SINCE 1990, the Simpsons have taken their place among the many othher television families that have both shaped and reflected our ideas about American family life. As with Ozzie and Harriet, I Love Lucy, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, Make Room for Daddy, The Jetsons, The Flintstones and the prototypic Leave It To Beaver, the Simpsons live in a world where the father goes out to work, the mother stays home and the children are often precocious. There are differences, of course. The mother, Marge, has improbably tall blue hair; the father, Homer, works in a nuclear power plant; the son, Bart, has a bit more edge than other TV sons. The Simpsons, however, debuted at a time when many TV families had taken on many alternative forms (e.g., two divorced women, two single brothers, a single parent, two-career families, blended families), making it actually one of the more traditional television family structures on television over the past fifteen years (excluding reruns). Within this traditional framework, however, do the Simpsons present traditional gender stereotypes, or does the show use the traditional framework to challenge or poke fun at traditional gender roles and stereotypes?

Definitions

To understand the Simpsons’ place in the gender world, we must first define a few terms. Although the usage has evolved over the past several decades, currently sex (as in “what is your sex?” as opposed to “let’s have sex”) refers only to biological factors, such as chromosomes, hormones, genitalia and body fat distribution. This includes both the brain differences that are present at birth, such as the corpus callosum being more developed in females than in males, as well as the other biological differences that appear as the result of normal maturation, such as breast development and body fat distribution differences. Gender, on the other hand, currently usually refers only to social, rather than biological, factors, such as roles, stereotypes, expectations and schema relating to men and women. Although sex and gender can be separated conceptually, in application they generally overlap and are difficult to separate neatly. For example, contemporary American female gender roles and stereotypes point women toward being primary caregivers for children, but sex differences in regard to lactation and gestation also contribute to women’s tendency to be primary caregivers. Similarly, contemporary American male gender roles and stereotypes point men toward being more aggressive and physically confrontational than women, but the hormone testosterone (which is in greater supply in men than in women) also predisposes people to higher levels of aggression. So most of the differences we observe between men and women contain elements of both gender differences and sex differences. For example, differences we observe in children’s choice of toys clearly have a huge gender component, with girls being encouraged and rewarded for playing with dolls and boys often being actively discouraged from playing with dolls, but there could also be a sex difference (with a biological basis) lurking beneath this difference as well. Research with infants has shown that girls show more preference for looking at faces, whereas boys show a preference for looking at objects. In addition to all the social forces pointing girls toward dolls, there could also be an underlying biological basis for their preference for dolls over trains or trucks.

Once we understand that gender refers to social and cultural, rather than biological, factors, we can discuss gender stereotype, which is a set of beliefs about the behaviors, traits and characteristics typical of each gender. (Thirty years ago, researchers talked about “sex stereotypes,” a term that no longer makes sense, as stereotypes are by definition social and cultural, and sex refers only to biological factors, in current usage.) In the same way that people can have racial stereotypes, religious stereotypes, or social class stereotypes, they can also have stereotypes about gender. Stereotypes are learned, and they are culturally transmitted. In the same way that people can have a set of beliefs about behaviors, traits and characteristics typical of Quakers, or Muslims, or rich people, or Asian-Americans, they can also (and generally do) have a set of beliefs about behaviors, traits and characteristics typical of men or typical of women. In many (but not all) cases, the male and female versions of the stereotypes are opposites (e.g., men are strong/women are weak). Gender roles, on the other hand, refer to a set of beliefs about the activities and jobs that are appropriate for each gender. (Again, years ago we talked about sex roles, which makes less sense today with the current definitions.) The traditional male gender role in America, for example, includes leader, boss, plumber, president and soldier. The traditional female gender role in America includes caregiver, nurse, teacher, secretary and helper. Gender stereotypes and gender roles vary somewhat among different cultural, ethnic and socio-economic groups, and they change over time. Consequently, a gender stereotype or gender role description has to be placed within its social and temporal context.

