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Bears Will Be Boys

A data analysis of animal gender in children’s books

With Russell Samora, Michelle Pera-McGhee, Jan Diehm

When I spend time with kids, I become hyperconscious of my word choices. “Look at Mr. Frog in the pond. Doesn’t he look grumpy?” Why did I say Mr. Frog? Why did I say he?

Where do these gendered presumptions even come from, and how pervasive are they? Is it common to assume that a frog is a “he?” What about a bear, or a bird, or a cat, or a pig?

I wanted to know: Which animals do we gender, and why?

Act I

Click to read more (2 min)
  • Which animals skew male vs. female?
  • Enter: children’s books and 1,300 random people

Finding the Data

To answer this question, we started with arguably the richest source of anthropomorphized animals in human culture: children’s picture books.

First, we identified the most popular English-language kids’ books on Goodreads that feature at least one anthropomorphized animal, focusing on the most rated titles published since 1950, plus some older and still highly rated classics.1 We read about 30 per decade—around 300 books in total—from which we noted the gender of any anthropomorphized animal character who was important to the story.

A mouse looking satisfied, sitting against an empty glass of milk. The text says “When he’s finished, he’ll ask for a glass of milk.”
He/him
An illustration from  <em>Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn</em> (2021) showing Kitty, a fluffy pink kitten with a yellow-and-orange paper unicorn horn. Kitty has green eyes and a purple bow around her neck. The page contains four drawings of Kitty in different playful poses, mostly standing, prancing, and galloping. The text reads: "Kitty stands tall. She prances on her pawed, clawed, unicorn hooves. She gallops on her eensy-weensy unicorn legs."
She/her
A large, colorful caterpillar  from <em>The Very Hungry Caterpillar</em> (1969) with a red head, yellow-rimmed green eyes, purple antennae, and a segmented green body stands on stubby brown legs. Above the caterpillar, the text reads: "Now he wasn’t hungry any more – and he wasn’t a little caterpillar any more. He was a big, fat caterpillar."
He/him
The mouse (he/him) from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (1985), written by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond.
How did we define gender?

For the purposes of our study, we were interested in fictional animal characters, and the human conceptions of gender foisted upon them. Even so, determining the gender of animal characters is tricky—both because gender is one of the most complex, fluid aspects of our lives, and because our perceptions of gender are often shaped by cultural biases and assumptions.

For example, in Sandra Boynton’s But Not the Hippopotamus (1982), a bear and a hare appear in bow ties—a traditionally masculine accessory—but are never explicitly gendered in the text. Are they boys?

To avoid projecting our own assumptions based on clothing, visual cues, or names, we decided to go with a conservative approach. We only recorded how animal characters were referenced in the text: with feminine (she/her), masculine (he/him), or neutral (it, they/them) pronouns; with a gendered honorific (e.g., Mr., Ms.) or familial role (e.g., brother, mother); or simply by their animal name (e.g., the frog) or a character name.

We were also curious about how people ordinarily assign gender to animals. Authors make deliberate choices about the characters they create. Contemporary authors might be especially intentional about subverting gender stereotypes.

To dig into these tendencies, we designed an experiment. We asked more than 1,300 survey respondents to complete a story that began:

“And then the bear said, ‘I must go to the river.’ Upon arriving…”

We randomly swapped in one of seven animals: bear, bird, cat, pig, duck, mouse, or dog. We didn’t tell participants what the experiment was about.2

Each response gave us a window into how the storyteller imagined the animal, especially whether they assigned the animal a gender.

Which animals skew male vs. female?

First up: children’s books. After filtering the data to focus on animals who were explicitly gendered (she/her or he/him) and appeared in at least 10 different books, only a few animals were more consistently gendered female: birds, ducks, and cats.

