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Joined: Aug 2010
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Thank you, Val. I very strongly believe that children should be given the opportunity to find role models etc from both genders, toys that are gender neutral and experiences that can break stereotypes HOWEVER I get really mad about the whole "my girl can't play with anything that is pink etc" because, in my opinion at least what you are saying is that to be strong, smart and capable you need to not be a traditional girl, you need to be more like a boy - that sends a powerful message to little girls that their is something inherently wrong with them. While I don't think I believe that girls inherently like pink more (that would be weird--why?), I agree with much of this. It's very messy, because girly stuff is highly valued by culture and pushed by marketers, etc. So there is a tendency for many of us to want to reject it all. However, it's more complicated--we don't want to OVERvalue "boyish" things because "girly" things are associated with the "lesser" sex. This tendency can be clearly seen when we consider how society treats "tomboy" girls vs. "sissy" boys...
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Thank you, Val. I very strongly believe that children should be given the opportunity to find role models etc from both genders, toys that are gender neutral and experiences that can break stereotypes HOWEVER I get really mad about the whole "my girl can't play with anything that is pink etc" because, in my opinion at least what you are saying is that to be strong, smart and capable you need to not be a traditional girl, you need to be more like a boy - that sends a powerful message to little girls that their is something inherently wrong with them. While I don't think I believe that girls inherently like pink more (that would be weird--why?), I agree with much of this. It's very messy, because girly stuff is highly valued by culture and pushed by marketers, etc. So there is a tendency for many of us to want to reject it all. However, it's more complicated--we don't want to OVERvalue "boyish" things because "girly" things are associated with the "lesser" sex. This tendency can be clearly seen when we consider how society treats "tomboy" girls vs. "sissy" boys... I was ranting when I wrote that - don't get me wrong I DO mean every word but I didn't stop and think. Basically, yes pink is probably the wrong example. I do believe gender stereotyping isn't an either or of innateness vs marketing/societal expectations. I'm getting at things like wanting to be pretty, wanting the bike that has a basket and streamers etc. The funny thing is by trusting and listening to my daughter we have a good balance of stuff, she's allowed to have her own opinion on what she likes and she has a good mix of toys and role models. She does love Disney princess (I love Disney princess - I don't care what that says about me!) But her hero is Mulan, she has 2 dress ups, a princess dress and doctors scrubs and so on. I think she's got a good mix.
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Joined: Feb 2010
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I think rising prosperity explains the increasing differentiation of toys by sex, as explained in this essay by Steve Sailer: poor societies tend to be less sex-differentiated in many ways than rich societies simply because they are poor.
It's pretty much basic Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, with survival at the bottom and self-actualization at the top. In 1900, a nice Christmas present to find in your stocking was an orange. You and your sister both liked the oranges your aunt brought you in 1897 and you've been dreaming ever since about having another orange. Their sweetness showed they were providing needed calories. Oranges even had vitamins.
A century later, you and your sister have, to be frank, more calories than you really need, but their is no end to your feeling that you need more self-actualization via fantasy, so your sister is demanding a Polly Pocket Fairy Wishing World, while you are throwing a tantrum over how much you want a Power Rangers Samurai Bull Megazord Action Figure.
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All else being equal, manufacturers don't want to sell more versions of the same thing, they want to sell fewer versions to keep costs down: "You can have your Model T in any color you like, so long as it's black." They provide more versions because of demand: i.e., boys and girls tend to like different stuff. Just as General Motors outmarketed Ford in the 1920s because Alfred P. Sloan figured out that the country was getting prosperous enough that there was a new mass market not just for the basic transportation Ford's Model T provided, but for allowing customers to self-actualize through car purchases by providing a variety of levels of luxury in cars in multiple colors and with changing fashions in sheet metal, richer societies sell more ostentatiously masculine and feminine toys and entertainment.