Doctrine of Two Spheres

Our current American gender ideas trace back to the Victorian era and the Industrial Revolution (10). Prior to that, most men and women lived collaborative lives on farms, often surrounded by large extended families. Consequently, women frequently worked in fields or pastures alongside men, watching flocks à la Bo Peep, milking cows, gathering eggs or tending crops. Children were frequently cared for by a grandmother or an older cousin, rather than by the mother. With industrialization and the advent of factories in the nineteenth century, men left the house to earn a living, while women stayed home to take care of children and tend to the house. From this pattern emerged the Doctrine of Two Spheres (2, 9), which holds that a woman’s sphere is the home and a man’s sphere is the world beyond the home. This underlying notion drives traditional gender stereotypes to this day.

Do the Simpsons reflect the Doctrine of Two Spheres? Marge generally stays at home with baby Maggie, unless she is shopping or schlepping. (There are a few notable exceptions, which we shall discuss later.) Lisa and Bart’s teachers are both women (in line with the traditional gender role), and the school principal is male, also in keeping with traditional roles. Homer works outside the home, with a male boss (Mr. Burns). The store/bar owners (Apu, Moe), bus driver, and local criminals are male, consistent with traditional gender roles. Although many of the characters have personal characteristics that are at odds with the traditional stereotype (e.g., Lisa, Patty and Selma), the primary jobs and roles are in keeping with traditional gender roles. Another interesting gender pattern on The Simpsons is the vast over-representation of males among the recurring roles on the show. We count twenty-eight male recurring roles, and only ten female roles (excluding Maude, who died). So the world of the Simpsons (like most television comedy, drama, cartoons, news programs and even Sesame Street(7)) is disproportionately male, with almost seventy-four percent of the characters being male, in contrast to the real world where fifty-two percent of people are female. So the Simpsons, at least at the level of roles, reflect the Doctrine of Two Spheres, with the world outside the home being mostly occupied by men, and the women who do appear outside the home having traditional roles (e.g., schoolteacher).

Gender Stereotypes in The Simpsons

When we move beyond a simple gender role analysis into a gender stereotype analysis, however, the situation changes. Gender stereotypes are much more fully formed than simply the belief that a woman’s sphere is in the home and a man’s sphere is the rest of the world. Both positive and negative characteristics are associated with both the female and male gender stereotype. For example, the female stereotype includes descriptors such as nurturing, warm, sensitive and caring, but it also includes traits such as passive, dependent, weak and timid. The male stereotype includes descriptors such as strong, leader, confident and capable, but it also includes aggressive, rude, uncaring and arrogant.

Beyond traits and personality descriptors, stereotypes also capture other aspects of gender, including gender roles. Beliefs about role behaviors (e.g., who cleans the house), occupations (e.g., who is the boss or store owner) and physical traits (e.g., who is taller, stronger, more athletic) must be added to traits (e.g., who is aggressive, who is nurturing) in order to gain a full appreciation of gender stereotypes(5). Again, these other aspects of gender stereotypes can have positive and negative aspects within each stereotype. Men are seen more often as political leaders but also more often as criminals. Women are seen more often as warm nurturers, but also as weak incompetents.

Despite The Simpsons’ use of traditional roles, the series frequently diverges from the traditional gender stereotypes. In one episode, Lisa was elected student body president and received a make-over from the school administration (to distract her from the issues she wanted to address). When Marge saw her, she said, “Lisa, you look so successful—like you married a businessman!” (ouch).

Homer, who was doing dishes, said, “I wish I’d married a businessman. Then I’d have nice things.” In this episode, The Simpsons displays overt, in-your-face stereotyping (in order to ridicule it) while at the same time subverting the stereotype. (Homer was doing the dishes, after all, and he seemed to be confused about his own role in the marital relationship.)