A bird is falling downward. The text says, “She fell.”
She/her
A black-and-white illustration from a children’s book shows a wide-eyed kitten sitting on a windowsill at night, with a bug stuck to her tongue. The kitten looks surprised and slightly dismayed. In the background, a large full moon glows in the sky, surrounded by several glowing fireflies. The text below reads: "But Kitten only ended up with a bug on her tongue. Poor Kitten!"
She/her
An illustration from Dr. Seuss’s <em>Horton Hatches the Egg</em> showing Mayzie the bird leaping toward a tree branch as the egg in the nest begins to crack open. The egg is large and orange with white spots, and it's surrounded by motion lines and bursts indicating the moment of hatching. Below, the text reads: “But it’s MINE!” screamed the bird, when she heard the egg crack.
She/her
An illustration from the children’s book <em>Little Bear</em> (1957) showing a duck and a hen sitting upright in chairs at a dining table covered with a fringed tablecloth. There is a potted flower and a jar in the center of the table. The accompanying text reads: “Thank you, Duck,” says Little Bear.  “Yes, I am making Birthday Soup. Will you stay and have some with us?” “Thank you, yes, thank you,” says Duck. And she sits down to wait.
She/her
A bird named Mel (she/her) in Mel Fell (2021), written and illustrated by Corey R. Tabor.

Anthropomorphized Animals in Popular Children’s Books

*Animals That Appear in 10+ Books

← more he/him
more she/her →
bird
bird illustration
duck
duck illustration
cat
cat illustration
pig
pig illustration
mouse
mouse illustration
rabbit
rabbit illustration
bear
bear illustration
monkey
monkey illustration
dog
dog illustration
elephant
elephant illustration
fox
fox illustration
wolf
wolf illustration
frog
frog illustration
100% he/him
75% he/him
Equal
75% she/her
100% she/her

The rest—frog, wolf, fox, elephant, dog, monkey, bear, rabbit, mouse, and pig—skew male. Because so much of our worldview is shaped by our environment when we are young, automatically reaching for he after “look at the frog!” starts to make some sense. After all, that’s what the books say.

An illustration from <em>It Fell From the Sky</em> (2021) showing a realistic frog crouched among tall dandelions and leafy plants. The frog’s tongue is extended toward a colorful object on the ground: a shiny green and yellow marble. The marble is the only part of the image in color. Below, the text reads: "A Frog assumed it was a gumdrop. He didn’t like how it tasted."
He/him
An illustration from <em>Something's Wrong!: A Bear, a Hare, and Some Underwear</em> (2021) showing Anders, a green rabbit with wide eyes and a surprised expression staring at a bear, Jeff, wearing only white underpants. The text, presumably from the rabbit’s inner monologue, reads: “Oh boy. Should I tell him? Yes? You really think he can handle it? Why am I even asking you? Who are you? All right. Welp. Here we go . . .”
He/him
An illustrated page from <em>The Three Pigs</em> (2001) showing a wolf with eyes closed, cheeks puffed, and paws raised as he blows hard. Straw flies through the air, surrounding a pig who is tumbling backward out of the panel. The narration at the top reads: "So the wolf huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the house in…" The pig, mid-air and startled, has a speech bubble that says: "Hey! He blew me right out of the story!"
He/him
An illustration from <em>Clifford’s Halloween</em> (1966) showing Clifford the Big Red Dog dressed as Santa Claus. He wears a red Santa hat and has a big white beard tied around his face. A child rides on his back. Clifford carries a sack of toys in his mouth that are tumbling out. Two bundled-up children run toward him in the snow. The caption reads: "At Christmas, Clifford makes a very good Santa. He already has a red coat."
He/him
A frog (he/him) from It Fell From the Sky (2021), written by Devin Fan and illustrated by Devin Fan and F.H. Terry.

Anthropomorphized Animals in Survey Results

← more he/him
more she/her →
cat
cat illustration
bird
bird illustration
pig
pig illustration
rabbit
rabbit illustration
dog
dog illustration
mouse
mouse illustration
bear
bear illustration
100% he/him
75% he/him
Equal
75% she/her
100% she/her

In the survey responses to our experiment, no animal tilted more female than male. The animal gender usage order almost identically mirrored those from the children’s books.

“And then the bear said, ‘I must go to the river.’ Upon arriving…”
he looked at the beavers work and said “Dam.”

-Survey Respondent (40s)
he spun around like a ballerina, dipped his paws in the river, and caught the most beautiful pink salmon.

