to find this toy disturbing?

[Booboostoo]

DM bought DD (17 months) a happyland fun fair set which was such good fun I was looking through their other toys online for Christmas inspiration when I found this

www.elc.co.uk/HappyLand-Khaleeji-Family/134473,default,pd.html

I really liked the fact that the fun fair set came with little people from all races, but I find this toy disturbing. Aside from the burkas, what's with the men sitting on thrones and the women tending donkeys?

DP is trying to rile me over it, so I have come to MN jury for some sanity.

Hairclips - that is a very interesting article. Op perhaps you are right about elc and sexism...

Two points. Firstly, why and how would a child look at this toy and instantly conclude that the women are oppressed? The only way I could think of that happening is if an adult previously made a massive sweeping generalisation and told them this rubbish. Secondly, the OP doesn't seem to acknowledge that all the characters are covered up, not just the women.

TBH I think this will sell very well in the UK. Childminders are required by OFSTED to have toys that represent different races and faiths.

What is the point of this op again?

So if you changed the characters positions you could complain that the women are just passively gossiping over cakes whilst the men are actively doing things like tending a horse. Shows how people always bring their own baggage when they interpret a situation.

Why did female genital circumcision come into this discussion?

The point is to prompt a-not-very-relevant criticism of what the OP perceives as Muslim beliefs and customs

And they park in p & c places

Oh, and she hasn't addressed anything I've said about representation vs aspiration/approval

That article is a pile of poopoo, making fact out of opinions.

The whole pink and blue thing, a great marketing ploy, I'm sure ELC's only concern is ensuring parents of divided gender families are forced to buy two of each toy rather than kids sharing.

How is breastfeeding relevant here?

Why shouldn't you be able to find a girl dressed like her mum?? And the men are as covered as the women, just in a different colour; do you feel they are oppressed too?

Abayas here are a fashion statement - often adorned with fancy embroidery, or bling, or cut in the latest style... And there has been an odd trend for some time to pile the hair up as much as possible in an enormous clip under the shayla (scarf) - and Emirati women generally look very glamerous in their black.

Yes they can take their abayas off at home - much more easily than the men, as the abaya is usually a thin layer on top of other clothes (or over pyjamas when doing the school run, apparently....) Whereas the dishdasha is the clothes. There is a degree of social pressure to wear national dress, I think (locals of both sexes are expected to wear national dress to work, rather than eg a suit, for example) whether or not the person is very practicing - but it is tied up with national pride as much as with Islam - apart from anything, there are other ways of dressing Islamically.

And you do see preteens/teens dressing like mum/dad....

And thee set has apparently been popular in the Gulf, where people dress like that. Why should it be offensive in the UK??

Badmanners and Chicken, I thought both your HL family and this one were single parent families - mum plus three kids!

Booboo if you find the picture on the box disturbing, why not take the figures out of the box before you give them to your DD? Then (if you really want to) you can watch her to see if she makes any gender or cultural assumptions... Since she's so young, she probably won't, unless you have passed some on to her...

They are big chairs not thrones you are over thinking it imo and the horse who happens to be standing

flow4 The mom in yours is much more stylish! She has a little scarf, a handbag (for the keeping of lipsticks etc I assume) and a bracelet!! The mom in mine has nothing, nothing i tell you! I will have to complain i think.

Anyway, maybe the men have baked the cakes, hence standing proudly in front of their cake table, outside their house, clearly some sort of cake sale actually. All they do is try to turn a bit of profit and they get accused of all sorts! The Mom has just been on an invigorating donkey ride around the countryside, and the girl has been climbing trees! Cos you know, it is a toy, and is open to interpretation and you can kind of do what you like with it. Unless they are actually fused into place!!

See in the second picture, the one who has been riding the horse is in the bathroom, ready to have a bath to get rid of horse/donkey smell, and the other one has finished climbing trees and gone to check the kitchen is tidy after cake making, the men, poor things have failed to sell a single cake!

I think the figures in white are mum and dad, the ones in black are the 2 children- the girl with the pink trim, the boy with the white trim. So mum and dad are having a nice sit down and the son is looking after a horse!

Jamie sorry I am trying to reply to as many points as possible without getting too personal with anyone. I don't think there is any direct value in mere representation. Afterall a lot of unpleasant, violent, evil things take place in the world and we don't feel they should be represented in toys, role models, education etc merely because they occur. Education has an evaluative component, we pick the appropriate role models, we surround ourselves with the right examples, we encourage the correct behaviour, because we want to encourage in a specific direction not a random, general one.

Of course there is a place in playing and education for diversity. Toys should have people from all races, ethnicities, abilities/disabilities, genders (to include people of one sex dressed in outfits of the other gender and so on), families with different compositions (single parent, same-sex, grandparent-carers), and lifestyles (women doctors, men nurses, women builders and men nannies to name but a few). However, diversity is not an excuse for unthinking acceptance of ANY other lifestyle.

The type of covering depicted in this toy is not a national costume or a regional style variation, it's a religiously mandated requirement you can get stoned for not wearing, that applies only to women and is one aspect of many ways in which women's lives are severly restricted - hence not a decent role model.

None of this applies exclusively to extreme versions of Islam, here's a 'lovely' example of an extreme version of the Jewish faith:

failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/06/immodestly-dressed-woman-stoned-in-beit-shemesh-456.html

and an ironic move extremist Muslims seem to be in agreement that all the world's wrongs are down to women's dresses:

www.ibtimes.com/moroccan-woman-beaten-stoned-and-striped-salafists-over-revealing-dress-womens-rights-imperiled

desertgirl you don't find this type of dress amongst girls because it is not religiously required. Girls have to wear it from sexual maturity onwards.

Sorry don't know what went wrong with the links.

failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/06/immodestly-dressed-woman-stoned-in-beit-shemesh-456.html

www.ibtimes.com/moroccan-woman-beaten-stoned-and-striped-salafists-over-revealing-dress-womens-rights-imperiled

hope that works better.

I just thought someone had spotted a gap in the market.
OFSTED will be pleased with childminders who buy it.
I am not sure why they have a brown and white bathroom though when the default colour of baths in this country now seems to be white.

But it is a regional style variation - what type of clothing Muslims of either gender wear varies hugely by country of residence or origin.

Here the women are wearing abayas and shailas. They aren't showing any hair, but their faces are not veiled. The men are wearing thawbs or dishdashes and ghutras. They aren't showing any hair, but their faces are not veiled.

There is nothing at all sexist about the toy in and of itself. You are bringing to it your own background knowledge and opinions about the regimes in place in the countries where those are the accepted forms of dress - which isn't unreasonable, and no one is suggesting that you must buy this toy for your daughter. But you seem to be saying that this toy shouldn't exist at all - that because of the actions of the governments of some Islamic countries there should be no toys on sale anywhere depicting the inhabitants of those countries in their normal everyday dress (dress which is more-or-less equally restrictive for men and women, although the practical consequences of choosing not to wear it would be different).

Booboostoo, frankly, you don't know what you are talking about. In my part of the world, you see hair under shaylasn you see girls wearing abayas and boys wearing dishdashas - not all the time, but not never either, even though it is not religiously mandated, because BOTH the abaya and the dishdasha are part of the cultural heritage of the country, as well as complying with Islamic modesty requirements.

And this is a Gulf family, it has absolutely nothing to do with Morocco.

Booboo, this is a toy. It is not a representation of evil of evil violent things. FFS, I can't believe I actually had to type that sentence.

If you don't like it don't buy it and then, with the money you have saved, you could get a grip.