In my observation, action figures are marketed to a predominantly male audience, at least in this country. Therefore, when female characters do appear in an action cartoon, they are usually designed to appeal to males, with physical features and proportions to make them sexually provocative. For an extreme example, find an image of the one female team member in the "Mighty Ducks" animated series.

Unfortunately, this means fewer female characters that a female audience can really identify with. (Too often you're not seeing a realistic girl, just a guy's fantasy of what a girl should be.) Also, in the marketing of media-related toys, it's thought that young males (the primary target market for action figures) collect character figures that they can identify with. Conventional wisdom says that they (the boys) don't want the girl-character action figure, and sales figures very probably agree.

Until girls make up a larger percentage of the action figure buying market, this lack of female character toys will probably not change. I heard it once from someone who worked in media (I forget who) that in America, girls will watch "boys'" cartoons, but not the other way around. Therefore, television networks only want to show cartoons that will appeal specifically to boys, in order to get the widest possible viewing audience.

Girls are left out of the loop. Basically, we're considered irrelevant in America.

An interesting question to me is: why is it so different in Japan?

On the other hand, female characters predominate in full-length Disney animated features, although not in recent years. But this may be a topic for another paper.

Please feel free to use any or all of what I've just written. You can just quote me as a "Minneapolis sf writer and media critic," or something like that.