-Survey Respondent (20s, Female)
he realised he forgot his phone home or maybe on the bus. This is when panic shot through him, not because he had an expensive phone but because he just reached level 6000 on Candy Crush and now he had to start all over. As he calmed down he started to retrace his steps…

-Survey Respondent (20s)
the other animals were surprised that the bear had learned to speak English, and viewed him with great suspicion.

-Survey Respondent (40s, Male)
the river had completely dried up. The bear sat down and wondered what happened to it, the river being his favourite place.

-Survey Respondent

Mostly he, rarely she, and sometimes It

In the children’s books, male animal characters appeared twice as often as female characters. Male pronouns appeared nearly three times as often in the survey results—particularly striking because there were more women respondents.

In the children’s books, gender neutral language (it or they)–whether intentional or not–was not common. Only two percent of the animals were described as it. They/them was almost never used.

An illustration from <em>The Rabbit Listened</em> (2018) that shows two scenes. In the top half, a small brown rabbit approaches a scattered pile of yellow toy blocks. The text reads: "But it moved closer, and closer." In the bottom half, a child named Taylor with curly dark hair, wearing teal striped pajamas, sits curled up on the ground looking sad. The rabbit now sits quietly beside Taylor, leaning in. The text beside them reads: "Until Taylor could feel its warm body."
it
An illustration from <em>Are You My Mother?</em> (1960) showing a wide-eyed brown kitten standing silently, staring at a small bird who is looking up at it with an open beak. The kitten has bright yellow eyes and a neutral expression. The text reads: "The kitten just looked and looked. It did not say a thing."
it
A vibrant illustration shows a firefly with red wings and a green face flying through a twilight sky. On the right, the orange sun sets below the horizon, casting red rays into the deepening blue and purple sky. The text at the top reads: "As the sun set a little firefly was born.
it
An illustration shows a snowy arctic landscape under a night sky glowing with northern lights. On the left, a wolverine covered trudges through the snow. On the right, a large, shaggy musk ox named Cozy stands in the snow, sheltering several small animals beneath him. The text reads: "As winter went by, the storms grew worse. The wind blew and blew, and a low humpy shape appeared, swaying and shuffling. Its coat was covered with ice balls. 'Shaggy beast,' it growled, 'I fell into an ice floe and am chilled to the bone. Can you help me?' Cozy was happy to invite the wolverine in, but added to the house rules. 'Quiet voices, gentle thumping, claws to yourself, no biting, and no pouncing.'"
it
The rabbit from The Rabbit Listened (2018), written and illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld.

There was a lot more gender neutrality and ambiguity in the survey responses—though, since their stories were much shorter than a typical kid’s book, it was perhaps easier to maintain gender neutrality. While he/him was still the most frequently used pronoun in the survey results, many respondents referred to the animal by name (26%), by it (17%), or by they/them (3%).

Explore All Animal Characters

These are the 821 animals from children’s books that we included in our analysis. Hover or click for more information. See methods for more details or download the data.
Search by title
He/him: 66.2%
She/her: 31.1%
Other: 2.7%
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dinosaur
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elephant
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reindeer
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llama
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toad
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aardvark
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goat
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fly
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hippo
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worm
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horse
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rhino
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snake
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tiger
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bat
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cricket
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deer
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kangaroo
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ladybug
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moose
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ox
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raccoon
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sheep
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skunk
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turtle
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bug
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butterfly
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chameleon
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chicken
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hedgehog
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mole
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opossum
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rat
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squirrel
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whale
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alligator
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beaver
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camel
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caterpillar
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chipmunk
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cobra
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firefly
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giraffe
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gorilla
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hog
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hyena
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newt
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praying mantis
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stink bug
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tortoise
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walking stick
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armadillo
baboon
bee
boa constrictor
chimpanzee
clam
dolphin
eel
flamingo
grasshopper
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inchworm
jaguar
jellyfish
koala
lemming
leopard
lizard
lobster
luna moth
meerkat
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mongoose
mosquito
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narwhal
octopus
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ostrich
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pony
porcupine
sloth
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squid
stag beetle
swan
turkey
warthog
wolverine
woodchuck
yellow jacket

Act II

Click to read more (5 min)
  • Why do we gender certain animals more than others?
  • Enter: Egyptian cats and British ladybugs

Where did all the girl animals go?

