to be fuming at sexist Christmas Presents?

[WomanlyWoman]

I attended my first PTA meeting the other night, during which I discovered that the pta have bought Christmas presents for every child in the school. Nice, right? Then I realised the presents were different according to gender, the older children get books, the younger ones such as my child, in reception, get crafty things from Yellow Moon. Great, except - the girls get flower presses, the boys get cars.

This has really p-ed me off bigtime. For one, my daughter likes cars, car was one of her first words, she adores Lightning McQueen and doesn't seem to realise that it's meant to be for boys. So what message does it give her about herself when she sees the boys getting cars while she gets a flower press? Admittedly she would probably like a flower press too, but that is not the point. What about nature loving boys? Why are these children being given the message that active dynamic machines are for boys and pretty, passive things like flowers are for girls? A nature theme for all of them or a transport theme for all of them would be fine by me, but this just seems so wrong.

I'm very shy by nature and I hardly know any of the other parents. The pta meeting itself was quite an ordeal for me, so I didn't speak up at the time. I thought it was pointless because the presents have already been bought. Why make myself unpopular, so soon, when it's already done and dusted.

Then I started thinking, it's only October, there may be time to send them back and order different ones if enough parents express an opinion similar to mine. Not sure how to go about it though. Opinions and advice appreciated.

Oooh, long thread! I agree, OP, YANBU and I'm surprised so many people are so cheery about child sexism. They could easily have done ungendered pressies.

Still, I guess you'll know to get a car for DD on school gift day. And maybe take over the gift-ordering next year.

I'm sorry I haven't read the whole thread and I kind of disapprove of not reading the whole thing and chipping in anyway, but...

Just wanted to add my wholehearted YANBU!

I still remember the utter guttedness I felt at age 5 or 6 when Santa came to distribute presents to the class. The boys got theirs first - magnetic sketch toys a bit like etch-a-sketch. I was so excited, and looking forward to getting mine...

Then the girls got...... a bookmark shaped like a butterfly. A fucking bookmark!

I was so gutted and so angry and it felt so unfair that we were essentially being told that girls weren't allowed to have fun.

I can't believe we haven't moved on from 25 years ago. I can't believe so many people here think it's completely appropriate to do that and that you shouldn't even make the effort to get everyone something the same.

This bit from the OP:

"I'm sad so many people think this is just fine. Cars for boys, flowers for girls, fine, really? Yes, it may be just one present, but it's from Santa/from the school and while I may smile through gritted teeth and thank an individual who is nice enough to buy my child a present, even a Disney Princess piece of tat, I expect better from the school. I expect them to encourage girls and boys to explore their full potential, not to be given traditional gendered gifts that drive home the message of pretty pink for girls and brrrm brrrm for boys. It is an issue. It may be a small issue to some, but if you don't stand up for yourself on small issues, they are liable to snowball and turn into big issues. It's all part of that constant drip-drip message of narrowing down choices for girls and boys. I think this is something that should be challenged and I intend to challenge it. Not sure exactly how, yet, but I will definitely be around to make sure this doesn't happen next year."

I absolutely agree with and applaud. Good luck OP with making your challenge!

Quote WoTMania "Gender is a social construct, girls don't come out of the womb liking pink and sparkles and glitte more than boys for example."

I disagree. My friend runs a nursery and strains to keep clean of equality laws, yet instinctively the girls / boys head towards the traditional choices even when babies. Not because they're pushed that way, but despite people wanting to say we're the same, we're not. Of course this isn't ALL children, but most, hence the popularity of these toys for the relative sexes. Check little girls Christmas lists and I bet the majority fit the bill - not because their parents or society dictates that, but because that's what they want.

In our family most of the girls instinctively went for the girlie stuff even though there were more than enough cars/ soldiers / gender neutral toys around, in fact I'm sure my youngest was born with pink glitter. My oldest girl has stood out amongst the crowd and preferred Spiderman, it's only been recently that the "social construct" has kicked in, not from her PTA, parents, school or indeed any other adult, but from her peers - at 11 she wants to be one of the crowd, and her friends happen to be more girlie (although with the odd Adidas trainer thrown in for street cred).

I'm all for fighting the battles that really matter and I really wouldn't count this amongst them.

My daughter didn't do pink or barbies until she went to nursery and found that that was What Girls Liked.

This may be because they're similar to the toys they've been given at home.

"instinctively the girls / boys head towards the traditional choices even when babies"

Badaboomcha! 'things that really matter' (check)

Oh please....

Ok, I acquiesce.
We girls are totally brainless and can't think for ourselves. We're so readily influenced from very early ages that we are whatever we see. See pink, wear pink, turn pink and fluffy. Grow up baking cakes, having babies and leaving that nasty, nasty career stuff to the strong men.

Is that better?

I guess I wrongly thought we had our own minds, our own likes (my kids knew their own minds from an inconveniently early age). So what if we get a pressie we don't like? It's hardly the end of the world and it won't change us....or at least that's what I hope for the female gender, given what a lot of you are saying on here, perhaps it will.... So very sad.