Probably the most direct attack on gender stereotypes in The Simpsons occurred during the episode “Stacy.” Malibu Stacy is The Simpsons’ version of our own wildly popular Barbie dolls. In this episode Lisa received a new, talking Malibu Stacy. She was horrified to discover that when she pulled the string, Malibu Stacy said things like “I wish they taught shopping in school,” “Don’t ask me. I’m just a girl,” “Thinking too much gives you wrinkles,” and “Let’s bake cookies for the boys.” (In art imitating life, there was an actual Teen Talk Barbie doll marketed by Mattel Toy Company in 1992 that said “Math class is tough.” It was quickly pulled off the market.) Lisa was apoplectic and made a speech against the doll, calling it “sexist” (whereupon the other kids giggled and said, “Lisa said a dirty word!”). Marge tried to calm Lisa down, saying people aren’t actually influenced by toys, so it won’t really have an effect. Then Marge said, “Now let’s forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream.” Lisa pulled Malibu Stacy’s string and she said, “Now let’s forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream.” Lisa pitched the idea for a new doll, which she said could have the common sense of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the tenacity of Nina Totenberg, and the good looks of Eleanor Roosevelt. She got someone to produce her new doll, Lisa Lionhart, who said things like “Trust in yourself and you can achieve anything” and “When I get married I’m keeping my own name—that should be, IF I CHOOSE to get married.” The media picked up Lisa’s idea and the doll got lots of coverage, becoming the new must-have doll. But just as Lisa Lionhart hit the stores, a new form of Malibu Stacy came out, instantly displacing Lisa Lionhart as the new best thing.

Were Lisa (and The Simpsons writers) right to be worried about the effect of a toy on creating gender stereotypes? Toys aimed at young children clearly separate into three subgroups: those for girls (e.g., dolls, kitchen sets, make-up and dress-up kits); those for boys (e.g., trucks and construction equipment, tools and weapons); and those that are gender-neutral (e.g., puzzles, blocks and markers). Advertisers clearly pitch toys to boys or girls, to such an extent that ads for toys can be identified by six-year-olds as being for boys or girls by sight or sound alone, without the product even being identified (6). Ads for boys’ toys are loud, bright and filled with action. Ads for girls’ toys have soft melodic music, soft tones and hazy dissolves from scene to scene. Young children have been observed turning to a previously unwatched television after an ad for “their type of toy” begins(14).

So girls are clearly pointed toward stereotypically female roles and traits (e.g., cooking, fashion, childcare, concern with physical appearance) by advertisements and the toys they show. Similarly, boys are pointed toward stereotypically male roles and traits (e.g., being active, being tough, building things, being aggressive) by advertisements and the toys they show. But are advertisers and toy manufacturers creating the preference children show for “gender appropriate” toys, or are they merely filling a stereotypic demand that has been created elsewhere?

Before we lay the blame for gender stereotyping in toys at the feet of the advertisers and toy manufacturers, we must first examine the role of parents and even the children themselves in creating the patterns we see. Research has found that when parents chose toys for their children, they showed a preference for masculine toys for their sons and feminine or neutral toys for their daughters (13). Other research (3) shows that other adults showed even stronger stereotyping of toy preferences than did parents. So children are showered with and rewarded for playing with “gender appropriate” toys. Studies done recently show that these trends are a bit weaker in the twenty-first century than they were previously, but they are still clearly discernable. Cross-gender preferences in toys are especially discouraged among sons. Parents seem less concerned that their daughters are playing with building blocks or science kits than that their sons are playing with dolls or make-up. Adults not only reward children for playing with “gender-appropriate” toys, but they also can punish or show extreme disapproval for children playing with “gender-inappropriate” toys, leading to even stronger preferences on the part of children.

But what about a child left to his/her own choices about toys? Do boys naturally gravitate toward trucks and active play and girls toward dolls and social play? As much as we might like the answer to be a resounding “No,” so we could charge toward gender equity in the home and in the workplace if we could just get those pesky toy manufacturers and advertisers under control, the answer appears to be “Maybe.” A few threads of research lead to this possibility. First, boy humans as well as young males of most other animal species show more rough-and-tumble play than do females. Notable exceptions are girls who are exposed to extra androgen prenatally (4). Second, girls from very young ages prefer looking at faces, a social stimulus, rather than inanimate objects. The opposite pattern is found with young boys. These differences could lead to innate differences in toy choice in line with gender stereotypes.

