There's Mr Tickle, Mr Bump, Mr Messy and now apparently...Mr Sexist.

Roger Hargreaves’s simple tales of the Mr Men and Little Misses portray the female characters as less powerful, according to a study of the books.

The Little Miss characters have to be ‘saved’ in the stories more than half the time, compared with less than a third for the Mr Men, the study found.

And the male characters also have more to say in the books – with an average of 12 extra words.

Roger Hargreaves’s simple tales of the Mr Men and Little Misses portray the female characters as less powerful, according to a study of the books

The study claims that even the names of some characters, such as Little Miss Bossy, pictured below, might play to gender stereotypes.

It also cites examples of ‘stereotypical’ passages including ‘I know what that naughty little lady needs’ and: ‘She managed to find herself the perfect job. She now works for Mr Lazy! She cooks and cleans for him.’

The findings, based on an analysis of 47 Mr Men and 34 Little Miss books from 1971 to 2014, were presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Nottingham.

The Little Miss characters have to be ‘saved’ in the stories more than half the time, compared with less than a third for the Mr Men, the study found. And the male characters also have more to say in the books – with an average of 12 extra words

The University of Lincoln study concludes: ‘Generally female characters were more passive, had less direct speech and relied on being saved more than male characters.’

The series, aimed at children aged two and older, started with Mr Tickle in 1971. The Little Miss books followed a decade later.

Researcher Madeleine Pownall assessed the direct speech of characters in the books and found females were given an average of 53.5 words per story, compared with 61.5 for males.

She also found that as stories progressed the Little Misses had to be saved by another character in 51.5 per cent of cases, compared with 32.6 per cent of cases for Mr Men.

Egmont, which publishes the books, did not respond to requests for comment.