Thomas the tank engine

A woman was pontificating on the radio today about Thomas the tank engine. When our kids were at an age that called upon us to read aloud to them, we read Thomas the tank engine, and another story about trains, or a train, The little engine that could. I'm quite certain that we never gave so much as a nanosecond's thought to the political significance of these or other stories for tiny tots. We read these stories because our kids really loved hearing them (and to be truthful, so did we love reading them). The woman on the radio was indignant about the message these stories convey to impressionable small children. Of course she hasn't been reading the stories out loud to her little girl: they have watched the televised version of these stories that appears on children's TV. She seemed to have two complaints. One is that the stories are sexist -- all the main characters are male; if female characters appear at all they have minor, insignificant roles. A second complaint of this indignant mother of a small girl child, is that Thomas the tank engine inhabits a very hierarchical society in which everyone has a preordained place, and deference of those in the lower classes towards those above them is automatic and immutable; it is a sexist society too with females only in very minor subservient roles, and it is authoritarian. I'm not bright enough to read that much into a simple nonsensical little story, and I feel genuinely sorry for this indignant woman who does. I feel even sorrier for her daughter, but hope that as that daughter grows up she will be able to re-educate her mother about things that really matter in this life.