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Joined: Nov 2012
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It actually did make a difference to my DD in preschool. She had not been exposed to any Disney anything, and the pack of girls her age played Disney princesses every single day. Wow, this thread is really twigging my feminist soapbox today. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog. Little girls don't universally have an innate drive to imagine themselves as princesses--sure, maybe they favour interpersonal narratives as a gender, but that tendency alone can't explain the ubiquity of princess products. The aggregate trend of princessification is a manifestation of long-term marketing strategy in female-targeted products that create a subconscious, narcissistic drive in mothers to morph their daughters into princesses. The girls are being conditioned to attach self-worth to the consumption of high margin products that reinforce a mainstream corporate feminine ideal. The merchandisers and media producers are creating a prisoner's dilemma for parents, establshing a perverse situation where the culture becomes self-reinforcing and demands its own consumption. For an interesting documentary on media driving culture, check out "Merchants of Cool". Having consulted for F100 corporations, I can assure you that these strategies are insidious and very effective at turning consumers into sheeple. My bottom-line recommendation for building social currency: don't consume something simply because it's culturally popular, only consume it because it has intrinsic positive value to you. I think it sends a positive message to children about their self-worth to support them in pursuing non-mainstream interests when the norm is irrelevant or uninteresting to them. I love polarbear's post on finding common ground through social education. I am soooo tempted to leave this post alone because it took on a life of it's own, but this response twigged one of my pet topics.... I very strongly believe that children should be given the opportunity to find role models etc from both genders, toys that are gender neutral and experiences that can break stereotypes HOWEVER I get really mad about the whole "my girl can't play with anything that is pink etc" because, in my opinion at least what you are saying is that to be strong, smart and capable you need to not be a traditional girl, you need to be more like a boy - that sends a powerful message to little girls that their is something inherently wrong with them. That their natural inclination (in many) to play with dolls and pink stuff is wrong and that they can't be both - feminine and successful. I spent my first 30 years trying to be a tomboy and proudly displaying my lack of fashion interest as some kind of superiority when really all I was doing was missing out on some good old girly fun. Much like many men (not all) indulge in baseball, hunting or whatever. I happily buy my daughter her fairy princess stuff, it matches her dinosaur bag and robot lunch box nicely. It seems you are misinterpreting my position as being one where children's play should be dictated in a top-down fashion by parents, with strict regulation of gender typed play. Let me reassure you that is not my position. Perhaps I should highlight this line of my post--"My bottom-line recommendation for building social currency: don't consume something simply because it's culturally popular, only consume it because it has intrinsic positive value to you." Nowhere have I said it is wrong for girls to play with themes that are socially feminized--like dolls--or for boys to avoid play traditionally construed as masculine. I also haven't objected to a preference for given colours because, hey, it's just refracted light! What I'm objecting to is over-consumption of marketed princess (or hero) play because the underlying messages are negative. Let's compare doll play to marketed princess play (as distinct from child-initiated princess play based on, say, an interest in the monarchy, history, or family play.) The former fosters empathy, prosocial attitudes, nurturing, and responsibility, none of which are uniquely masculine or feminine traits. Disney princess play, however emphasizes several overarching themes that lock heroines in a perpetual state of adolescent dependence: - Financial and social dependence on the benevolence of a usually male caregiver (father, husband) - An attitude of cultural and class-driven entitlement, in which caste is the primary determinant of life outcome and effort is not correlated with life outcomes - Social value determined by attractiveness and grooming - A need to be rescued (by a male) from either one's own poor decisions or the malice of a jealous older (and often less attractive) female - A need to reform males or garner their approval to achieve status or happiness - A central focus on marriage as the ultimate goal to which heroines should aspire I wouldn't classify any of those narratives as serving the interests of girls or providing intrinsic positive value. Yet, they are the dominant messages that girls are bombarded with, and which are internalized as outlooks perceived as authentic. How much consumption of this messaging is reasonable is a personal judgement call, but my approach trends toward zero for my son. I don't want him to grow up seeing women as trophies, victims, or dependents, or that being a man involves brutality. Other families may be comfortable introducing more marketed princess/hero play if it is a minority activity. A chacun son gout. I find it interesting that most families who eschew mainstream media and and toys don't seem to have children who are either superhero or princess focused. As you suggest, interest in these gendered narrative products exists on a continuum between intrinsic and marketing-driven motivation. I would posit that marketing messaging is substantially amplifying consumption and play behaviour around a much lower level of intrinsic interest.
Last edited by aquinas; 04/06/15 01:55 PM.
What is to give light must endure burning.
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Joined: Oct 2014
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Just because a phenomenon can be explained (possibly) by "natural" market forces doesn't make it less pernicious (see Chinese foot binding).
