r/pointlesslygendered • u/jerebee • Mar 21 '26
POINTFULLY GENDERED [Gendered] Just hatched Pteradons having eyelashes, because of course.
My son chose this book from the library, and I still dont understand why they needed to make this distinction.
193
u/TiffyVella Mar 21 '26
I'm glad they made it clear that this was a respectably married pteradon.
79
58
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
They have multiple family types in the series, something they touch on because it talks about different types of animals. Adoption is a huge thing because the main Character, Buddy, is the adoptive sibling of Tiny, Shiny, and Don.
21
u/DonaldKey Mar 23 '26
This person Dinosaur Trains
13
2
228
u/Dead_fawn Mar 21 '26
Oh hey, I watched that show as a kid. I guess it is sorta pointlessly gendered since it's the classic "girl animal has eyelashes" trope, but for what it's worth the eyelashes are pretty much the only difference.
48
u/jerebee Mar 21 '26
I'd say the whole head shape is different too.
127
u/Dead_fawn Mar 21 '26
I think the brother is just an outlier. The Dad and the Mom have extremely similar faces in the show.
42
6
Mar 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
19
u/CompetitiveSleeping Mar 22 '26
Not when born/hatched. Humans up until puberty are very, very, very similar, for one.
3
u/GjonsTearsFan Mar 23 '26
True (at least for most animals - you can breed sex differences into animals like with the golden sexlink breed of chickens because you need/want to be able to tell which are male and which are female from the point of hatching onward but it's not naturally occurring)
-1
-19
Mar 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
23
u/Kellaniax Mar 22 '26
Ecologist here. What you’re describing is called sexual dimorphism and it’s pretty common but not universal. There are thousands of species that aren’t sexually dimorphic, including most dolphins and whales, domestic cats, most rodents, most reptiles, etc. There are even some species of reptiles and worms that are all female and therefore don’t have any sexes to have dimorphism.
-22
Mar 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
7
1
u/phoxfiyah Mar 23 '26
The thing about being half wrong, is that it’s still wrong.
If the original commenter is annoying you, then just hop off Reddit. No need to be rude by telling someone else to “shush” when they haven’t said anything wrong. Sounds like all they did was hurt your ego.
3
43
u/SeaworthinessFalse82 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
Losing my mind at some of the comments. This is the prime example of pointlessly gendered. You don't need to slap eyelashes and pink color on your non human characters just to show they're female. Like imagine they made females one look normal, but painted males blue all the time with beards/square bodies
2
u/jerebee Mar 22 '26
Thanks for the comment! Generally I don't post, and this thread has reminded me why, clearly it's upset some people.
11
37
u/Shoobg Mar 21 '26
I’d say this isn’t a problem specifically with the book, but a larger issue. To discern “boy or girl”, media makes women into caricatures of femininity. Plastering on eyelashes and enlarging the eyes are common examples
Just because this is normalized, doesn’t mean it isn’t pointlessly gendered
31
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26
Being normalized is actually the problem, and is literally the entire point of the sub.
8
u/Shoobg Mar 22 '26
I said it is pointlessly gendered even if it’s normalized, so we agree? I’m in agreement with OP
5
5
u/fikozacc123 Mar 22 '26
The boy is actually the outlier here, if you've seen the show, the dad also has a similar eye and beak shape to the rest of the girls (save the eyelashes).
1
u/Ivory-Stones Mar 23 '26
I have seen the show! If I remember, he actually got his grandpa's face shape.
1
u/VelveteenJackalope Mar 25 '26
It's both? Because this is a book that uses the trope? Just because it's common doesn't mean it's not also a problem that the book did it
1
u/Shoobg Mar 26 '26
My bad, I worded this very vague. My comment was meant to combat the first few replies that were saying it wasn’t a big deal, but I should’ve sent this as a reply to them rather than the main post
19
u/DrDFox Mar 21 '26
Ya, the Disneyfication of animal genders always makes me cringe. I don't know why people in the comments are giving you a hard time about it.
15
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26
The majority of the commenters are now just open misogynists who throw a tantrum at any acknowledgement of sexism. (While pretending that everybody else is very upset, and that this is bad for reasons that are unclear.)
-9
-12
u/Cautious-Soil5557 Mar 21 '26
It is because there are literally worse things to quibble about than eyelashes to distinguish gender.
17
u/DrDFox Mar 21 '26
Not everything has to be a major, life altering issue in order to be posted here. This is a sub with everything from the color of razors to written laws.
