The winter holidays always seem to highlight that the world tends to divide toys into “girls” and “boys” varieties. Most of us here, I think, would agree that no one should be forced into particular types of play based on real or perceived gender.
Over at Skepchick, Natalie Reed has a great article on “Guyliner, Murses, Bromance and Femmephobia,” in which she argues that girls should not be forced into playing with pink, feminine toys—but also that we should not denigrate pink, feminine things entirely. She explains, “Denigration of that which is feminine is to denigrate that which is female-ish. The misogynist implications are fairly clear cut.”
She also notes problems with the marketing of certain products for men:
The “for girls” marketing seems to have as its goal making women find the product more appealing. The “for men” marketing . . . seem designed to somehow protect or insulate men from the girliness of whatever you’re selling. As though . . . touching it or using it will contaminate them with… I don’t know… cooties or something. Maybe turn them gay. Or trans. Gasp!
It’s a great read, so go check it out. (Thanks to The Mary Sue for the link.)
I’m also pleased by Reed’s note that Edmund Scientifics, purveyor of kits and gadgets to geeks everywhere, has stopped marketing its children’s science kits in “girls” and “boys” varieties, but will simply call them “Novelty Science Kits” from now on. You should go read their blog post about it, too—it’s a nice example of a company realizing that they were “projecting gender bias and defining gender roles,” and taking action to change that.
Did you see the video of the little girl (she’s little, maybe 4?) in the toy aisle ranting about how not all girls need to play with pink toys?? It’s very cute, and her parents are obviously doing something right. Check it out.
Back in the day – before the dinosaurs came back to life during the Reagan Revolution, most American kids’ toys were not treated as pink or blue. There were Erector sets for boys, yes, and dolls for girls, but most toys were down the middle and came in all colors of the rainbow. I had a green bike; try to find that today. Also, a lot of this gender separatism has been promoted by Disney and corporate media with its heavily branded product lines. They sell twice as much that way. Once we eschewed the Disney princess and Barbie party line in toddlerhood (as well as Dora and everything else of that ilk), my girlie girl quickly adopted a genderless toy mindset. We also went for a lot of European wooden toys, puzzles, books, Leap Frog, or Playmobil. At 10 now, she’s still a devoted pink/purple maven but also loves to incorporate Knex and science toys into her playtime. Couple of Halloweens, she went as female superheroes. And yes, she came to this all on her own, after @ age 2. She also went through a few years where she hated pink, for all the same reasons that little girl on the news recently articulated so succinctly.
I had a couple things to say on this topic. If you care to read please find it here
http://lucyhallowell.blogspot.com/2011/12/toying-with-gender.html