It's not the first thing I would like her to watch, but I will say that when I found out I was having a child, I did go out and buy a bunch of Disney movies, and then when you watch them in hindsight with that view of the parenting lens, you're like, "Yes, this Dumbo is just, the kids are getting drunk. This is not what we have put up--

Guest: Pinocchio recently. That was tough.

Host: Yes. There's just some of these where you're like, "This is not at all what I want to expose my kid to. Again, sign of the times, and there's a whole bunch of other problems that Disney has had in their earlier films as well.

Guest: That was one of the reasons I tolerated Frozen for so much and over and over and over and over again, was because it was a love story among sisters, and sisters taking care of themselves and then both frozen and Frozen II are really stories of becoming stories of growing up, and coming of age. I think those are more powerful storylines than the traditional ones. I think what we're talking about is Cinderella, Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty, and all of those three are weird for the same reasons.

I mean, Sleeping Beauty, like you said, "She's so hot that somebody wants to kiss her when she's dead. That's pretty weird." Cinderella, how come the prince can't recognize her without her shoe? That's really bizarre, and then Little Mermaid, that she ends up having the prince fall in love with her, even though she can't talk, that she's totally weird.

Host: That weird.

Guest: It's not even that she's got like sign language or something. She's just a deaf mute, or a mute anyway. Those aren't the focal points of those stories, you know what I mean? I don't think those are good messages. Those are not positive messages. If we take them out of context and look at those specific sort of elements, I think those are not lessons or even ideas that I really want to instill in my children, but then you look at Frozen and, particularly Frozen II, which I think is it's obviously other than Rya, it's one of the most recent movies that Disney has.

There's some good modeling of the relationship between what's his name, Christophe, Christophe, and Ana. There's some good modeling there as far as modern relationships. Male, female relationships. I guess they're getting better, and talking about Dumbo and Pinocchio sign of the times, maybe they're just growing up.

Host: I think that you bring up a good point, which I hadn't really realized before, is it feels like the classic stories are more their love stories. Whereas now the new wave is the coming of age story of the finding yourself, and becoming who you are and overcoming adversity. A lot of these are overcoming adversity stories and, the teaching, the perseverance and stuff like that. I think a lot of them do have positive messages.

Again, in the same way they do, I think that if my daughter was into Little Mermaid, she'd be ruined forever. I don't know that just because she watches Moana 20 million times, doesn't mean she's going to be powerful sailor. I think the same way, it's not being on the extremes either way, but all things being equal, if she's going to watch something, I'd much rather it have a positive message, and be a story that she might be able to identify with more than just this love story.

We've started reading some comic books, and they're starting to come up with crushes and things like that. I'm just curious to see how she's, at eight, how she's reacting to that. I don't feel like she's reacting one way or the other, and so similarly to these classic stories where the story really is about the love story, is that that's the sort of happy ending piece to it all. I'm not clear that she can identify with that. Look, she probably can't identify with commanding the sea either, or having me turn into a bear, or I guess her mom turn into a bear.

However, I think the storyline, they're probably smaller pieces and smaller nuggets that she can tease out a little bit easier, that she can identify with a little bit more. It certainly allows you to have more of those conversations about the princesses, and then reinforcing the kinds of things that you'd like your children to model, those behaviors.

Guest: Probably what else is different is that some of those early movies with Disney were based on some mythology, basically. The fairytales and legends and stories that they then turned into a commercial product, and those legends and stories have some deeper meanings, and deeper messages that are probably pretty well washed out of the end product.

Then talking about the more recent movies it's like, they're making their own story, and well, I can't say obviously, but I don't think that Raya and the Last Dragon is based on any ancient text. It seems like a fantastical story that's got its own points and purposes, as opposed to trying to convert something like the Little Mermaid from what really is a gruesome tale into a sweet, a love story.

Host: How do you guys handle gender roles and stereotypes in your home? Again, it's not quite the negative impact of Disney, but it certainly shows off the side of people that we would rather keep under wraps, or say, "Look, it doesn't have to be this way." Are you proactive? If so, in terms of talking about gender stereotypes, how do you reinforce that in your household?

Guest: I think I would've had a heightened awareness if I had both a boy and a girl, and what I'm thinking of is, I don't know if there's a story or I was talking to somebody and they said, when they're working on their car they didn't think they'd invite their son over to see them work on their car, but they never thought to invite their daughter.

That stayed with me and anytime I'm working with tools, or I have to go to the hardware store or fishing, we went fishing recently and all those things that are involved with fishing, cutting and cleaning and killing the fish, and all that, those are things-- I want to say that I treated it the same as if I was teaching my son, but that's not true.

