So many people don’t get this. When asked why I’m not a fan of Pixar for all children I say, “It’s male. It’s for boys and men, not girls. All the characters that matter are male. At least 90% of the characters are male. Which is fine. Call it a male animation company that does male animated movies for males. Nothing wrong with that. But don’t call it ‘kids.’” 50% kids are female. 50% of the world is female. Have a male series or male movie if you want, but don’t call it a “children’s movie” or “children’s animation company.” Own it, claim it.

Girls grow up learning to identify as male more than half the time out of pure self-defense of the psyche. It’s so that they can imagine themselves the protagonists of the mostly male movie and children’s book universe. We shouldn’t have to. And most of the country, including girls and women, are completely blind to this or in denial. My Mom was fighting this in the early 1970s with a group of other psychologists who went to children’s textbook publishers and protested the lack of females in books in depictions other than as passive observer of male action or as mothers. They made some progress, but in many ways we still carry on this ‘default’ male around with us and project it onto most areas of our culture.