to be fucked off that stroes still feel the need to define toys by gender?

[GretaGip]

I've been wandering around all day looking for inspiration.

And it seems that within toy sales it's imperatiove to be prosciptive.

Surely one of the major retailers could realise that cupcakes and butterflies for grils and transport and dinosaurs for boys is just ouutdated and break free from the molud and then just sit back and wait for hoards of satisfued MNers to boost their sales.

AIBsimplistic?

Sigh.

Dd3 is heavily into mermaids at the moment, so wants mermaid dolls for Christmas. She's also obsessed with spiderman and chose a spiderman dressing up outfit from a 'boys' section when told she could have a treat the other day. She also chose to dress as batman when they had superhero day at school the other day. She's nearly 6, so old enough to read 'boys' or 'girls' in a shop or catalogue. She just likes what she likes, and doesn't care which section it's sold in!

Moon, the problem is that this often changes as they get older and become more self-conscious. there were lots of things DS used to like but is now too embarrassed to admit to because he will be teased.

I also think the overall damage is a big one, and worse so because its hard to notice. If you think about all the girls toys and how a lot of them are to do with appearance or caring for others and how a lot of boys toys are about action and constructing things, fast forward a few decades and see the huge gender gaps that exist in the well paid engineering sector and the low paid caring sector, then you'll see it does have an effect.

It's not innate, it's a low subtle consistent pressure. People conform without consciously realising it because it feels good to be one of the crowd and the marketing departments know that.

I see your point, it's not just the toy stores, it's everywhere in society. My cousin is a sound engineer for the BBC, and she gets fed up with the reactions she gets.

Going back to the superhero topic at DDs school, we had parents evening shortly afterwards, and her teacher said, "All the little girls have loved learning about Wonderwoman and Catwoman". It made me feel quite cross, and told her that DD preferred Spiderman. As a parent, I guess that all I can do is to encourage my children to not feel that they have to conform.

MakeItALarge I don't think the issue is that simple. All the children in my class have a very specific idea of which toys and books are correct for their gender. The boys would not be seen dead reading about princesses or anything to do with girls.

It is not just parents who influence their children. Their peers have a huge impact on them. Send your son to school with a Barbie if that's what he wants, but I guarantee by the age of 5/6 he'll be getting bullied for it. If that doesn't send a clear message that you must stay within the realms of gender-specific behaviour, I don't know what does.

Recently, the boys in my class have been reading a superhero book aimed at kids. They constantly shout out about how one lad or another is "looking at the dirty pictures". What are the dirty pictures? Yes, the one of the women in tight, superhero type clothing. The men are wearing it too, but it's the women that are dirty to them for wearing tight clothing.

And how anyone can say "I don't think the toys I played with/messages I received as a child had an impact on me" is beyond me. EVERYTHING has an impact on us, it is impossible to separate any of it out and say what influenced us and what didn't.

Beyond that, the gender divide is, in my opinion, getting wider. The women I live with (all 5 - 10 years younger than me) are so much more interested in their appearance than I/my friends were. They are forever fake-tanning, waxing, getting nails done...it just wasn't on my radar at all. Overt displays of gender seem to be really fashionable and I think that this pink stuff will make that even more noticeable as children grow up.

So what? We are different Genders. I'm female and my DP is male.

Boy's do like to play with different things from girls mostly, why can't these be catagorised?

Mad, absolutely mad

when toy shopping for my dds when they were younger i just went and got what they liked butterflies and pink for 1 and trains and cars for another, what do you want shops to do just bundle them all up girls and boys like different toys but stores need to put them in some kind of order ,and some girls love pink butterflies

My experience is very different to yours then MakeItALarge .

And the phrase "strong woman" is just puke-inducing.

ClippedPhoenix - why do you think boys like to play with different things to girls? Just the way they are or something? Nothing to do with society or expectations?

My eldest kids were born in the early 90s and there was none of this prescriptive marketing.

you know what you are right perhaps I am still in the 90s and it wasn't so bad you could go into wollies and pick up your toys without it shouting out THIS IS A GIRLS TOY, I maybe out of touch with advertising

YANBU, I was ranting to DH about this the other day when trying to buy DNiece a dinosaur toy. John Lewis's 'girls' section included a mini iron, shopping trolley and tea set. She loves dinosaurs - why are they for boys? I resent little girls being moulded into 'homemakers'.

