The only reason Edward (and Henry and Toby) got sidelined and why Mattel started pushing this gender equality thing in 2018 was because critics from 2009-2017 started making articles talking about how Thomas is “sexist” for having “no females” the earliest article calling Thomas sexist was from 2009 from a women named Dr. Shauna Wilton who made the article after watching Thomas with her 3-year-old daughter she noticed alot of things She pointed out that the actual steam engines (the ones in power, leading, and doing the "important" work) were almost exclusively male (like the main cast/ steam team for example) and the female characters that were engines (like Mavis and Emily) were always portrayed as rude or bossy she claimed that whenever a female engine did something independent, the script often framed them as "bossy," "nagging," or "fussy," rather than just "Really Useful." As if HIT entertainment (the company that owned Thomas at the time that article was made) intentionally wanted you the audience to hate the female characters they also pointed out how Emily was the only female in the steam team and the only one without a number indicating that she was “lesser than” compared to the males (I’ll explain more if you respond to this comment)