Why are animal gender ratios so lopsided in children’s books? And why are female animals just as absent in the stories produced by the survey respondents?

Perhaps because the main character of a story is still assumed to be male by default—and maybe especially when the story’s setting lacks explicit social cues.

This aligns with decades of research—much of it quantitative—showing that male characters dominate children’s literature and media. A 2011 study found that gender disparity was actually more pronounced for animal protagonists.

The classic 1987 study, “The Three Bears Are All Boys: Mothers' Gender Labeling of Neutral Picture Book Characters,” (1987) by Judy S. DeLoache, Deborah J. Cassidy, and C. Jan Carpenter.

But why do we gender certain animals in certain ways more than others—like cats, birds, and ladybugs as females, or bears, wolves, dogs, and frogs as males?

An illustration shows two male animals—a bunny with black ears and a bowtie, and a brown rabbit with glasses—holding paws at their wedding ceremony. The officiant is a golden cat in a white robe and pearls, holding a religious text. Beside her stands her wife, a gray cat in a purple dress and necklace. The text reads: "And the ceremony was performed by a cat named Pajama...who brought her wife as her date."
She/her
She/her
An illustration shows a large tabby cat lounging on the ground, eyes closed, calmly licking her paw. Behind her is a red barn with a tire, a shovel, and a wooden barrel. Duck is riding by on a red and white bicycle. The text reads: "Then Duck rode past Cat. ‘Hello, Cat!’ said Duck. ‘Meow,’ said Cat. But what she thought was, ‘I wouldn’t waste my time riding a bike!’"
She/her
A cat named Pajama (she/her) from A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (2018), written by Jill Twiss and illustrated by E.G. Keller. This book parodies Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President, a story about the real-life pet bunny of Mike Pence, the former Vice President and anti-LGBTQ advocate.

It’s likely the result of a rich and long-simmering cultural soup: a mix of patriarchal structures and human stereotypes, linguistic habits and famous media characters, with just a sprinkling of historical quirks to taste.

The children’s book character Little Bear, an anthropomorphic bear, is stirring a big blue pot of soup.
Little Bear tending to a long-simmering cultural soup. Source: The 1990s TV adaptation of Little Bear, originally written by Else Holmelund and illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Large, strong animals like bears and wolves are often coded as masculine, while small, delicate animals like birds or kittens are more easily read as feminine.

There are also countless folk tales, stories, and metaphors that connect certain animals with human gender, some of them dating back hundreds or thousands of years.

The Egyptian funerary monument circa 800 BCE. One figure, center left, is a human woman with a cat head.
The Egyptian goddess Bastet (center), depicted as a human woman with a cat head, in a funerary monument circa 800 BCE. Photo credit: Detroit Institute of Arts

While of course there are famous boy cats—Garfield, Felix, Puss in Boots—cats have been linked to femininity and female bodies for a long time (the slang term “pussy” is literally hundreds of years old). Cats were linked to goddesses in ancient Egypt, to witches in medieval Europe, and to TikTok girlfriends today.

The Egyptian funerary monument circa 800 BCE. One figure, center left, is a human woman with a cat head.
This ancient Greek vase (circa 480-470 BCE) depicts a scene from The Odyssey, where the Sirens are represented as birds with women’s heads. Photo courtesy: British Museum

Birds, too, carry associations with femininity. You can think of the caged bird as a metaphor for constrained womanhood, or all the women who get transformed into birds in Greek mythology.

These associations are embedded in the slang we use everyday, even across languages like English and Spanish. As scholar Irene López Rodríguez reminds us, we call men “studs, bucks, wolves, toros (bulls), zorros (foxes) and linces (lynxes),” and we call women “chick, bird, kitten, pollita (chicken) or gatita (kitten).” She argues that these word choices aren’t arbitrary but rather “shed some light onto the expectations and beliefs society holds about males and females.”

Thinking beyond English raises another important question: Does language influence how we perceive the gender of animals?

Some languages, like Spanish or French, have grammatical gender, where all nouns are gendered, even inanimate ones like la mesa (the table). In Spanish, many animals can be either masculine or feminine, such as the cat—el gato or la gata. But others, like the frog—la rana—are always grammatically feminine.

