# Female Animal Cartoon Characters or lack thereof **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 11, 2005, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810 "2005-04-11T16:52:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/21 "2005-04-11T21:39:58Z")
First one that popped into my head, and nobody’s mentioned it yet? \*\*Sandy \*\* the squirrel from **Spongebob Squarepants**. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/22 "2005-04-11T22:12:25Z")
Feminism 101, y’all. (Male) cartoonists drew animal characters, quite often without giving the sex of the critter a first thought. (It’s a squirrel, not a boy squirrel or a girl squirrel.) Then, sooner or later, some element of the plot or a possible storyline or situation would involve sexuality and the squirrel becomes a boy squirrel because that’s the standpoint from which the sexuality gets dubbed in. It’s akin to one of those pseudo-universal statements like “Imagine our cave-dwelling ancestor, who needed no credit card or Maserati sports coupe, but only some mammoth steaks, a warm safe cave, and a pretty cave-chick to drag back to it, aah those were the days” – it’s not so much that “the neuter is male by default” but that if, at some point, the question of the sex or sexuality of the neuter-so-far individual comes up, the (male) author/artist/etc tends to dub in the guy-traits and guy-parts. Normal parts, not girl-parts. Parts like his, you know. I won’t say it never occurs, but you less often hear someone start off with a (supposedly) gender-neutral construct like “early man” and end up with a statement like “Early man did well in the border area between savannah and forest, finding plenty of food as well as sufficient shelter from predators and a safe place to give birth when she was pregnant”. I suspect if more cartoonists had been female you’d have more female animal characters; and if the unconscious male-is-normal cultural perspective had been less in play during the years when these characters were created, that, too, would have yielded more female animal characters. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/23 "2005-04-11T22:14:26Z")
The innumerable anime cat girls don’t count? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/24 "2005-04-11T22:15:13Z")
More recently Babs Bunny has developed into an independent character (not a girlfriend) in both Tiny Toons and Baby Loony Toons. Gaget from Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers. In the X-rated category I’d like to note Omaha The Cat Dancer. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/25 "2005-04-12T14:32:41Z")
As a little girl, I remember feeling betrayed when they said Big Bird was a boy. The only way I knew was they called him one, and used he. I thought for quite a while the Big Bird was a girl. Is there any reason that Big Bird had to be a boy? More annoying is when they made the sick-making Zoe and made a big deal of her being a girl monster. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/26 "2005-04-12T16:35:02Z")
I think **AHunter3** did a pretty good job explaining some of the reasons behind the phenomenon. But also I think it has something to do with the kind of humor in cartoons, and especially in animal cartoons. There’s often a great deal of slapstick and cartoon violence, and the average person is less comfortable laughing at violence involving females. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/27 "2005-04-12T16:36:10Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > There’s been some speculation the roadrunner is female…i’d like to think so 🙂 . Nope. I remember one cartoon where Wile E. Coyote creates a manequin of a female roadrunner (with a wig and long eyelashes) and Roadrunner is turned on by it. (Sure, it’s theoretically possible that Roadrunner was a lesbian, but given when those cartoons were made, the probability of that is roughly equal to the probability that George W. Bush will nominate Saddam Hussein to the Supreme Court. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/28 "2005-04-12T18:03:51Z")
[QUOTE=Krokodil] [Gertie the Dinosaur](http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/wild/images/stills/gertie_01.jpg) and [Krazy Kat](http://www.comune.modena.it/glamazonia/articoli/krazy/krazy7.jpg) . Two of the earliest. Gertie’s not particularly feminineQUOTE] Oh, I beg to differ! If you’ve ever seen the actual film (and if you haven’t, run out and get [Winsor McCay: The Master Edition](http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70000127&trkid=181026) ), you wouldn’t know that our first animation star is very delicate and ladylike, in spite of her girth. It’s a really sweet cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/29 "2005-04-12T18:06:44Z")