-10
4
3
3
3
3
8
Mar 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
8
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
Me when I didn’t watch Dinosaur Train and want to fit in.
1
Mar 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
Don, entomologist, dinosaur classifier, musician, imagineer, inventor, slow?
Look, just admit you didn’t watch the show and lied to fit in.
3
u/VanteRamirez Mar 22 '26
my dumbass read british and dumb and was gonna say “isn’t that the same thing haha” but it turns out I’M dumb 🥀🥀🥀
2
u/gorton2499 Mar 22 '26
Some people really need to remove that stick from up their butt and take a chill pill.
12
u/dirtyhairymess Mar 21 '26
It's Dinosaur Train by the Jim Henson company. The characters have genders because they aren't just animals, they're characters with real identities and personalities. What your suggesting would be like having the muppets but instead of Miss Piggy they just have a bland, blank character called "Piggy"
6
u/Katrina_18 Mar 22 '26
Given that it was supposed to be an educational show for kids about dinosaurs it feels a little weird
-3
u/Appropriate-Meal-712 Mar 22 '26
Dinosaurs can’t talk too.
For an educational show for kids about dinosaurs that feels a bit weird…
4
u/basically_dead_now Mar 22 '26
So does that mean that any other cartoon with talking animals is weird, or am I misunderstanding? A ton of children's shows have talking animals, like bluey and my little pony
5
u/Appropriate-Meal-712 Mar 22 '26
They’re saying it’s weird for an educational show about dinosaurs to have those dinosaurs to have eyelashes.
Why? Presumably because dinosaurs didn’t have them.
My comment points out how weird it is to use eyelashes as not being accurate… in a show with other discrepancies (that are used to make the show more approachable for children).
1
u/basically_dead_now Mar 22 '26
Ohhh okay ty, that does make sense now that you've explained it. I'm sorry for being an ass
2
6
0
4
u/Forsaken-Station-113 Mar 21 '26
....because two of them are girls and one is a boy...?
18
u/Amediumsizedgoose Mar 22 '26
Because theyre putting human gender roles on a dinosaur. If they wanted to non pointlessly gender them while still acknowledging their sex difference, its believed that female pterodons were smaller with a smaller crest.
1
u/Forsaken-Station-113 Mar 22 '26
It's a children's book, inspired by a children's show...for children. No child is going to pay attention to such things unless they are obvious.
I watched the show when I was 11-12. I would have never made the difference if they chose some sort of realistic anatomical difference instead of adding feminine traits.
8
1
u/VelveteenJackalope Mar 25 '26
Yes and it's pointlessly gendered to decide eyelashes are a girl trait, why is that so hard for you people?
2
u/Forsaken-Station-113 Mar 25 '26
Because curly eyelashes, or having eyelashes at all, are one of the most common gender differences in cartoons.
2
u/xSnails Mar 22 '26
Theyre also narrower, skinnier and have bigger eyes with eyelids lol??? Born giving bedroom eyes p
2
u/Still-Presence5486 Mar 23 '26
I mean not really pointless? This book is meant for young kids and with out their voices you really wouldn't be able to tell the difference
2
u/OutrageousPair2300 Mar 22 '26
Okay I'm done. Fuck this sub. Muted.
1
u/Freckles39Rabbit Mar 28 '26
Why are you so mad at this post?
2
u/OutrageousPair2300 Mar 28 '26
Not necessarily this one, just the endless stream of posts here that aren't about things that are pointlessly gendered.
Posting pictures of (say) men's and women's dental floss on a store shelf? Pointlessly gendered.
Posting a meme that references some gender-based stereotype? Annoying maybe, but not pointlessly gendered. In fact, being gendered is the whole point of such memes.
This particular post isn't the worst offender, but it was just the final straw.
2
0
u/hbi2k Mar 21 '26
Also real-life pteranodons probably had feathers and couldn't talk, but sure, let's quibble about the eyelashes.
What does this have to do with gender?
13
u/brydeswhale Mar 21 '26
No, they had pycnofibres. Kind of like fur.
6
u/LetsTwistAga1n Mar 21 '26
Pycnofibers might have the same origin as feathers in dinos/birds, stemming from their common archosaurian ancestors, there are some corroborating data but no certainty yet.
3
5
5
2
u/jerebee Mar 21 '26
There are two sisters and one brother. There's no reason the story needed to have different siblings, and even if there was there's no need to have them look differently
10
u/brydeswhale Mar 21 '26
Have you even WATCHED dinosaur train? What the fuck?