Are Spanish speakers more likely to perceive frogs as girls?

Maybe, at least according to a recent study. There are definitely Spanish children’s books with girl frogs in starring roles, like La Rana Mariana busca toda la semana or Rana de Tres Ojos.

The cover of the children's book titled <em>La rana Mariana busca toda la semana</em> by Mar Benegas and Mariana Ruiz Johnson. The central image shows a cheerful frog (Mariana) holding a silver thimble inside a green tent. Around her are various animals: a blue elephant, a bird in red polka-dot, a bear, and others. A speech bubble from Mariana says “¡Encuentra el dedal levantando las solapas!” ("Find the thimble by lifting the flaps!").
The cover of La Rana Mariana busca toda la semana (Mariana the frog searches all week), written by Mar Benegas and illustrated by Mariana Ruiz Johnson. The book stars Mariana (she/her).

Ladybugs are another intriguing case. Ladybugs are gendered as female in three of the four different books where they appear in our dataset.

A ladybug with a “Kick Me” sign on her back who appears to be shouting at her fly children. The text says “Mom says we were a lot easier to watch before we grew heads.”
She/her
A ladybug wearing a hat with her back turned to the viewer, speaking to a group of other insects in front of a large colorful marble. The text reads “Ladybug was perched on a leaf when it landed. “I had a very good view. It bounced three times, then rolled to a stop," she said. The Inchworm insisted it only bounced twice. Everyone agreed it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen.”
She/her
A green ladybug with a straw hat and a bow is flying out of a small pink car on fire. The text says, “Ladybug has a fire in her car and the firemen have come to put it out. Can you guess who called them?.”
She/her
Ladybug from Diary of a Fly (2007), written by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Harry Bliss.

Are ladybugs “ladies” in all languages?

In the English language, the word ladybird—that’s what the Brits call ladybugs—and ladycow, another common term, originated around the 1600s. “Lady” was a reference to “Our Lady,” the Virgin Mary, apparently because both the beetle and the Holy Mother like to wear red. Ladybugs were also considered somewhat divine3 because they devour the pests that plague farmers and gardeners (yes, they’re carnivores).

Somehow the name spread, possibly through colonial networks and nursery rhymes. In The History of the Ladybird: With Some Diversions on This and That, A.W. Exell documents 329 names for ladybugs in 55 languages. A full quarter of them are linked to the Virgin Mary.

Ladybug Names🐞

Feminine (Mary)
Feminine (Other)
Other
  • Ladybird (English - UK) "Our Lady (Virgin Mary)'s Bird"
  • Ladybug (English - US, Canada) "Our Lady (Virgin Mary)'s Bug"
  • Bubamara (Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian) "Mary's Beetle"
  • Mariehøne (Danish) "Mary's Hen"
  • Marienkäfer (German) "Mary’s Beetle"
  • Mariquita (Spanish) "Little Mary "
  • Mariehöna (Swedish) "Mary’s Hen"
  • Marihøne (Norwegian) "Mary's Hen"
  • Maríubjalla (Icelandic) "Mary's Bell/Bug"
  • Mămăruță (Romanian) "Little Mother"
  • Maríuhæna (Icelandic) "Mary's Hen"
  • Marieta (Catalan) "Little Mary "
  • Bizbizmārīte (Latvian) "Buzz Buzz Mary"
  • Mariutine (Friulian - Italy) "Little Mary "
  • Lievevrouwebeestje (Dutch - Netherlands and Belgium) "Our Dear Lady’s Little Creature"
  • bóín Dé (Irish) "Little Cow of God"
  • Lepatriinu (Estonian) "Catherine of the Alder Tree"
  • Bête à Bon Dieu (French - Alternative) "God's Little Creature (Feminine)"
  • פרת משה רבנו (Hebrew) "Cow of Moses Our Teacher"
  • Joaninha (Portuguese) "Little Joana"
  • божья коровка (Russian) "God's Little Cow"
  • Boża Krówka (Polish) "God's Little Cow"
  • πασχαλίτσα (Greek) "Little Easter Thing (Feminine)"
  • nusepashke (Albanian) "Easter Bride"
  • Leppäkerttu (Finnish) "Kerttu of the Alder Tree"
  • أم علي (Arabic - Iraq) "Mother of Ali"
  • Slunéčko (Czech) "Little Sun"
  • Coccinelle (French) "From the Latin 'Coccinella' (refers to the color scarlet)"
  • 瓢虫 (Mandarin) "Ladle Bug"
  • Coccinella (Italian) "From the Latin 'Coccinella' (refers to the color scarlet)"
  • Himmelsdéierchen (Luxembourgish) "Little Heaven Animal"
  • 天道虫 (Japanese) "Heavenly Path Insect"
  • 무당벌레 (Korean) "Shaman Bug"
  • کفشدوزک (Persian) "Little Cobbler"
  • دعسوقة (Arabic ) "(No Clear Literal Meaning)"
  • Lieveheersbeestje (Dutch) "Dear Lord's Little Bug"
  • Bọ rùa (Vietnamese) "Turtlebug"
  • গুবরে-পোকা (Bengali) "Dung Beetle or Beetle"

