Be honest. Did you think Bluey was a boy?

I have a confession to make. I thought Bluey was a boy. I only found out she wasn’t when my son corrected me. To prove him wrong, I googled it. Turns out, it was me dishing out the apology that day. 

I’m not alone in my mistake. 

Type “Is Bluey a…” into Google and “boy or girl?” pops up as the second most popular prompt behind “Australian?” Turns out, a whole bunch of people had been looking it up before me. 

But unlike them, I was particularly embarrassed by my assumption. I’m a gender equity advocate. I spend my day calling out gendered norms and stereotypes and here I am unwittingly buying into them?

I went down a Reddit rabbit hole to find out why. Turns out, there are entire threads dedicated to this, many with hundreds of comments. Here’s the exec sum of my cursory trawl through them. People think Bluey is a boy because; 

• she is blue
• she doesn’t have (ridiculous) eyelashes, or wear a hair-bow or skirt
• she gets up to mischief 
• she doesn’t have aspirations to be a ballerina or a princess
• she looks like, and hangs out a lot with, her dad 

All of these resonated with me. Which is strange because they also reflect the way I actually was as a little girl (except for the being blue bit – although I did hate wearing pink). 

There were other reasons too. Some people suggested it was because she is the main character, which is often male. This is backed up by research into top grossing Hollywood films. The latest tally suggests less than a third starred women in leading roles. 

Others said it was because her sister, Bingo (who looks like her mum, by the way), plays her side-kick, and that as girls are typically supporting characters, Bluey must be the boy. 

Whatever the reasons, the fact that so many people – including me – simply assumed Bluey is male shows how deeply ingrained our unconscious biases are. And how easy it is for them to influence us.  

It’s why it’s so important to constantly challenge our own thinking. To check in with the reasons behind our choices. And to openly ask, as we move through life and work, whether there might be more we need to know.