Mr Men at centre of sexism row as feminist accuses Mr Clever of 'mansplaining'

It was meant as an innocuous joke to amuse young children. But on Monday Mr Men found itself at the centre of a sexism storm when a feminist academic condemned a gag as an example of "mansplaining".

The claims centre on a conversation between Mr Clever and Little Miss Curious, and a pun about the Forth Bridge in Scotland.

An exasperated Mr Clever explains the Unesco site is so-called because of the Forth River, after Little Miss Curious asks “what happened to the First, the Second and the Third Bridges”

It resulted in a backlash from PhD student Shelby Judge. She accused Roger Hargreaves’ long-running series of perpetuating “antiquated gender roles” and branded its illustrated characters part of a “sexist iconography”.

The 24-year-old academic said Mr Clever’s clarifying comment in the book, Mr Men in Scotland, is an example “mansplaining”, and said the book was telling girls they “need to be stupid”.

The publishers dismissed her concern, saying the pun by the sightseeing fictional creations was nothing more than the characters getting up to their “usual antics”.

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