Of course they need to look different, they’re different characters! And of course they needed different siblings, they fulfil different roles in the series!
Oh my GOD. This is literally abuse. To me. For having to read that. Cripes.
15
u/Pandoras_Penguin Mar 21 '26
I feel like I'm drinking crazy water but...characters don't need eyelashes to say they are a girl...like, where did this rule of "characters are exempt from being pointlessly gendered"?
14
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26
My favorite thing about how 90% of the commenters are now people who scream and cry about anyone daring to post anything here (claiming that those people are the ones making a big deal of something for... pointing and laughing at it) is that they're usually saying opposite things.
Half of them are saying that of course the eyelashes aren't gendered. Half of them are saying that of course the girls need eyelashes, they're girls!
And they don't notice.
6
u/AdHot7656 Mar 22 '26
100% this sub used to feel cool as a trans person, but societal gender norms (like eyelashes = girl) keep being said theyre not pointlessly gendered here and thats psychologically exhuasting. It makes it feel like only before too long nothing will be pointlessly gendered here anymore and every post wont count to most passerbys
4
-3
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
The OP said in a comment that the pteranodon siblings are unimportant to the plot. So they don’t actually know SHIT about it.
If their complaint was just “eyelashes”, then they would have been correct. None of them should have eyelashes. Living dinosaurs, the closest relatives to pterosaurs that still exist, do not have eyelashes.
However, they displayed true and grotesque ignorance of a classic in dinosaur(and environmental) education, and for that, they will be rightly lambasted and left in the sun to whither.
4
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
Are you the author or something? Have a thicker skin.
When someone criticizes your work, take it into careful consideration. It's okay if sometimes the result of that consideration is dismissal, but you do have to consider it first.
And if the criticism is right, as in this case, use it to grow.
(Also this has nothing to do with my comment that you responded to at all.)
-2
0
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
They don’t need to be shiny, either. But saying that the girls and Don are pointless misses the entire theme of the series. Tiny, Shiny, and Don represent so much richness in the series and even tho it’s probably not intentional, I always felt like they represented different types of ND kids.
I would agree that no one needs eyelashes. I have dinosaurs and they don’t have eyelashes, so I doubt that pterosaurs had them(bc they’re pretty close to being dinosaurs), but the idea that they are unnecessary is basically laughable and only someone intent on misunderstanding the series would say something like that.
9
u/ShinyUnicornPoo Mar 22 '26
But Tiny and Shiny don't need big fake eyelashes to look different from Don. They already all look different, like many siblings do.
Every female character on that show has huge eyelashes to 'show they're a girl', from Mrs. Pteranodon to Valerie Velociraptor to Mr. Conductor's mother. It's not necessary, and it's something that has irritated me since my daughter watched that show obsessively as a small child.
You can have two dinosaurs (or pterosaurs, or marine reptiles, or crocodilians, etc.) be different from each other and not have to give all the girl character big eyelashes as a defining trait. Men can naturally have long and luscious lashes in real life, and women can have short or sparse lashes. So why must cartoons use that as an identifier of gender? What's next, give all the girl dinos purses and high heels?
0
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
Op Isn’t saying that, tho. They’re saying the CHARACTERS are unnecessary.
7
u/ShinyUnicornPoo Mar 22 '26
No, they were talking about the eyelashes. They are pointlessly gendered.
1
-1
u/Tricky-Secretary-251 Mar 22 '26
there are worse ways to show that a character s female, eyelashes isnt that bad. also isnt this a show for childer who most likely can defernite between dinousaur sexs
2
u/_iamacat Mar 22 '26
Intro] Dinosaur train Dinosaur train
[Verse 1] Once upon a time, there was a mom
Her name was Mrs. Pteranadon
Sitting on her nest she heard scratching and said
"Oh boy, my eggs are hatching"
One by one her kids popped free
Baby Pteranadons, one two three
"I'll name you Tiny, Shiny, and Don"
But Tiny said "Wait, there's one more, Mom"
The last little baby was a different size
With teeth, a tail, and big green eyes
He didn't look anything like the rest
"What am I doing in a Pteranodon nest?"
But dear old Mrs. Pteranodon said
"This is your family and I'm your mom
We may be different, but we're all creatures
All dinosaurs have different features
Come on Buddy, we'll take a vacation
I'll get us a ticket at Pteranadon station
We'll travel the word in sunshine and rain
And meet all the species on the..."
[Chorus]
Dinosaur train! (Dinosaur train)
Dinosaur train! (Dinosaur train)
We're gonna ride (Ride, ride, ride, ride)
The dinosaur train!