> [@Thudlow Boink](#): > > I think **AHunter3** did a pretty good job explaining some of the reasons behind the phenomenon. But also I think it has something to do with the kind of humor in cartoons, and especially in animal cartoons. There’s often a great deal of slapstick and cartoon violence, and the average person is less comfortable laughing at violence involving females. That pretty much nails it. Oddly enough, last Sunday’s strip was not the first time Breathed addressed the subject of the lack of female cartoon animal characters. When he did “Bloom County,” there was a series of strips where they tried to come up with a non-girlfriend female animal character but found it wasn’t funny when she was in a situation where she was the victim of a violent gag. Like you said, Breathed came to the conclusion that there are some things which are unthinkingly funny when they involve males (e.g., aggressive knockabout humor) but are as funny as a tax audit if they involve females. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/30 "2005-04-12T20:39:35Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > More recently Babs Bunny has developed into an independent character (not a girlfriend) in both Tiny Toons and Baby Loony Toons. _Nitpick:_ I believe the female lagomorph toddler in **Baby Looney Tunes** (ick) is supposed to be Lola Bunny, not Babs. Babs (and Buster) has gotten shuffled off to the dustbin of history, it seems. (sigh) ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/31 "2005-04-12T21:17:40Z")
Offhand I can name quite a few. (Some of these fit the parameters better than others.) Maisy mouse, Goose and Hen from “Little Bear”, Baloo’s lady boss Rebecca Cunningham who owns his airplane in “Talespin”, and her daughter Molly. Webigail (Webby) from Ducktales, Sally cat in “The Busy World of Richard Scarry”, (there was more than one token female in that show), Blue from “Blues clues”, Kanga from “Winnie the Pooh”, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton Tail from “Peter Rabbit”. Shenzi the Hyena from “The Lion King” was the brains of the bunch. Also, Sagwa from the [PBS show](http://pbskids.org/sagwa/), and Francine from Arthur. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/32 "2005-04-12T21:22:32Z")
Again, it’s not female characters, or even _animal_ female characters, but animal female _MAIN_ characters, of the kind they name the cartoon after. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/33 "2005-04-12T21:30:45Z")
[Sagwa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagwa), (The previous link about Sagwa in my other post shows proof that the character is indeed female.)[Maisy Mouse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maisy_Mouse), [Blue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues_Clues)? Those are all female “main” characters, from whom the shows got their name. As for some of the others I mentioned, they got their own episodes, or had as much air time or more than their male counterparts. They were as important to the “plot” as the males, if not more so. That is why I mentioned them. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/34 "2005-04-13T00:44:36Z")
[The Wise Little Hen](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0025997/) had a female lead. And a secondary character named Donald making his first appearance. ---
**Author:** ![don\_Jaime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/35 "2005-04-13T03:55:08Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > _Babs (and Buster) has gotten shuffled off to the dustbin of history, it seems. (sigh)_ According to their own storyline, Buster and Babs were shuffled off to _Hollywood Squares_. Babs may not count for the purposes of this OP; Buster is introduced first in the pilot, and the implication of “No relation!” is that they will be dating. Dot Warner is also iffy, because she’s not an animal. She’s a Warner, its own sui generis. [This site](http://members.cruzio.com/~keeper/anibeg.html) has an image of the four early Warners, and speculation the proto-Dot was only a girlfriend at first, before the two younger brothers merged. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/36 "2005-04-13T05:07:11Z")
Breathed expounded on this in his Onion AV Club [interview](http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=3728&f=1): > [@](#): > > Originally posted by **Berke Breathed** > I did some strips about this… and I want everybody to stop dribbling their mochas down their shirts for one second, while I mention it again: Throughout cartoon history, there aren’t any—repeat, ANY—primary animal cartoon characters that are females. If one was female, she was primarily a girlfriend to the main character. […] This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s just nearly impossible, and it has something to do with the metaphorical response that a talking-animal character somehow evokes in the reader. Everyone has tried. Interesting human female characters are there, of course—Doonesbury in the thick of it—but the risk is that they become an icon for their “group,” and you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I just never nailed it, not that I tried hard enough. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810/37 "2005-04-13T18:01:46Z")
> [@don Jaime](#): > > Dot Warner is also iffy, because she’s not an animal. She’s a Warner, its own sui generis. [This site](http://members.cruzio.com/~keeper/anibeg.html) has an image of the four early Warners, and speculation the proto-Dot was only a girlfriend at first, before the two younger brothers merged. I dunno. It is clear that they aren’t human and although we aren’t sure what kind of animals they are, it seems pretty clear that they are animals too. They have tails like animals and big floppy ears and a snout. During the show it was common for them to play off of the fact that their species are undetermined, but it still seems pretty clear to me that they are indeed animals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-animal-cartoon-characters-or-lack-thereof/298810.md?page=1)