Finally, the first author can offer her own experience as the feminist mother of a son and a daughter. My own children had the full array of toys from which to choose. My daughter Katie even received a truck from her eighteen-month-old brother Ζack when he first saw her in the hospital. (Of course, he presented it by unceremoniously dropping it on her head.) So what happened in this single case study? I had the two poster-children for gender stereotypical toys. For example, my son received a Beauty and the Beast male doll for Christmas when he was three, and he promptly tied it onto the end of his backhoe and pretended it was a sewer pipe. He loved his backhoe, and carried it everywhere with him. And he wanted a weapon so much that when we refused to let him have toy guns, he fashioned what he called “the ultimate weapon” out of Duplo blocks and pretended the state of Florida from his jigsaw puzzle was a gun. My daughter never played with a truck after being conked on the head by one during her first day of life, but she lugged her favorite doll Sue-Babe with her everywhere, leading to many frantic dashes after zoo trains and back to McDonald’s when Sue-Babe didn’t come home with the rest of the family. Of course, my children were exposed to the normal socializing agents of television, friends and grandparents, so their behavior does not prove these preferences are innate. It does, however, prove that these patterns are not easily overcome by merely offering and encouraging a wide array of toy choices.

As children age, they are confronted with more sophisticated toys but the same gender stereotyping. Video games are clearly pitched to a male market. The most popular games contain lots of violence, lots of action and women who (if they appear at all) are buxom and scantily dressed. Increasingly, women who appear on the video screen are there as victims, with twenty-one percent of popular games including violence directed toward women(2).

The negative consequences of the male domination of the video game market extend beyond the violence level and women-as-victim message. Video games actually improve spatial abilities and mental rotation(12). Spatial abilities are related to math abilities, an area where males already enjoy an advantage. Girls who play video games show the same improvements as boys, but they are less likely to play them because of the male-oriented themes. So the male advantage in math might be growing larger, thanks to gender-typing of video game themes. As Teen Talk Barbie might now say, “Math class is tough, and about to get tougher!”

Gender Roles in The Simpsons

In most episodes of The Simpsons, Marge stays well within the stereotypical female gender role. She is the wife and mother. She takes care of the house and children. She shops, cleans and carpools. But in the Springfield Pops episode, Marge clearly stepped outside the female gender role. In this episode, Marge captured a con artist by chasing him and hitting him with a trash-can lid.

Marge was so happy with her new, capable image that she decided to become a police officer. Marge succeeded in joining the police force, which was threatening to Homer. In the end, people running a counterfeit blue jean ring grabbed Homer. Marge freed Homer, but the designer jeans evidence mysteriously disappeared (as the other police all showed up in new designer jeans). Marge was so disillusioned by the corruption that she resigned from the police force.

Throughout this episode, Marge was departing from the traditional role of wife and mother. First, by pursuing the criminal and subduing him physically, she was showing herself to be competent and assertive, not weak and helpless. This assertiveness carried through as she went through police training and joined the force, in spite of Homer feeling threatened. Here she again took the assertive path instead of the nurturing path. But by the end of the episode, Marge returned to the female stereotype, being the principled one, the one who cannot tolerate dishonesty among her coworkers. And she retreated back into the female domain, the home.

Daughter Lisa is probably the least gender-stereotypical character on The Simpsons, and she clearly stepped in and out of the traditional female role in the episode “The President Wore Plaid.” In this episode, Lisa was elected school president and immediately set out an agenda for her presidency. This alarmed the school administration. As the school principal said, “She is very popular and thinks for herself” and added, “like a female Eleanor Roosevelt.” A female teacher pointed out that vanity is women’s weak spot, so the school administration offered Lisa a makeover, ostensibly so she would look more successful. When Marge saw Lisa after the makeover, she enthused, “You’re like Geraldine Ferraro, except you won and she failed miserably.” Lisa became quite full of herself, with her new look and her access to the teacher’s lounge, eventually being tricked into signing a form that eliminated art, music and gym from the school curriculum. Lisa was horrified at how she had been used, so she resigned as president and led a student protest that brought back the programs that had been cut.

