Louisville Mojo: Dr. Seuss, sexist grinch?

Surely, no children's author is more beloved than Dr. Seuss. From the delightful way that his rhymes roll off the tongue, to his astounding ability to share sophisticated metaphors on complex issues, he was a genius. But often his portrayals of women make me cringe.

For example, in And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, the narrator (a boy, of course) comes up with a story about a reindeer and sleigh and then decides the story is not good enough.

“Say – anyone could think of that,
Jack or Fred or Joe or Nat
Say, even Jane could think of that”

Even Jane? The fact that Dr. Seuss would so casually insult more than half of his reading audience is, to me, breath-taking.

In McElligot's Pool, the narrator (a boy of course) describes a tough old fish that would be hard to catch, so tough that pulling him in could take “two or three hours.”

“But the next might be easy…
… the kind that likes flowers.”

The flower-loving fish also wears makeup and fake eyelashes. The implication is pretty clear. Catching a girl fish is easier than a boy. Because they're just so wimpy.

Mostly, of course, what Dr. Seuss does is ignore girls. The boys are (of course) the narrators and the girls do well to get a sidekick role, like Sally in The Cat in the Hat. (The goldfish is a more dynamic character.)

In The Lorax, which is surely one of the finest environmental books ever written,, the title character sends off the Brown Bar-ba-loots with a “good luck boys!” Apparently, a whole species of brown bear creatures manage to procreate without females.

When a female does get a larger part, she's often troublesome. Mayzie, the lazy bird, figures prominently in Horton Hatches an Egg and she is the prototype of a deadbeat mom. I suppose that's a prototype worth exploring and the book does have a pro-adoption message. But given the scarcity of female characters, you'd like to think the few that do appear would have a FEW redeeming qualities.

Gertrude McFuzz, meanwhile, was a story ahead of its time. It appears to be exploring plastic surgery and diet pills in the form of a sweet parable. (And it does have a female lead character.) But it irritates me because Gertrude's desire to be beautiful is portrayed as simple vanity and selfishness. Why couldn't she just accept her lot in life? There is no reflection that society treats beautiful women (or, you know, birds) differently than they do plain girls.

By contrast, Seuss clearly has sympathy for the plain-belly Sneetches, whose craven desire for star bellies is put in a context of wanting to be included.

Cindy Lou Who may be the most beloved female character in Dr. Seuss's universe. But the whole point of that character is of complete doe-eyed innocent and naivete. It's not exactly a bold feminist statement to make that person a girl.

Now before you start yelling at me, let me be clear. I love Dr. Seuss. I read him to my kids all the time. The good in Seuss outweighs the bad. Dr. Seuss's less than perfect view of women reflects that he, like all of us, was a product of his time. He was human. So be it.

But I think it's important to be aware of these issues and to discuss them with our children. With our daughters, but also with our sons.

When my children were very, very young, I'd just skip over the offending lines sometimes. But as they grown older, I decided instead to talk openly about the passages.

Sometimes, when I read the line about the fish who likes flowers, I say: “That silly. Why do you think liking flowers would make a fish easy to catch? Anyway, shouldn't everyone like flowers?”

My children generally note that flowers are quite likable. And then I say: “A long time ago, people had some funny ideas about a few things.” And then we move on.

Dr. Seuss's flower-loving fish

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FFEMT85 mon oct 26 2009 at 1:49 pm ·


	are you serious? freakin feminists the 50's are over

Mixed Mojo mon oct 26 2009 at 2:02 pm ·


	He was a man of his time...and he was...a man, so to tell a story from the perspective of a woman he would have had to make a conscious effort to do so. Apparently gender wasn't really the point of his word play, illustrations, and sophisticated metaphors...and no doubt he just defaulted to male. I imagine if he had tried to tell a story from the perspective of a girl, you would be cringing all the more as it would have given him the opportunity to illustrate the misogynistic time in which he lived and wrote. You know what might be even worse...that fish...it might be...GAY!

frogbert mon oct 26 2009 at 3:40 pm ·


	Get back in the kitchen and make me a green egg and ham sammich.

