I don’t watch much tv these days (who has the time?), but here’s a list of current TV shows with Positive Girl Role Models from Commonsense Media.
My six-year-old is in turns fascinated and mystified by the world of teenagers. She loves to mimic their catchphrases, and even tries on their ‘world weary attitude’ for size. Her classmates are starting to pay attention to teen pop stars and other young celebrities. One problem with this is that so much tween and teen media is rife with girl vs. girl antagonism, gossip, rivalry and catfights. It takes some effort to find shows in which girls are thoughtful, nice, loyal and true friends to each other. And that show girls who have interests other than boys and the mall.
We may have come some distance in media depictions of women. At least we can see women in a variety of non-traditional careers now, but there still remain insidious stereotypes about how girls treat each other and these still need to be turned upside down. And don’t even get me started on the depiction of women in comic books and computer games…
We’ve still got a long way to go, baby.
See also: Commonsense’s list of Strong Female Characters in Books.
And on this blog, type “strong girls” into the search box above to see my list of great female characters in books and movies.
Rarest Kind of Best 