It’s Ms Trouble! Emily Thornberry (aka Lady Nugee) says Little Miss books demean girls
ONCE upon a time, there was a Lady who was very cross. And it was all because she didn’t like the Little Miss books. Yesterday, Emily Thornberry hit out at the classic children’s stories, part of the Mr Men series, claiming they demean women by implying they are ‘less’ than men. The shadow foreign secretary – who as the wife of Sir Christopher Nugee is sometimes referred to as Lady Nugee – asked why the female characters in the Little Miss books had to have the word ‘little’ in their names at all. ‘I don’t like this thing about being little,’ she said on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. ‘I think that’s what my problem with the Mr Men books is. So why is it that you have Mr Men, and then Little Miss? Do you see what I mean? There is something about women being less.’ Asked by host Piers Morgan which character in the series she identified with, she said: ‘If it was Ms, I don’t have any problem with being Ms Trouble.’ The Mr Men and Little Miss books by Roger Hargreaves were labelled as sexist earlier this week after a study claimed they portrayed female characters as less powerful.
As well as the Little Miss characters needing to be ‘saved’ in the stories more often than Mr Men, the study claimed the names of some of the characters – such as Little Miss Bossy – might reinforce gender stereotypes. Speaking about the study, Miss Thornberry, 57, suggested the stories could be renamed so they refer to female characters as Ms. The books, which are aimed at children aged two and older, started with Mr Tickle in 1971. The Little Miss books followed a decade later, with stories such as Little Miss Chatterbox, Little Miss Giggles and Little Miss Naughty. There are more than 80 books in the series.
The University of Lincoln study found female characters had less dialogue than their male counterparts, with eight fewer words on average. It also highlighted ‘sterespeaks otypical’ passages which show female characters doing domestic tasks. One example read: ‘She managed to find herself the perfect job. She now works for Mr Lazy! She cooks and cleans for him.’
The study analysed 47 Mr Men and 34 Little Miss books from 1971 to 2014, concluding: ‘Generally female characters were more passive, had less direct speech and relied on being saved more than male characters.’
Researcher Madeleine Pownall assessed the direct speech of characters in the books and found females were given an average of 53.5 words per story, compared with 61.5 for males.
She also found that the Little Misses had to be saved by another character in 51.5 per cent of cases, compared with 32.6 per cent of cases for Mr Men.
Last September, the author and illustrator of the Mr Men and Little Miss series ruled out a character using the title ‘Mx’, to reflect the modern view of gender as non-binary.
Adam Hargreaves, the son of Roger Hargreaves, said although it could be possible to create a ‘character who was not sure if they were a Mr or a Little Miss’ it would be ‘quite complicated to explain in a pre-school form’.
‘Implying they are less’