Mahagogo: I agree with you that overreacting to gender issues creates its own set of problems, and balance is best.
I agree with aquinas, however, when she disputes that an affinity for pink or playing with dolls represents a natural disposition. I come down firmly on the "social construct" side of that one.
Case in point: My DD10's favorite color was, off and on for her first four years, pink. It would appear that that was entirely our fault... DD was slow to grow in any hair, so we covered her in pink so people would stop talking about her as a boy. We should have been tipped off when she started picking her own clothes, and at 3mos she kept grabbing at the one purple outfit she owned... at the time, we interpreted this as "DD's favorite color is purple." Later, around 18mos, it was the yellow beach outfit she was constantly asking for. We thought she was just expressing her love of the beach.
As the years rolled by, DD was constantly adjusting her "favorite colors" list, with pink in there somewhere (but never the top after 4), until last year she confessed, as if it was some deep, dark secret, that her favorite color was light blue. But we assign that color to baby boys.
As for playing with dolls, it's my position that the only difference between baby dolls and action figures are the common narratives around them. Fundamentally, the play is the same, regardless of the dolls used or the genders of the players. And there's nothing outside of the child's own imagination and social conditioning to prevent them from playing with a baby doll as a super hero saving the world from the evil teddy bear, or the GI Joe as a nurturing caregiver to baby Boba Fett.