Another widespread term is “God’s little cow”—also religious, feminine, and resembling the British “ladycow”—as found in Russian (божья коровка), Polish (boża krówka), and Hebrew (פרת משה רבנו). Many other names for the ladybug are similarly gendered, invoking young girls, little hens, and other diminutive feminine figures.

This reveals how the gendering of animals can be both arbitrary and deeply culturally ingrained. What began as, let’s face it, a bit of a stretch—a beetle’s symbolic connection to the Virgin Mary—steadily became the ladybug’s gendered destiny in many parts of the human world.

Wrap Up

Click to read more (2 min)
  • Let’s get weirder, wilder, and less predictable
  • Enter: Girl Power Pigs

Weirder, wilder, less predictable

So our gendered associations with certain animals—like the frog, bear, cat, or ladybug—are shaped by the biggest structural forces in our lives: the patriarchy, colonialism, language, history. But also? Many of these associations are kind of… random. And that’s inspiring in its own weird way. While it may be a bummer to realize how much our mental maps are shaped by British imperialism and 17th-century religious iconography, it also means those maps can be redrawn.

While broad patterns haven’t shifted over time, we did find plenty of meaningful exceptions.

Illustration of two pig characters from the children's book Olivia by Ian Falconer. The larger pig, Olivia, wears a red bow, red heels, a pearl necklace, and has red lipstick. She holds a lipstick tube while admiring herself in a tall mirror. Behind her, her little brother Ian, dressed in a black-and-white striped shirt, also has smeared red lipstick on his face, copying Olivia. The caption reads: “Olivia has a little brother named Ian. He’s always copying.”
She/her
Illustration from Laura Joffe Numeroff’s <em>If You Give a Pig a Pancake</em> (1998) showing a pig sitting on an open windowsill holding a plate with a pancake on it. Text at the bottom reads: “she’ll want some syrup to go with it.”
She/her
Illustration of a gray elephant joyfully exclaiming, “My friend can fly! She can fly!” in a purple speech bubble. To the right, a pink pig is dangling mid-air from a string tied around her waist and replies in a pink speech bubble, “I am not flying!”
She/her
Olivia (she/her) from Olivia (2000), written by Ian Falconer.

Pigs, for example, may be flipping the script. While pigs were coded as male for a long time—hello, Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf—they took a strong feminine turn around the new millennium. In books like If You Give a Pig a Pancake (1998), Olivia (2000), and the Elephant & Piggie series (2007-), pig characters are not only female but confident, curious, and central to their stories.

Plus, there are thousands of children’s books that are not in our dataset. We focus here on popular titles, but a lot of people intentionally seek out books beyond the mainstream.

Outside the spotlight, in indie and lesser-known titles, animal characters are hopefully getting weirder, wilder, and less predictable.

Data & methods

Click to read more (4 min)
  • Which books did we use?
  • How did we identify gender?

Where can I find the data?

You can find the data we used in this analysis on GitHub.

How and why did we select these books?

We identified 30 popular children’s books with anthropomorphic animals for every decade since 1950, plus a catch-all category for everything before 1950.