♥jaybeeM mon oct 26 2009 at 3:54 pm ·


	I'd love to be a poorly praised Dr. Seuss character. Even as a woman. Seriously? I like to spend my "pro-woman" angst on things that should be bitched about... not a Seuss book. He's a great. I gotta agree with the Mojo wagon!

Beverly Bartlett mon oct 26 2009 at 4:25 pm ·


	Yeah, Prize Wagon. I understand that most authors, normally write in their own gender. That's fair enough. So even though I mentioned the narration, if there had just been worthy female characters I wouldn't mind that the point of view was male. I mean, if he can imagine the point of view of a Star-bellied Sneetch, surely he could come up with something interesting for Sally to do or say in The Cat in the Hat. It's not like he needs to write The Color Purple, here. I think the media images that girls get (and boys get about girls) is worthy to talk about. As for you frogbert, :-p ;-)

frogbert mon oct 26 2009 at 5:00 pm ·


	Hey, shoes are optional.

Mixed Mojo tue oct 27 2009 at 9:02 am ·


	I agree that it would serve children of today to read books that better reflect the times they live in and as such would have no problem with you noting said bias in his books and because of them choosing something with a more modern point of view. I just don't think you should criticize HIM so much. It would be like criticizing Abraham (as if he wasn't a myth) for being so willing to sacrifice Isaac. People just did that sort of thing back then. Or ignoring the good that came from Abraham Lincoln's hatred for the institution of slavery and focusing on how he held on to the belief that blacks were inferior and unworthy and unable to live as equals with whites. You can criticize the old fashioned point of view but you can't really hold it against the person who grew up in that environment...at least, I can't. If you were born in the 30's and ended up in a kitchen in the 50s teaching your daughters to be seen and not heard, no one could hold that against you today. That wouldn't be fair. I understand your points and see them as an interesting take on the times in which these books were written. I don't agree that we should hope that Seuss would or could have written them any other way.

Beverly Bartlett tue oct 27 2009 at 10:29 am ·


	I don't think I was all THAT hard on him. At least, I did not intend to be. I said he just reflected the values of the time and that he was only human and the good outweighed the bad. I think it's just especially disappointing because he was so visionary on so many other topics, you'd like to think he could be visionary in other ways as well. But that still puts him ahead of most of us who can barely see past "what's for lunch?" :-)

Mixed Mojo tue oct 27 2009 at 11:21 am ·


	I didn't really mean that you shouldn't criticize him. You can criticize anything you want. That came across a bit more emphatic than I would have liked. I was just sayin.

Beverly Bartlett tue oct 27 2009 at 11:43 am ·


	No, no. You were fine. I was not offended.

Beverly Bartlett wed oct 28 2009 at 8:13 am ·


	1) If a series of CHILDREN's books treated all men as fools, perverts or villains, this mother of boys would be highly offended as well. 2) I don't think the situation is quite as you describe. I don't watch daytime tv, so I don't know about that. But a quick survey of the shows I watch in the evening doesn't back that up. Whose the fool on American Idol? Paula or Simon? Whose the villain on Glee? Will or Sue? The men on Lost all rock to various degrees. On Survivor, Jeff Probst is always going on and on and on about how deserving alpha males are and painting any woman that stays in the game as a "riding coattails." The men on Numbers??? Not fools, certainly. Not villains, obviously.(FBI) Not perverts. Michael Scott, I'll grant you, is a bit of fool. But the audience is clearly supposed to identify mostly with Jim, who borders on sainthood and every time David Wallace walks into the room, you know a grown-up has arrived. As I'm writing this, I realize: "I watch too much tv." LOL.

Local mom wed oct 28 2009 at 10:09 am ·


	Great job, Beverly. I used to substitute female pronouns for at least half the male characters in children's books. I think it's appropriate and even important to examine the sexism in Seuss characters for the benefit of readers -- these books are still the gold standard for kids!!

Mixed Mojo wed oct 28 2009 at 11:27 am ·


	I hear you on the TV comments. Men are fat and stupid (but still have hot wives). The ads sure have changed too...back in the day, women were in the house having troubles with dirty pans, ring around the color or spotty dishes and a man in a suit would show up and fix everything. Now-a-days women are shown in commercials as the stretched too thin people that they are with dirty kids and stupid husbands...a realty that more women - who now have their own money to spend on the products being shown - can relate to.

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