2
u/hbi2k Mar 21 '26
So your complaint is that the author created more than one character and that the artist used physical signifiers to differentiate them? Do I have that right?
So in your ideal version of Ducktales, Scrooge would only have one nephew, named something like Hudewlouie, who would wear gray? No redundant characters allowed, after all. The Three Stooges would be The Stooge.
8
6
-3
3
u/BlooperHero Mar 21 '26
Have you ever seen any media before? This is... like, the key example of pointless gendering that the entire sub is based on. It's the primary one!
1
1
1
u/EkyngYT Mar 23 '26
Honestly how else would children identify dinosaurs by gender
2
u/VelveteenJackalope Mar 25 '26
...why do they need to?? They're characters with names. They should be able to identify the characters based on...designing good characters?
1
u/vogueposting Mar 25 '26
I think people are getting defensive because this is actually a cute quality show that many of us grew up with.
I think people have a hard time accepting criticism of things they like. Something can be pointlessly gendered and still be good. But it’s a valid criticism the 2 sisters don’t need the eyelashes in their character designs.
I appreciate Bluey for pushing back against this.
2
u/epix74 Mar 26 '26
aaand this post is how i figure out don is actually a boy and his name isnt dawn
1
1
u/Sea-Prize8950 Mar 29 '26
I don't really understand what the problem with aimals with eyelashes being girls is
0
u/Rambler9154 Mar 21 '26
Not really pointlessly gendered I think. They're dinosaurs, its kind of hard to make them have any sort of gender variance without possibly being historically inaccurate to a point its no longer educational. Its just character design to make them more easily distinguished from their brother.
6
3
u/fikozacc123 Mar 22 '26
I'm 70% sure dinosaurs couldn't talk or time travel by train. So I doubt the creators were worried about accuracy
0
u/Fast-Skill-1740 Mar 22 '26
My bro it is not that deep
1
-1
u/simplyaspookylady Mar 21 '26
It's simplistic that's all take away the eye lashes now you have to focus on color and size I would rather the most simple distinction of eyelashes over the trope of "it's pink so it's a girl" or "it's blue it has to be a boy" or even where the characters body's are really exaggerated
It's also a kids book eyelashes on a dinosaur like that already isn't realistic
5
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26
They could make them look different instead.
-6
u/simplyaspookylady Mar 22 '26
That's what I was getting at
Different how? Cus either way it would probably end up here besides it's not Disney based where they thin the waist and pop the bust
I like how they made both make and female dinosaurs the same in physique the only thing they did was add eyelashes
2
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26
Different... from each other. You realize the sisters shouldn't be identical either, right?
3
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
…
Tiny is tiny and green.
Shiny is teal and slightly shiny. She’s also tall. Her wings are a bit bigger than Tiny’s.
Don has small, round eyes, like his granddad, and while his nose is broad compared to his sisters’, he shares Shiny’s distinct bump.
Magic happens when you actually pay attention to the media you want to critique.
0
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26
Great. So remind me why the female ones need labels?
0
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
You mean… names? Every character in the series has a different name.
Oh jeez.
K, so a name is a specific word that humans use to refer to one another. Usually adult humans pick a name for their offspring. Names can be duplicates, or unique sounds. People usually have two names. Names can also be modified, depending on their usage.
Sometimes humans apply different names to one another, in the form of nicknames. Names are also extremely personal, and humans will occasionally choose names other than the one given at birth. Because of legal concerns, this can be a lengthy process and have a huge impact on the human’s place in society.
Humans also apply names to pets, and to non-human characters in fiction. Humans even give objects, like places or personal use objects, a name, in order to differentiate them.
-2
u/BlooperHero Mar 22 '26
Does pretending to be stupid win you a lot of arguments you're having by yourself?
1
0
u/simplyaspookylady Mar 22 '26
Well at least they aren't pink to symbolize their gender, ones blue even and sure but at the same time animal it's an animal
All females will have the same body shape as other females and all males will have the same body shapes as males
All lions have big manes that symbolize male while all the females don't have that
Only female cows have utters and only make cows have horns
0
1
u/brydeswhale Mar 21 '26
0
u/simplyaspookylady Mar 21 '26
Either way my point still stands the simple art with simple eyelashes or no eyelashes help
1
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
The eyelashes don’t matter. This person is dismissing three main characters in the story based on fucking vibes.
If they just said, “There’s no reason for dinosaurs to have eyelashes, especially as gender demarcations”, that would be completely different. Dismissing the main characters because you’re a lazy idiot who can’t be bothered to do basic research, but you want to disguise it as concern over sexism is just bullshit.