To do so, we first compiled a general dataset of English-language picture books that have been popular in the 21st century. We collected information about books that were tagged as a “picture book” the most times or included in a list of well-known picture books on Goodreads. We added picture books that appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for Children’s Picture Books and picture books that were tagged as “animals” in the Children’s Book Database at Miami University.

To find picture books that specifically feature anthropomorphic animals, we selected any book that had “animals” as one of its top Goodreads tags; any book that was tagged as “animals” in the Children’s Book Database; or any book that GPT-4o identified as featuring animals (after being prompted with its title, author, and description). We then manually evaluated every book and every representation of animal characters (for more on how we determined “anthropomorphic” animals, see below). We excluded anthologies and collections, like Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

We then ranked the remaining books by number of Goodreads ratings and selected the top ~30 books from every decade category.

What counts as anthropomorphic and “important to the story”?

We include animal characters that meet the following criteria: 1) the animal exists (or existed) in the real world; 2a) the animal is an active subject at some point in the book; 2b) the animal has dialogue or plays a role in the story; 3) the animal has at least one anthropomorphic quality (e.g., clothing, speech, upright walking, jobs, personality, uses tools, facial expressions, complex relationships, cultural behavior, lives in a house, etc.). We exclude animals that were only referred to as a group or in a plural form (e.g, “… said the birds”, “the squirrels jumped”).

How did we identify gender?

We identified the gender of animals based on how they were referenced in the text: with feminine (she/her), masculine (he/him), or neutral (it, they/them) pronouns; with a gendered honorific (e.g., Mr., Ms.) or familial role (e.g., brother, mother); or simply by their animal name (e.g., the frog) or a character name. Our analysis focuses on how animals are represented along a gender binary, but this reflects textual cues. Gender, whether in humans or animals, is much more complex than this binary suggests.

In our grid, we only display animals referenced with she/her, he/him, or it pronouns, or those referenced with a gendered honorific or familial role.

What about animal characters that appear multiple times, like the Berenstain Bears or Pete the Cat?

Our dataset includes some animal characters who appear multiple times in multiple very popular books, like the Berenstain Bears or Pete the Cat. In our analysis, we only consider one instance of an animal character and exclude repeat appearances. In our grid, we display every instance of an anthropomorphic animal, even in repeat appearances. This leads to some slight differences in gender percentage breakdowns between the dot plot and grid.

How did we handle different names for the same animal (e.g., bunny, rabbit)? What animals did we exclude?

Sometimes the same animal can have multiple names. For our analysis, we group together the following animal names: cat and kitten; dog and puppy; bunny, rabbit, and hare.

For our grid visualization, we group together some bugs (bug, maybug), some snakes (snake, python), sheep (sheep, lamb), fish (fish, trout, minnow, lantern fish), and birds (bird plus some specific bird types including stork, robin, sparrow, and parrot—other more distinctive birds like owls, eagles, geese, flamingoes, etc. have their own categories). We exclude animal terms that already imply the sex of the animal, like cow, hen, rooster, and gander.

What prompt did we use for the survey?

We provided survey respondents with the following prompt: “In the 1980s, there was a study that produced surprising results about our predictive tendencies. We’re conducting a similar study today. Instructions: Complete the line below. What did the bear do? Your response can be up to three sentences.

“And then the bear said, ‘I must go to the river.’ Upon arriving…”

We randomly swapped in one of seven animals: bear, bird, cat, pig, duck, mouse, or dog.

Footnotes

  • 1. We included ~30 books per decade since 1950, plus a catch-all category for books published before 1950. Because we were interested in the books that kids are reading today, we defined “popularity” not by historical sales or readership but by contemporary relevance—specifically, the books with the most Goodreads ratings as of the past year.
  • 2. In our survey, we tried to be sneaky and didn’t mention gender at all. We said: “In the 1980s, there was a study that produced surprising results about our predictive tendencies. We’re conducting a similar study today. Instructions: Complete the line below. What did the bear do? Your response can be up to three sentences.”
  • 3. Exell describes the ladybug as “the most venerated creature on earth over immense areas of space and stretches of time.” Yeah, you could say he liked ladybugs.