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Joined: Nov 2012
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(Bostonian, do you see why it's rude?) So why do more girls care more about being glamorous and beautiful? My answer is the sociobiological one. So I'm going to infer that your answer to my question was "no." Here's the thing. Most people aren't immune to culturally stereotyped messages telling them how they should behave. So when authority figures say things like, "Boys are better at math" and "Girls are supposed to look pretty," people internalize those messages and accept them without question or without thinking about why they believe them. I will ask you to consider that perhaps you have internalized some of those messages. Human society has been extremely biased in its gender expectations throughout our history and in a nearly universal way. As a result, it's not possible to "prove" that boys are better at [insert subject or job] and that girls are better at [insert subject or job], because any data is too tainted, and in a variety of ways. As an example of tainted thinking, people used to believe that women couldn't be doctors, and they were even barred from entering the field in many places. If you had asked men 100+ years ago, they would have answered that women simply weren't capable. Yet no one would say that today, and medical school classes in the US are half men and half women. Somehow, I don't think that women's brains have evolved to handle being a physician in the last hundred years or so. But women have begun to stand up for their rights in that time. IMO, the problem is at least partially rooted in competition. When one group wants to keep as much of some resource (including jobs) to itself as possible, its members will act in a way to meet that goal. Discriminating against people and the use of gender roles is one way to do that. I applaud this post, Val. Biological determinism, and the dominant cultural narratives which seem to insinuate themselves as "nature" are pernicious.
What is to give light must endure burning.
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Joined: Jun 2012
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It actually did make a difference to my DD in preschool. She had not been exposed to any Disney anything, and the pack of girls her age played Disney princesses every single day. Wow, this thread is really twigging my feminist soapbox today. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog. Little girls don't universally have an innate drive to imagine themselves as princesses--sure, maybe they favour interpersonal narratives as a gender, but that tendency alone can't explain the ubiquity of princess products. The aggregate trend of princessification is a manifestation of long-term marketing strategy in female-targeted products that create a subconscious, narcissistic drive in mothers to morph their daughters into princesses. The girls are being conditioned to attach self-worth to the consumption of high margin products that reinforce a mainstream corporate feminine ideal. The merchandisers and media producers are creating a prisoner's dilemma for parents, establshing a perverse situation where the culture becomes self-reinforcing and demands its own consumption. For an interesting documentary on media driving culture, check out "Merchants of Cool". Having consulted for F100 corporations, I can assure you that these strategies are insidious and very effective at turning consumers into sheeple. My bottom-line recommendation for building social currency: don't consume something simply because it's culturally popular, only consume it because it has intrinsic positive value to you. I think it sends a positive message to children about their self-worth to support them in pursuing non-mainstream interests when the norm is irrelevant or uninteresting to them. I love polarbear's post on finding common ground through social education. I am soooo tempted to leave this post alone because it took on a life of it's own, but this response twigged one of my pet topics.... I very strongly believe that children should be given the opportunity to find role models etc from both genders, toys that are gender neutral and experiences that can break stereotypes HOWEVER I get really mad about the whole "my girl can't play with anything that is pink etc" because, in my opinion at least what you are saying is that to be strong, smart and capable you need to not be a traditional girl, you need to be more like a boy - that sends a powerful message to little girls that their is something inherently wrong with them. That their natural inclination (in many) to play with dolls and pink stuff is wrong and that they can't be both - feminine and successful. I spent my first 30 years trying to be a tomboy and proudly displaying my lack of fashion interest as some kind of superiority when really all I was doing was missing out on some good old girly fun. Much like many men (not all) indulge in baseball, hunting or whatever. I happily buy my daughter her fairy princess stuff, it matches her dinosaur bag and robot lunch box nicely. It seems you are misinterpreting my position as being one where children's play should be dictated in a top-down fashion by parents, with strict regulation of gender typed play. Let me reassure you that is not my position. Perhaps I should highlight this line of my post--"My bottom-line recommendation for building social currency: don't consume something simply because it's culturally popular, only consume it because it has intrinsic positive value to you." Nowhere have I said it is wrong for girls to play with themes that are socially feminized--like dolls--or for boys to avoid play traditionally construed as masculine. I also haven't objected to a preference for given colours because, hey, it's just refracted light! What I'm objecting to is over-consumption of marketed princess (or hero) play because the underlying messages are negative. Let's compare doll play to marketed princess play (as distinct from child-initiated princess play based on, say, an interest in the monarchy, history, or family play.) The former fosters empathy, prosocial attitudes, nurturing, and responsibility, none of which are uniquely masculine or feminine traits. Disney princess play, however emphasizes several overarching themes that lock heroines in a perpetual state of adolescent dependence: - Financial and social dependence