A recent report released by the American Association of University Women, "How Schools Shortchange Women," finds that teachers, text books and tests give preferential treatment to elementary school boys...Unfortunately, this insidious gender bias appears long before our children enter school and pervades even the television show "Sesame Street." Yes, "Sesame Street" is sexist! But, just as the story of the emperor and his new clothes, many of us do not notice the obvious.
The puppet stars of the show, Bert and Ernie, and all the other major "Sesame Street" animal characters, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, and Mr. Snuffleupagus are male. Among the secondary characters including Elmo, Herry Monster, Count VonCount, Telemonster, Prairie Dawn and Betty Lou, only a very few are girls.
The female puppets always play children, while the male puppets play adult parts in various scenes... Further, almost all the baby puppet characters on "Sesame Street" are girls... Also, the female puppet characters almost never interact with each other. In sharp contrast, consequential and caring friendship relationships have been fully developed between male puppets: Ernie and his best friend Bert; Big Bird and his closest comrade Snuffie; even Oscar the Grouch and his (male) worm, Squirmy.
[Ed.: The report relies on research by David and Myra Sadker, which demonstrated that teachers gave girls only about an eighth the amount of attention they gave boys. However, critics subsequently pointed out that this increased attention was because boys had to be disciplied for disrupting class far more often than girls. The AAUW's own report from 1990 showed that students overwhelmingly thought teachers praised girls more than boys, and that more girls than boys said they are frequently called in class.]