This episode bounces back and forth between endorsing and challenging gender roles. Lisa, who is usually strong and capable, won the leadership position, which was a traditional male role. But she was side-tracked by vanity into becoming incompetent as a leader, putting her in the female gender-stereotypical pattern. Then she realized the error of her ways and returned to being competent and principled, but only by resigning from the traditional male role of president. So this episode bounces the viewer back and forth between traditional and non-traditional roles for Lisa like a wild roller-coaster ride.

Masculinity and Femininity

Underlying gender stereotypes and gender roles is the concept of masculinity /femininity. Psychologists have struggled with defining and measuring masculinity and femininity since the 1936 work of Lewis Terman and Catherine Cox Miles (2). Their Attitude Interest Analysis Survey (AIAS) contained a masculinity/femininity (MF) scale, which conceptualized masculinity and femininity as endpoints of one continuum. On this scale, as one became more masculine, he or she of necessity became less feminine. The scale, unfortunately for Terman and Miles, was a flop. It didn’t work to separate out men from women, much less high masculine men from less masculine men. Some researchers suggest that the AIAS MF scale measured idealized concepts of Victorian masculinity and femininity, rather than actual masculinity and femininity as it appears in real people (8).

The next big attempt to measure masculinity/femininity appeared in 1940, as the Mf scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). The main purpose of the MMPI was to measure psychological disorders, not normal personality traits. The Mf scale was included in this instrument as a means to identify homosexual tendencies, so the scale was validated by comparing thirteen homosexual men with fifty-four heterosexual men. “Femininity” was thus defined by the responses of thirteen homosexual men(9)! This scale was also unable to separate out real men (as in, living, breathing, not as in “Real Men”) from real women (again, living, breathing). It also confused the concepts of masculinity and homosexuality for years.

After decades of trying unsuccessfully to create or use one-dimensional scales that worked to separate masculinity from femininity, researchers finally realized that masculinity and femininity were not two ends of one continuum but two separate continua. Harkening back to the work on gender stereotypes, some researchers equate the masculine dimension with Competence (or Instrumentality) and the feminine dimension with Warmth (or Nurturance). Brannon(2) uses these two dimensions to identify the four possible subgroupings. She suggests we feel admiration for people who are high on both Competence and Warmth (Lisa?), envy for people high on Competence but low on Warmth (Mr. Burns?), pity for people low on Competence and high on Warmth (Homer?), and contempt for people low on both Competence and Warmth (Groundskeeper Willie?). Into which of the four classifications would you put the characters from The Simpsons? Will this become a new brainteaser?

Sandra Bem (1) produced a measure based on the two-dimensional idea of masculinity and femininity. The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) includes twenty characteristics representing the cultural stereotype of femininity (e.g., warm, childlike, understanding), twenty characteristics representing masculinity (e.g., ambitious, independent, aggressive), and twenty filler items that were judged equally true of males and females. The respondent then rates each characteristic as “always or almost always true” to “never or almost never true” on a seven-point scale. People are then categorized as high or low on masculinity and high or low on femininity. The resulting four groups correspond roughly to the four cells created by the crossing of Competence and Warmth, but the people who are High Masculine, Low Feminine are termed “masculine-typed” (regardless of whether they are male or female), those who score High Feminine, Low Masculine are termed “feminine-typed,” those who score low on both are termed “undifferentiated,” and those who score high on both masculinity and femininity are termed “androgynous.” About one-third of people who take this test are “sex-typed” (meaning masculine males or feminine females), about one-third are androgynous (high on both), and only about ten percent are “cross-sex typed,” meaning masculine females or feminine males(11).

Going back to our categorizations of the characters on The Simpsons, into which group would you place Krusty? Patty and Selma? Moe? Ned Flanders? Are Bart and Mr. Burns Masculine-typed? Is Marge Feminine-typed? Is Homer Undifferentiated? Is Lisa the only Androgynous one on the show?

