After we see an animated movie I invariably start complaining that almost no characters are female. You'd think that with main characters being toys, animals, monsters, cars, and other things that have no obvious physical sex differentiators, they could be split 50-50. But somehow, they are usually male. Obvious exceptions are things like Little Bo-Peep in Toy Story (and wasn't she a great character), and of course hippos wearing pink bows. I mean, how would you possible be able to tell an animal is female unless it's wearing pink, or makeup, or a tutu?

I kept saying I was going to do some research and figure out the real numbers, but Geena Davis beat me to it:

In the 101 [G-rated] animated and live-action films examined, 28 percent of speaking characters were female, and just 17 percent of people in crowd scenes were female, researchers found in the study released by See Jane.

Surprise. I don't think this is limited to children's films, however--how many movies are you aware of that have a female lead, or multiple female leads, that aren't labeled as "chick flicks"? Women and girls are perfectly willing to see movies without female characters, but either the opposite is not true of men/boys, or Hollywood just hasn't caught up yet.