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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to find the gender bias on this website depressing?

76 replies

starkadder · 02/07/2011 17:39

I'm just SO sick of gender stereotyping beginning so early. I know it's something people have talked about a lot on MN and I'm really only posting this because I know a lot of you will agree with me.

But honestly...it's SO boring to see kitchen toys always in pink, described as being for "the young domestic goddess" or "able to satisfy even the fussiest housewife". And it's just so depressing to think how many children are forced into gender biased roles when they're still so little. My DS loves playing cooking and it never even occurred to me that this should be seen as a "girls' game". I'm expecting another baby this year - a girl - and am equally depressed to think about her being expected to play with ironing boards rather than toy cars. Ughhh...

Anyway, see here and here and tell me you're with me! You can write to them at [email protected] if you agree...

OP posts:
LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 02/07/2011 20:44

starkadder... Well if you just want people to agree with you, you've posted on the wrong board. I didn't deliberately miss the point, I really don't see what point it is that you're trying to make. Bad catalogue descriptions? How unusual. Woop-de-doo. Some of us vote with our purses, others write e-mails, different strokes for different folks.

We're at an impasse, I'll match you a 'your comments are pointless' and I'll raise you a 'patronising'. ;)

somethingwitty82 · 02/07/2011 20:57

Did anyone see QI when pre -1915 blue was for girls and pink for boys? wonder if it will switch again

The company isnt' entrenching gender norms- its the parents who buy it,nothing making them.

BitOfFun · 02/07/2011 20:59

Mine were little before the preponderance of blue and pink. If I had babies now, I would stick to neutral stuff that you can easily get in places like Ikea.

somethingwitty82 · 02/07/2011 21:02

I stick to yellow coz I is cheap, Hand me downs!

Jus' doing my bit for the environment :)

Original poster
starkadder · 02/07/2011 21:03

I have to admit, I did assume you'd mostly agree with me, because I thought MN was full of strong and intelligent women who'd find the lazy, patronising descriptions as irritating as I did. You live and learn.

ziptoes - exactly! It's just so irritating to have behaviour assigned to young children. I'm just as irritated by all the boys' clothes with cheeky monkey etc, or pictures of fighter jets etc. BitofFun - yep, my DS has the IKEA kitchen :)

OP posts:
Zwitterion · 02/07/2011 21:11

Agree with you OP. Overly gendered toys do matter, because they pigeonhole children into societal 'norms' which limit opportunities.

Read Delusions of Gender as Ziptoes says. It's an eye opener.

BaronessBomburst · 02/07/2011 21:16

I found myself accidently falling into the gender trap today whilst trying to buy presents for my niece and nephew. I'm really against the gender stereotyping shit that goes now (last year I bought my niece a train set) yet realised my choices this time gave my niece a pink tent and my nephew a truck. This was simply because they was no gender-neutral choice available. I haven't bought anything now and will keep looking.

DS has a pink kitchen, a pink tea set, and will probably end up with a pink dolls' pram because I can't find one in another colour. He likes playing with these things - why do they have to be pink?

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 02/07/2011 21:34

Thankfully OP, you are not the arbiter of 'strength and intelligence' nor what's important. Do try to stop labelling, it's irritating.

Hopefully see you on another thread. :)

Original poster
starkadder · 02/07/2011 21:50

Thanks Zwitter. I will get that book for sure.

Baroness - it is so easy, isn't it? But I also think if your niece would like a pink tent and your nephew would like a truck, then fair play - it's just when it's expected and assume,d you know? I think it is a marketing thing, like longtalljosie said.

Witch - I don't really understand your problem so I think I'm just going to ignore your comments from here on. I think it's possible to view other people as strong and intelligent without thinking that I am "the arbiter of strength and intelligence"...! Not sure why you're so rubbed up the wrong way, to be honest.

OP posts:
edam · 02/07/2011 21:55

Ginger - thing is, your dd hasn't just been influenced by you. She'll have picked up the pink is for girls message from advertisements, from TV, from shops, from school or playschool... it's impossible to know whether she'd have liked pink if she'd grown up at a time when it wasn't rammed down your throat from the earliest opportunity or whether she's just absorbed the messages society gives her about what it means to be a girl.

Nowtspecial · 02/07/2011 21:57

The whole gender thing drives me absolutely nuts too. It's truly pathetic in 2011. Quite honestly I was shocked when I became a mum a few years back and went shopping in ELC for the first time and saw the marked sections. I really couldn't believe it.

ziptoes · 02/07/2011 22:08

BaronessBomburst crafty stuff is fun and largely gender neutral. You can get cool stuff in art shops like 3D goggly eyes with sticky backs to stick onto animal/insect/monster paintings.

Animal stuff is good - for older kids anything by David Attenborough (how old are your N and N?)

Kites, balloons etc.

there's loads of stuff that is ungendered. I just wish the ILs were imaginative enough to buy it, until they do trips back to the shops to return naughty monkey/pink shit will be the order of the day.

BaronessBomburst · 02/07/2011 22:18

Nephew is 11 months, niece is nearly 3.