I was just teaching my child regardless of male or female. I think that I've never found myself in a place where like, "Oh, this is men's work, or this is something a boy would be interested in and not my daughters," and that's not true. I think that anything that seems fun I'm going to invite them to do without thinking of it as a gender role one way or the other.

Host: We just got done with that podcast on having girls and how you think certainly I guess you're more aware of the kinds of things where people just of naturally fall into stereotypes that what the implicit bias. That would you have girls, I think you try and be more aware of that it's not like, "Oh, well, here's a boy thing. I forgot to ask my daughter to come by," and things like that. I think that you try and be a little bit more aware of that.

For us on the gender and stereotype roles, certainly I do most of the cooking. I would say right there I think that's a place where the kids know that I cook. It's interesting. We were at the doctor, this is maybe two years ago. This was before COVID, and it was for my daughter's visit and the doctor, she asked my daughter just through the general practice, like, "Oh, who cooks meals at home?" She said, "Your daddy, your mommy?" She said, "Daddy cooks." She's like," Oh, does daddy cook well?" She's like, "Yes."

Clearly she was not expecting that I was doing all the cooking, and that I could do it. Those are just some ways that you see how some of these subtle stereotypes creep in, and just by the fact that that's how things work at our house, that my guess is that she understands that anybody can be a cook, and there's nothing inherently male or female about being the person who is slaving away in the kitchen. I do a lot of cleaning, but my wife does the dishes, because I do most of the cooking and then it's time to get the kids off to sleep.

I think that there are a number of places where we have maybe done the non-gender stereotypes. I don't know exactly what the stereotype is for who does the shopping. Well, I certainly have seen a bunch of like a buzz feed threads where a woman will ask a man to go to whatever, pick up pineapple. They're like, "That's not a real fruit, that's not a thing."

[laughter]

Host: I don't know if that's a real thing or not, but when the kids were young, specifically my daughter, I would go shopping every Saturday, just like clockwork, and we'd let my wife sleep in. It would just be the two of us at the grocery store, and also that was a great time as she was young when she was whatever 1, 2, 3 to point out fruit, and to talk about all that stuff and say, "This is how we pick a pineapple, or how you select a watermelon," and also just learning the names and the colors and shapes, and stuff like that.

There's a lot of stuff that we do just that I think goes against the stereotypes, and my wife is the one who sort of 24/7. By default I take a lot of the caregiving stuff on, and the other place that I look to try and do a lot of work is in books. I love using books as learning tools. We just got off that podcast last week, the prior podcast about our favorite books and movies, and things like that. I'm always looking for books that have strong female leads or that show women in STEM, those kinds of things. Even for my son, I think that's a good thing for him to see.

Also this is not just for the girls to understand, this is also for the boys to understand that women are equals. The other thing is as our kids, but specifically, our daughters are getting into that age where the math, and the science start to bifurcate and there is a, "Oh, math and sciences are for boys," and just that kind of stuff. I think I'm hyper aware of the STEM side of things, and really trying to make it understood to her that, "Hey, you can do anything you want. You can be an astronaut, you can be a scientist, whatever.

If you want, you can be a doctor or a marketing person or anything, a lawyer, whatever it is." I just want her to think that, "Hey, I can do anything." It doesn't matter. I don't care what you do. Just be happy doing what it is you do, and if that happens I don't want you to shut the door, because you think that girls can't do X. That's the thing.

Guest: Not that they can't do it, or they don't do it, or it's not ladylike, or it's not feminine or something like that. I agree.

Host: For the way I handle it, I was like, get a lot of books, and the thing that we've been doing now is when I start a book, I'll tell her, "Look, it's up to you to tell me why I borrowed this book." Also it just makes sure she's paying attention, but I'll start off, "What is the lesson that I would like you to take away from this, and tell me what it is when we're done." That does seem to be working, and then it allows us to have some conversations.

I think that's the other thing too, it as much as we can find those teachable moments, in our lifetimes or in daily life-- Just like the way that when we grew up, we saw our parents doing equal work and I think that if you just see that, and if that's reinforced in a daily almost banal way that it just becomes natural, you don't think twice about it. You just go, "Yes, this woman is the CEO, and the dad he's a chef or something, or he's just got a different job."

You don't then think, "Oh, well, that's weird. Why does the woman make more money than the man or whatever?" I think just by having those conversations, just it then becomes just not a thing when the kids have that experience

Guest: Yes, as thinking of professions, airline, pilot, astronaut, firefighters, police people what do you say, police officers, what is it? The Catholic church are they the only ones who still have some gender restriction, that they can't be priests?

