AI nearly erases female animal characters in kids' stories
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Last year, Melanie Walsh, a University of Washington assistant professor in the Information School, wrote an article examining how 300 popular children’s books gendered their animal characters. Of the 13 most common animals, most were male — unless they happened to be cats, ducks or birds, which trended slightly more female. But a frog, a wolf? Over a 90% shot it was a “he.” Walsh and journalists from The Pudding also had 1,300 participants complete stories about various talking animals — for example: “And then the bear said, ‘I must go to the river.’ Upon arriving…” I