I've bought the pink castle tent online. I would have loved it as a child (despite hating pink). Still stuck on nephew though, which is quite bad really considering my own DS is only 6 months older. Blush It's just that his parents don't 'do' plastic, and already have most things.

Sorry for hijack OP!

youarekidding · 02/07/2011 22:37

I have to admit I was quite Shock when I clicked on Chad Valley toys on argos website today. There was the list: outdoor toys, preschool, pretend play, action etc and one section with girls toys and a picture of a girl holding 2 dolls - 1 dressed in blue the other pink. Not only do I find this Hmm

exoticfruits · 02/07/2011 22:49

I bought my DS an ironing board and iron-he loved it.It is up to you what you buy. All this pink must sell or they wouldn't do it.

PacificDogwood · 02/07/2011 22:54

YANBU.

And don't get me started on clothing...

fgaaagh · 02/07/2011 23:38

YANBU, OP - I understand where you're coming from, and I have to admit - I'm also surprised at the level of posters here who don't "get" what the problem is.

But then perhaps there's a correlation between the level of "please help, I'm a SAHM and my DH has no respect for me"-type posts on here should have informed me before now - MN is by no means a haven of feminist thought. Why am I surprised on a thread like this, and thought that there would be anything other than the middle class responses so typical of the stereotype ("can't see the harm", "bigger things to worry about", etc)?

Interesting, but I'm glad to see that yet again MNers (on the whole) remain true to form.

fgaaagh · 02/07/2011 23:40

p.s. I once posted about a hotel which offered "gender-appropriate toys" as a welcome gift when you checked into their rooms with little ones.

When I questioned what "gender-appropriate toys" were in AIBU, you should have seen the outroar that followed Grin ... after which I concluded that IWBU - because if you're going by number of votes for that vs. against, I certainly was Wink

fgaaagh · 02/07/2011 23:41

... and that was in 2011, I hasten to add. Not 1956 as you'd think Grin

LineRunner · 02/07/2011 23:50

I agree with OP.

And with fgaaagh. I questioned on another thread whether being a 12 year old fashion model was a great idea or a really fucking bad one and was labelled variously 'envious', 'angry', 'bitter' and 'aggressive'.

Longtalljosie · 03/07/2011 08:18

Things have changed very recently. Six months ago fgaaah you (and I) would have been in the majority. I was very surprised by the model thread too.

Blindcavesalamander · 03/07/2011 08:47

It isn't just toys...so many childrens' books are gender biased too. I mentioned to DD2's reception teacher how many of the story books she brought home had male lead characters (even if they were animals) unless they were about fairies or princesses. I know there are some fantastic picture books with female characters but there is a huge bias towards males. Some of the books don't even bother with any female characters at all. My oldest daughter, who is 10, has always complained about toys being advertised as for boys or girls and found it insulting. she choses so called boys clothes very often and I have an adorable photo of her, when she was about three, wearing trousers, brushing the hair of her male friend, who is wearing a princess outfit.

Original poster
starkadder · 03/07/2011 09:30

Oh, I am SO pleased that some likeminded people have appeared! I was feeling like I was in some kind of weird parallel universe where the clock had been put back 50 years.

Of COURSE there are bigger things to worry about, and of COURSE I can buy my DS an ironing board if I want - and of COURSE some girls want pink frilly things, and some boys want trains and tractors. that's all fine.

But it is still wrong, and damaging, that parents and children are encouraged from so very early on into these silly, stereotyped roles (dominant and aggressive for boys, domestic and "caring" for girls). It makes me so sad - for both genders.

Thanks all recent posters for restoring my faith to a certain extent..! :)

OP posts:
Original poster
starkadder · 03/07/2011 09:34

PS Last Christmas, I saw some leaflets from a charity that wanted people to donate boxes of toys to be sent to children in developing countries. They were asking people to make "girls' boxes" (suggested items - dollies, hair clips, bracelets) or "boys' boxes" (suggested items - cars, trains, etc etc).

Again - I have nothing against boys playing with trains or girls liking hairclips and can completely understand that a boy or his family might be disappointed to receive a box full of jewellery or dolls wearing pink dresses (although, actually, my DS would love some hairclips - Dashi in the Octonauts is one of his alter egos) - perhaps particularly in some of the countries the boxes were going to - but why force people to be gender specific in the first place? Why not just say - "if you've included items which may be more appropriate for one gender than the other, please indicate this on the contents description"?

OP posts:
CrapolaDeVille · 03/07/2011 09:39

Boy and girl models, I was told recently, for mainstream are not allowed to be ginger or have freckles, boys must have short hair and girls must have long hair.

There is gender bias and when your children want to fit in and are drawn by the ads (which they are even if only POS) then it's hard to avoid. These stereotypes are reinforced at every opportunity.

I had a very proud moment the other night when two of my boys sat and criticised the lego catalogue for having 9 girls in the whole thing. They also noted that lego is a great toy but very boy character driven., Neither of my boys is even 10!!