Equality isn't about being like a man/ boy, but being able to be whoever or whatever we want. I happen to love pink but that doesn't stop me having more qualifications than I can fit after my name or running my own business. I like fluffy and glittery. I also like cars and am more capable than most of getting to grips with the oily, dirty stuff on my campervan.

To aim to be a man's equal is to lack ambition.
Amen.

Actually girls can very easilly veer naturally towards the pink/frilly stuff without parental/friend cues, I've seen it with my own eyes, it challenged my own ingrained view that such things were all nurture over nature.

My biggest issue with this whole thing is that people think it's somehow harmful for girls to be into "girly" things.

Some women seem to think they are being all feminist by avoiding feminine gender stereotypes for girls when in fact I think it is more sexist to give the impression that it is somehow better not to be girly like somehow you can't be girly and feminine and successful or taken seriously.

Surely the whole point is that girls/woman should be able to enjoy whatever they like, be it girly or boyish and it doesn't make any difference.

FWIW OP despite your protestations I'm afraid you do come across as ungrateful. I think it's a shame that you have to grit your teeth to accept a present and describe it as tat. People (male and female) throughout their whole lives receive gifts that wouldn't be to their tastes but the attitude to have is to be genuinely grateful that someone has gone to the trouble and expense to get that gift, not put on a false smile and moan about it behind the gift givers back.

Ooh cross posted with yofluffy - well said, agree completely (think you put it better than me)

@Oggy Here here.

@Oggy, sorry that was in answer to your penultimate post too, the board doesn't tell us if someone's posting at the same time.

No-one thinks it's harmful for girls to be into "girly" things.

YoFluffy 'equal' doesn't mean 'the same'. Your line of argument would have been familiar to the suffragettes. The 'equal but different' line is usually used to defend inequality when used by those who currently benefit.

It's just harmful to treat the genders differently when there's no need. They could all get non-gender-cliche presents. Many ideas already mentioned in this thread.

YANBU at all, OP, and I totally agree with all of your points in your long post today at 13:16, but especially 'And as for the 'It's just a little gift - it doesn't matter in the great scheme of things' argument? Nor does your life. Big things are made up of lots of little things.' This is so pertinent in the context of feminism/gender stereotyping. Almost anything in isolation can be dismissed as 'not a big deal', 'a bit of fun' etc, but together they add up to bigger and uglier things.

As for the 'your daughter knows her own mind/won't be that influenced by a little present/is allowed to like girly thing, you know' argument, of course she's allowed to and of course no one is saying that her whole sense of herself will be dictated by this event. I think the point is that such stereotyped decisions as to give boys cars and girls flowers should be challenged anyway; this sort of thinking is insidious.

Before you posted it yourself, I was going to say that there's obviously a difference between your daughter knowing how to accept presents graciously (which I had no doubt you'd brought her up to do) and those presents being inappropriately gender-biased in the first place.

I'm afraid I don't really have any suggestions as to how you should proceed tactfully because I'm a great blundering foot-in-mouth type but I think it's a good idea for you to insist on getting involved offer to help next year.

I don't think you need to be fuming about it. My DD would hate to be given a car. I hope you teach your DD to accept it graciously . The PTA do a lot of hard work for little thanks. I don't think you should say anything. Unless you want to be very unpopular .

This is like banging your head against a brick wall, but then any challenge of 'the norm' is, I guess. I'm just feeling quite frustrated at the moment as it seems like people are having to repeat the same points to different people who haven't read earlier in the thread when they already addressed those points.

Anyway. Lots of people mentioning, "But my daughter gets the message that she can be whatever she wants!" Well, great for your daughter. But many kids these days don't get that, so what about them? And also I'd say it's still very hard for a little boy to go against gender stereotypes than it is for a little girl. I refer again to my example of all my nephews fighting over pink things in my house but refusing to ride a pink bike outside because they know they'll get laughed at. Even though they have been told time and again by us that it doesn't matter, girls and boys can wear and do and play with whatever they like, if people laugh at them they're the silly ones - it is still very difficult as a kid to go against the tide of other kids pointing and laughing at you.

Ime it depends aswell on the number and sex of the siblings and whether someone is 1st or 2nd or 3nd child. My dd1 likes sports, cars etc and my dd2 likes pink, ballet costume, hair clips. I dont know whether it is nature or the fact that dd1 was born 2yrs after ds so she shared some of his toys. But ds loves books and crafts and his piano, he can read or study music for ages while dd1 cant sit still for long. Thats genetic.

The only toys i wouldn't accept are guns. Apart from that they are free to choose what they like.

Right, someone needs to tally up all the YABUs vs YANBUs. I'd love to, but unfortunately I'm really really lazy busy.

glitter children will always do this anyway. I was watching my dcs and their cousins playing and they were saying every silly thing you can imagine 'i must go first in the pool because i'm wearing green', 'my flip flops are better than yours', 'you shouldn't cut your hair because Artemis had long hair', 'you must share your ice cream with me because i'm the queen of the island'... So what?

That's why we a need YABU/YANBU buttons on an OP in this section project Each poster gets one vote. It would stop some of the repetetition on these threads I think.

And how many times have you voted KM?

Erm there are no buttons yet so no vote. But i'd get just the one like everyone else