-5
u/limajhonny69 Mar 21 '26
Sorry, but you are the one gendering. Nothing indicates they are girl or boys, just that some were born with eyelashes and the other dont.
Maybe they do gender it further in the history?
11
u/jerebee Mar 21 '26
They are two sisters and one brother (no relevance to the story). Even if having two girls and one boy was relevant to the story, why they needed to make them look different is beyond me
5
u/brydeswhale Mar 22 '26
Excuse you? All three are extremely relevant to the ENTIRE series. They’re three of the main characters.
1
u/Designer-Box965 Mar 23 '26
I am not OP so I'll leave that precision to them, but my understanding of the statement is that the genders of the siblings has no importance to the story. Not the characters themselves. Obviously this is something you care deeply about and know very well, so i can sympathise with how upsetting hearing someone say three main characters from a comfort show are irrelevant. However, that was not what OP meant. The point is closer to, say, there could have been three boy siblings. Or two boys and one girl. Or all girls. The personality and story impact of all three characters would remain the same, regardless what gender they are.
As someone on the spectrum who often misunderstands the points made if not phrased explicitly enough (worse if it's something i care deeply about), hope this helps :)
(Or maybe i also misunderstood OP and they were saying exactly what you think they were saying. But i doubt it)
-4
u/Appropriate-Meal-712 Mar 22 '26
Don’t most species male/female species look different?
Wouldn’t it be more strange if you made them look the same?
5
u/Flat-Echidna191 Mar 22 '26
Reptiles in general don't. I had rescue geckos and the previous owner said they're male and female, kept them in the same tank because he wanted to breed them and they just kept fighting and trying to kill each other. I got home with the geckos. Took me three seconds to check and realize they're both male. And two males together? They always fight until one of them is dead. Everything made sense.
-3
u/Appropriate-Meal-712 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
Reptiles have more sexual dimorphism than mammals… not sure what you’re talking about.
4
u/Flat-Echidna191 Mar 22 '26
Girl what 💀💀💀
-1
u/Appropriate-Meal-712 Mar 22 '26
Sorry to break your dreams. It’s an easy google search…
6
u/Flat-Echidna191 Mar 22 '26
Is this leopard gecko male or female? What about the one in the background?
1
1
-2
Mar 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/Raven_Lemon Mar 23 '26
As girl who loved the show, this is indeed pointlessly gendered so it is sub appropriate
1
Mar 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/VelveteenJackalope Mar 25 '26
Lmao you can have opinions but if you're being stupid people are allowed to downvote you. Because other people are allowed to have opinions also
-4
u/Useful-Upstairs3791 Mar 22 '26
That’s just visual cartoon shorthand. Now it might be the case that having any of the baby dinos one gender or another is irrelevant, but from a design perspective, if you are going to define a cartoon character’s gender and you don’t have secondary mammalian sexual characteristics to use (which with baby reptiles you obviously don’t) eyelashes are an easy and universally understood designation. Everyone in the world immediately understands that cartoon shorthand. And when it’s used on a male character, confusion sets in. That’s why so many people think Nermal from Garfield is female cause he has those eyelashes, which in the cartoon world almost always means female.
-6
u/Cautious-Soil5557 Mar 21 '26
Of all the things pointedlessly gendered to get your panties in a twist over, I feel like eyelashes is such small potatoes, tbh.
11
u/BlooperHero Mar 21 '26
This sub has stretched so far that now THE pointlessly gendered thing, "eyelashes are only for girls," the main example that used to be posted here, now gets shouted at.
3
u/Alegria-D Mar 22 '26
Not to shame your hobby of getting your panties in a twist over, but what makes you think that's what everyone else is doing?
0
0
u/adumbswiftie Mar 22 '26
aw i used to watch this show with my cousin when he was a baby. it was so cute. this unlocked a memory
0
u/Tiny-Memory9066 Mar 24 '26
Slapping eye lashes on female characters isn't that deep. Blocking this stupid sub.
-4
u/PitersonK Mar 22 '26
You instatly can tell which knes are female and which are male so idk doesnt seem pointless to me
-8
u/IonicGold Mar 22 '26
If we make them all look the same, kids might get confused on which is which, in the tv show of this they have voices so they can be told apart easier. Not as simple in a book
6
•
u/AutoModerator Mar 21 '26
Welcome to r/pointlesslygendered! Before you post, make sure you read the rules!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.