Conclusion: Sex and Gender in Springfield

As is true of most television programming, the male/female representation in Springfield is freakishly skewed toward men. The main characters all occupy traditional gender roles, with men working outside the home (the male domain) and Marge and the children occupying the home (the female domain). Masculine, testosterone-charged activity fills the episodes, with the kind, gentle, sweet notes being provided by Marge, Lisa, Maggie and sometimes Apu and Ned Flanders.

But males can certainly be incompetent (Homer, Bart, Sideshow Bob), so the male characters don’t cleanly occupy the masculine stereotype. And some female characters (Selma and Patty) veer from the female stereotype with a harsh edge. In sum, Springfield is a town filled with traditional gender roles filled by characters that refuse to be caricatures of traditional gender stereotypes. And characters often move in and out of gender-stereotypic roles and actions, even within an episode, to great effect. So, in sum, the people who live on The Simpsons show are just like the real people who live in Springfield, Illinois. Or Massachusetts. Or Missouri. Or . . . D’oh!

References

1. Bem, S. “The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 1974: 155-162.

2. Brannon, L. Gender: Psychological Perspectives. Fourth Edition. New York: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon, 2005.

3. Campenni, C. E. “Gender Stereotyping of Children’s Toys: A Comparison of Parents and Non-parents.” Sex Roles, 40, 1999: 121-138.

4. Collaer, M. L. and M. Hines. “Human Behavioral Sex Differences: A Role for Gonadal Hormones during Early Development?” Psychological Bulletin, 118.1, 1995 : 55-107.

5. Deux, K. and L. Lewis. “The Structure of Gender Stereotypes: Interrelationships Among Components and Gender Label.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 1984: 991-1004.

6. Huston, A. C., D. Greer, J. C. Wright, R. Welch, and R. Ross. “Children’s Comprehension of Televised Formal Features with Masculine and Feminine Connotations.” Developmental Psychology, 20, 1984: 707-716.

7. Jones, R.W., D. M. Abelli, and R. B. Abelli. “Ratio of Female: Male Characters and Stereotyping in Educational Programming.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, CA, Aug. 1994.

8. Lewin, M. “‘Rather Worse than Folly?’ Psychology Measures Femininity and Masculinity: 1. from Terman and Miles to the Guilfords.” In the Shadow of the Past: Psychology Portrays the Sexes. Ed. Miriam Lewin. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984a.

9. Lewin, M. “Psychology Measures Femininity and Masculinity: 2. From ‘13 Gay Men’ to the Instrumental-expressive Distinction.” In the Shadow of the Past: Psychology Portrays the Sexes. Ed. Miriam Lewin. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984b.

10. Lewin, M. “The Victorians, the Psychologists, and Psychic Birth Control.” In the Shadow of the Past: Psychology Portrays the Sexes. Ed. Miriam Lewin. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984c.

11. Lips, H. Sex and Gender: Fifth Edition. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005.

12. Okagaki, L. & P. Frensch. “Effects of Video Game Playing on Measures of Spatial Performance: Gender Effects in Late Adolescence.” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, 1994: 33-58.

13. Wood, E., S. Desmarais, and S. Gugula. “The Impact of Parenting Experience on Gender Stereotyped Toy Play of Children.” Sex Roles, 47, 2002: 39-49.

14. Yoder, J. Women and Gender: Transforming Psychology. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999.

Linda Heath, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago, where her teaching and research interests focus on gender issues, media effects and psychology and law. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University and her B.A. from Ohio State University. She is a wife, mother and member of the Mixed Nuts Improv Troupe.

Kathryn Brown has been an ardent Simpsons fan for the past decade (since she was three years old). She peppers most conversations with her family with anecdotes from Simpsons episodes, which she watches at least daily. When she is not watching The Simpsons, she plays electric guitar, text-messages her friends and attends junior high school. Actually, sometimes she does several of these things concurrently!