Host: I think so.

Guest: I can't think of anything. I can't think of any other industry that's seems barred to women anymore.

Host: What's interesting too, with the social media and everything, I've seen that there is a whole-- Where I think social media has been really helpful for some people is in jobs where women are historically underrepresented. In particular, I'm thinking about the trucking industry, and I've seen, I've actually followed a number of female truckers who just they're on TikTok, or these days there's a lot of TikTok, and they just talk about what it's like being a trucker.

Also it's a way for other women to go, "Oh it's a job that I never thought about, and here's how some successful women are making it work for them." That one in particular, I've seen a few different articles on that because at least on a social media thing, it's becoming more and more big thing. Certainly, I was just reading an article the other day that the trucking industry has just taken this massive hit because of COVID, and for all sorts of reasons, but it is a space where they're hiring like crazy, and they're offering huge bonuses.

I wonder if just these little things that people are doing by having TikToks, if that's going to help bring in women who would not have otherwise thought of that as something they could do for a career, and I think that's what this is all about, right? Like saying, "Hey, you can do anything," and it might not have been maybe open to you before or something that you thought about, but why not?

Maybe there is a world in which you're like, this is just something I was never exposed to, but this is absolutely what I want to do. I want to get out and drive a big rig, and be on the road. Those kinds of things. Those are nice little things to see as people are moving into spaces that have been historically less or more male-dominated, shall we say.

Guest: I think the only thing that does-- I can't come into mind. I don't know that I've ever seen a female auto mechanic, and I think that that's an interesting, and same thing with trucking, it's an interesting conundrum, because it's-- Yes, our daughters can do those things, but then that culture, or how do you get a job in a--

How does a female mechanic get a job in a shop that's traditionally male dominated and chauvinistic and all that? There's something about the culture versus the it's knowing that the doors are open, and then second, making sure they stay open, given those people that are in that industry and that's a bigger topic and a bigger story.

Host: Yes, I think that once-- I always do look at where our kids are, and what's happening socially and say, I do feel some level of optimism that when our daughters are working force age that if they do want to go into the hardcore STEM areas, that things will be different, right? Yes, there certainly are women in science, and in engineering and things like this, but there still is a ton of sexism in these roles, and I hope that by having these conversations now, that when our daughters in whatever, 10 or 15 years, when they're in the workforce, that hopefully some of these barriers and some of this toxicity--

Certainly the video games are one, I think it's Blizzard's getting sued or something for this really just toxic culture, that hopefully, those roles while, are technically open, probably not super inviting, and that maybe in 15 years time, or 10 years time that there'll be more women in those roles that will make it less toxic, and just a better place for them to be, if that's where they choose to be.

Guest: It's interesting that I'm thinking about both my wife and I work in what had been traditionally when we were growing up, when we were children, they were male dominated professions and now, they're really not, except for in my wife's profession, which is somewhat related to mine, that there's still that old guard, there's still the old white guys at the top.

The very, very top leadership is still predominantly white old men, and then you look at the next step down, and then the senior managers, and the people that are running the company in the middle tier, that seems pretty egalitarian. That seems like that culture has been changed, but there's still that super culture that overarching ideology, I guess, that those old guys are still there.

I'm thinking about my daughters, they probably can see that they can work in those industries, industries that when I was a kid, maybe the women, maybe the girls that I grew up with, weren't really thinking that those were things that they would want to do, and now that they're there, and it's opened up, they're still sort of last push, so that maybe they're just all gonna die, and then everyone will get--

Host: [laughs] wipe the slate clean. [laughs]

Guest: Yes, and then the next generation takes over, and it'll all be male and female up at that level, too.

Host: Well, and I think that's right. That's what Disney went through, right? It's just the-

Guest: Right.

Host: -changing of the guard, so to bring it back to where we started, that is ultimately how we get these more modern princesses, is that the old guard left, and it brought in new blood that wanted to tell different stories, that wanted to tell stories that were relevant to today's youth, and this is how we got to where we got.

Hopefully that's the direction that every generation learns a little bit more from the things that they didn't particularly care for from the previous generation, and we keep getting better. We've got 10-15 years before we'll see what happens. [chuckles]

Guest: Right. [chuckles]

Host: We hope you found today's episode informative. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions, hit us up on the Facebook page facebook.com/papaestfatigue. That's P-A-P-A-E-S-T-F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.