All worker bee are female so why do most children story books call them he?

Answer 1

It seems that almost every animal that is a protagonist in children's' stories is a male. There are some notable exceptions, Charlotte's Web, for example. When I was little (Some time ago) I can't remember one animal story where the animal hero was female. It's gender stereotyping. Even when the animal was a legitimate female (Lassie), they were given male attributes.

Answer 2

Socially learned gender traits. Bees are perceived as aggressive and physically strong or threatening. Most, actually, aren't aggressive but that's beside the point. Anyway, these are generally considered more masculine traits.

We all tend to do this even if only sub-consciously. I have a male cat and my nieces address him with feminine pronouns. Cats tend to be considered female whereas dogs, too, get more of a masculine personification.

Animals (and bugs) we see as soft, pretty, gentle, kind, quiet, and/or contemplative we tend to assign a female gender to. Loud, aggressive, strong, active, big, and/or social animals we tend to consider more male.

Another thing to take into consideration is what the term gender means sociologically. Gender is a role where as sex is the physical definition. Gender is male or female based on the role the person has in his or her society. Sex, obviously, is assigned based on chromosomes and genitalia.

Personally I think it's neither good nor bad, depending on the context, the level of understanding of the viewer/reader/thinker/etc..., and the meaning we give the concepts we associate with gender traits but it's a pretty interesting commentary on society in general.

Answer 3

for some reason i always thought they were males, but wiki has reasured me that you are right.

Maybe the childrens book authors thought the same - but you would think that someone ould have done a litle research?

Answer 4

Interesting...I say it's due to the old portrayal of men as doers and women as passive spectators that dominates so much of writing.

Answer 5

writers of the books are using the pronoun casually not seriously.