on the benevolence of a usually male caregiver (father, husband) - An attitude of cultural and class-driven entitlement, in which caste is the primary determinant of life outcome and effort is not correlated with life outcomes - Social value determined by attractiveness and grooming - A need to be rescued (by a male) from either one's own poor decisions or the malice of a jealous older (and often less attractive) female - A need to reform males or garner their approval to achieve status or happiness - A central focus on marriage as the ultimate goal to which heroines should aspire I wouldn't classify any of those narratives as serving the interests of girls or providing intrinsic positive value. Yet, they are the dominant messages that girls are bombarded with, and which are internalized as outlooks perceived as authentic. How much consumption of this messaging is reasonable is a personal judgement call, but my approach trends toward zero for my son. I don't want him to grow up seeing women as trophies, victims, or dependents, or that being a man involves brutality. Other families may be comfortable introducing more marketed princess/hero play if it is a minority activity. A chacun son gout. I find it interesting that most families who eschew mainstream media and and toys don't seem to have children who are either superhero or princess focused. As you suggest, interest in these gendered narrative products exists on a continuum between intrinsic and marketing-driven motivation. I would posit that marketing messaging is substantially amplifying consumption and play behaviour around a much lower level of intrinsic interest. hmm I went away and had a good think. Intellectually I agree with pretty much what you say. I just also think that you can't discount the power of effective parenting and placing this sort of stuff in its correct context. I hold the brothers grimm in high regards as important legend/myth telling of my german heritage. The stories back then had a definite purpose, proving your point about societies message for women. I find them historically important. They also put forth women as resourceful and brave, often the men are secondary. I'm also reasonably well educated enough to trust I can enjoy these stories with my daughter while showing her the undertones and symantics employed as marketing tools and subjugation of certain women. I also teach my children about Maori legends and we have just as much fun with Maui and the waka play. I realised that as a kiwi I have an extremely different narrative to work from those in the US (maybe Canada I don't want to make any sweeping judgements). We are not bombarded here, it's not so hard to avoid the messages we don't want to send out. Staying away from the mall is something I do for my kids sake. We have a great history of feminist success here so I guess we aren't sending our girls out to battle for what is their right so much as they have an expectation that they already have equality. NZ definately does have some feminist issues to deal with, particularly the lack of female CEO's which I would argue is something that will self rectify as women who have come of age in the last 20 years will make their way upward. The other issue here is the safety of women - this is particularly high profile in the news media and something as a nation we are trying to change. It is a high priority issue politically here. My daughter though can indulge in playing with Ariel and the like knowing that she lives a few streets away from the birthplace of the women's vote and is in a country where we have already have 2 women prime ministers and could potentially have another one soon regardless of the govt swing. The stereotypical kiwi woman is seen as tough rather than princess. I guess we can afford to be a little more relaxed out here.
Last edited by Mahagogo5; 04/06/15 11:21 PM. Reason: to say I know the little mermaid is not brothers grimm
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We have both boy and girl toys due to DS and DD... and we let them play with whatever - they run around with dolls along with trains. I don't believe in banning pink/princesses or girly stuff (we have lots of non-princessy "girl" stuff like MLP, random dolls, tea sets included - although for MLP, both DS and DD have their own ponies) and both kids play with "opposite" gender toys all the time without a peep from us (unless there is a massive fight over something). If DS wants to run around with a baby stroller, we have no objection (unless he ripped it out of his sister's hands). If DD wants to lay out her own RR, we stay out of it - unless she ripped up DS's tracks to build hers while he was playing with it.
We had started out with mostly boy toys in the house, but DD made it very clear she liked dolls, pink and green, and as we let her choose her own stuff, I found myself acknowledging that she really does want some stereotypical "girly" stuff that I had no interest myself when I was younger - but then she runs around in an astronaut helmet with DS, playing space exploration too. And I also knew that DS would also play with his sister's toys.
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Very nicely put Mahagogo, I have tried to avoid getting my daughter too much girly stuff but she still has some - the Rainbow Loom, Hand-me-down Polly Pocket dolls and stuffed animals sit right there next to her Lego Mindstorms, Raspberry Pi and soldering iron.
One of the first things that I remember my daughter doing that showed she had innate musical abilities was when we heard her banging out some of the 'Disney princess' movie tunes on a xylophone just playing by ear. She was obsessed with Princess stuff - listened to the CDs constantly but (thank God) moved on.
I think that it is really important for anyone, but especially a child, to learn to march to the beat of their own drum. They have to learn to make up their own minds and like or dislike things based on their own preferences and opinions - not those of radical crackpots or the pap served up by the mainstream media.
I think that a girl should be free to have girly fun or 'boyy' fun whenever she chooses to.
Last edited by madeinuk; 04/09/15 03:20 AM.
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The loom thing isn't girly. My ten year old boy has all the stuff and makes bracelets and necklaces. Gives them away, sells, or wears them.
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