I don't think it's only about pinkification of toys, it is about the underlying assumption of what constitutes a toy appealing to boys/girls.

And messages on clothes annoy me as well - the boys ones are often Go explore!/ jungle adventure etc and the girl ones are about being friends & pets & such.

The message - boys are outdoor, initiate things, take risks, are engaged with the wider world. Girls are domestic, concerned with caring & relationships.

I totally object to these subtle messages being allowed to diminish the ambitions or confidence of girls that they can choose to achieve in any way they want.

And if what they want is genuinely cupcakes etc, well that is fine, i like a cupcake as much as the next person.

But let's not pretend that this kind of socialisation doesn't exist.

Yanbu. You go in a toy store/ clothes shop and there is literally no clue that feminism ever happened. I find it strange

Yanbu, it does seem to be getting worse over the last decade.

I would be more up in arms about it except I have 3 girls and none of them have been into pink glittery princess stuff. One is so-so about girly stuff, one a bit averse and one has always gone for the things marketed for boys. I do try and avoid the more gendered shops - toys'r'us and ELC for toys, mothercare and Next for clothes.

I totally agree with the whole Pinkstinks campaign, but I think it's not too hard to avoid those shops which do overdo the pink glittery crapf, and if we just don't go to those shops then maybe it would be less of an issue.

Yes, 'tis strange.

YANBU OP.

YANBU. It really fucks me off. It's only in the last fifteen years too, marketing bods are trying their damndest to shoehorn girls and boys into narrow gender brackets. Parents have to buy twice don't they.

I've linked to these ads before but do take a look. Can you imagine them being made today?

thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/07/17/vintage-lego-ad/

YANBU

My local Entertainer (probabky irrationally) pisses me right off

Shop is painted one side pink with 'girls toys' on the wall, other side blue with 'boys toys' on the wall.

Girls side is full of pink Lego, toy washing machines, play food, toy make up and dolls. Boys side is full of dinosaurs, toy farms and remote control cars.

I don't see the need to define it like that. Paint the shop lots of different colours, put toys in it - all Lego together, all play food together, etc, it doesn't need a girls side and a boys side

I have 2 girls. One very pink and doll-ified. The other into skateboards and surfing, but both liked playing with farms and remote control cars as much as they did toy hoovers and barbies

I have no problem with pink or barbies or the toy food, I just don't think it needs to be marketed towards a particular sex

MousefunkWed 14-Nov-12 23:26:02
Funny thing is not so long ago girls wore blue and boys pink. Pink was seen as a variant of red and therefore masculine and strong, blue was seen as being dainty. Then a lovely man called Adolf Hitler decided pink was the colour of homosexuals and suddenly it became a 'feminine' colour.. And so now girls just have to like pink and boys blue.

I knew that the colours were the other way around early in the last century but hadn't realised the change over was connected to hitler.

Anyway DS likes all colours not just blue (it's orange for preference at the moment). DD likes a little pink, but knows she looks great in stronger colours. At the moment, she's wearing a rust coloured dress with black trim, chosen by herself. She doesn't have a lot of pink, by choice.

Thing is, with DD aged 12 and DS aged 8, when they were born, it wasn't quite so prevalent to have gender stereotyping then, it's really exploded recently and I'm convinced it's all down to companies wanting to make money.

I hate the messages it all conveys. I am constantly reinforcing to both DCs that they can make their own choices. Both of them have played with toys supposedly for the other gender, pick clothes they like (DS chose a purple jumper recently). But it still irritates the crap out of me.

YANBU.

I want a chine tea set suitable for a boy but cant find one thats not flowery and pink

also hate that majority of peppa pig stuff is aimed at girls and george pig is for boys

I still don't see why people are wringing their hands over this.

I bought Dd a vtech camera last year. I could have bought a pink one but I opted for the blue instead. She didn't mind.

Does it really matter how things are stacked in a shop? It makes it easier for people to shop that way. Parents aren't the only people who buy toys for children. The shop layout is always designed to make shopping easy and stress free.

People way over thinking this.