Girls' and boys' yogurts from Muller - AIBU to be a bit WTF??

[nicecupofteaplease]

Here they are - the product you never knew you needed. I sort of understand how toys have become sexually stereotyped but food products. Really? It's utterly ridiculous. Isn't it? Or should I only be feeding my daughter yogurts suitable for a girl? All these years she has been making do with unisex yogurt. I feel I have let her down.

According to Muller, boys like monkeys, space, pirates and cars, and girls like flowers, popstars, superstars and fashion - and it's only right that these interests are reflected in the dairy products they consume. My DD likes climbing trees, I am confused about which yogurt I should choose.

[Thumbwitch]

Yep, Target all over Australia, as far as I know. It's not that great!

[Crowler]

There's a Target in Australia?

Why has it not come HERE?

[Thumbwitch]

Bloody disappointing that this shit still carries on.
And WHY pick on the ubergirly side of things? Speaking as a very ungirly girl, that just annoys the tits off me. I LIKE science and maths and bugs and dinosaurs and pirates and so on - I can't stand bloody fashion and hairdoes and handbags and howmanyshoesImusthave and shopping etc. I'd be definitely buying the "boy" stuff for myself.



DS1 is 5 now and has already got into the idea that some things are definitely for girls and some for boys. He does 4 dance classes, and I had to get him some black leggings for his last show but could only get girl ones (oddly enough!) - and he knew they were girl ones, no idea how. They're black! He wears them because they are his "dance leggings" and has got over it but he is very aware of the gender divide. He's even gone off getting the girl characters in sets of promotional toys for films, purely because they're girls. :( (Although he does have a Jessie doll that came with Bullseye...)

The gender divide in toys is very apparent in the big stores in Australia - Target, KMart, Big W etc - there are whole aisles of pink shiz. We just don't bother. If DS1 wanted a doll, I'd get him one - but it wouldn't be one in a pink fecking box just because I loathe pink! I'd probably get him one of the zombie dolls or something. And then next to the pink aisles are the "blue" aisles (less obvious but still) with the superheroes (male only), cars, guns etc.

I got him a toy stove a couple of years ago. Looked online first - all either bloodyexpensivehandcraftedbyelves wood, or pink. Then I went TO Toys'R'Us and had a look at their actual stock and found the perfect thing in primary colours, with a sound'n'light hob. Great! :)

It is actually quite hard to find affordable gender-neutral coloured items in some types of toy, tbh.

[ErrolTheDragon]

And for that matter that boys ought to be adventurous. Some of them aren't.

[devilinside]

It's reinforcing the idea that girls are only valued for the way they look, I don't want this for my daughter.

[Moistenedbint1]

""Hang on though, isn't it tesco that's saying "girls yogurts"? I can't see any gender-based instructions on the yogurts - though I stand to be corrected. It looks to me like muller is carefully avoiding that, implying you just choose the style that suits you - adventurous or glamorous (or why not mix & match of course).""

Exactly. Despite social conditioning, my son loves pink hello kitty ice creams. We, as consumers, have the ultimate choice...to buy or not to buy. And given so many girls are outperforming boys in the academic stakes, I fail to see how the pink vs blue dichotomy has any bearing on achievement.. like some are trying to imply. If anything we should be endorsing the benefits of academic achievement amongst boys..

[namechangesforthehardstuff]

Yy and is it OK for girls to be pink and pretty I think was the question?

Well yeah but it's not OK to tell my DD that she'll be valued more for the way she looks than for...'the content of her character' to paraphrase the man. What if she's not fucking pretty? I'd like her not to give any kind of fuck whether she is or not.

we just don't live in a vacuum do we? So even if I search out non-gender specific clothes and toys it doesn't negate the fact that every one of the girls she plays with is dressed head to toe in pink and has a house stuffed full of pink toy washing machines and princess clothes. Anyone who thinks you can just opt out of this kind of shit is living in a fucking dream world.

[ErrolTheDragon]

If you see pink and blue yoghurts that DON'T say boys and girls on them and you sigh "Bah, boy and girl yogurts" I think you are part of the problem tbh.

The muller ones didn't say 'boy' or 'girl'. They had pictures aimed at 'the adventurous ones' and 'the glamorous ones' (in the OPs link). And guess what, the 'adventurous ones' were colour-coded blue and 'glamorous' was pink. Given that a lot of the target audience is probably pre-literate, the absence of label is pretty irrelevant.

Of course, most of our kids aren't trapped by this pervasive genderisation. I've got a DD who'd choose the blue every time, snorts and at the 'its a pink world' of Victoria's Secret and is thinking of becoming an electronic engineer. But there's a hell of a lot of other girls who never get bought the 'boys' building and science kits. Who are encouraged to be 'glamorous' rather than 'adventurous'. It really doesn't need to start with bloody yogurt.

[HomicidalPsychoJungleCat]

And I'm not slating beauticians, or popstars, because if that is a genuine career choice then great, but really I think it said more about the message we are sending our girls about where they belong in life, the decorous and decorators.

[HomicidalPsychoJungleCat]

Just saw the advert for this and I am fucking fuming. Why does a girl world have the limits of 'fashion'?

And you know what, this shit is starting to work. At the leavers assembly EVERY girl but one out of the whole class wanted to be 'a beautician' or 'a popstar'' when they grew up. It almost made me cry with rage. Where were the lawyers, doctors, architects, authors, etc???? Oh yeah, they were all the boys.

It's enough to make me want to throw away our TV.

Muller, you just lost one customer.

[Crowler]

Parents are "making a big deal" over this because of the constant battle with our kids to get them to step outside of the cult of TEAM BLUE OR PINK, ladybigtoes. Marketers go directly to the kids, cutting the parents out - we're stuck with the lasting effects.

And you are absolutely wrong about gender neutrality as an inexpensive option. Charity shops are obviously very difficult to gauge, but just do a quick comparison of say, Asda vs Bonpoint. Mass marketing is almost lock-step pink and blue. I don't even shop anymore because I refuse to dress my kids in hyper-masculine clothes, so I'm in a "niche market" - I search probably a half-hour online for each item of clothing I actually buy.

I'm bemused at the posters who suggest that parents who are fed up with this should just avoid it. Are you tired of seeing women as some kind of male fantasy in advertising? Really? Why don't you just avoid it? Are you tired of what a violent culture we live in? Really? Why don't you just avoid it? Are you tired of what a consumerist culture we live in? Really? Can't you just take responsibility for the images your kids are bombarded with and convince them that they don't need all this stuff? ... and so on.

[Sparklingbrook]

I think things have moved on then. DS2 had a doll's buggy which he pushed his teddy round in the whole time when he was little, and a kitchen which he loved-especially the microwave.

He asked Father Christmas for both.

[devilinside]

Yes it does limit girls. My DD will only wear or play with toys aimed at girls, not because I raised her this way (as a toddler she played with anything), because of peer pressure. This could easily transcend to food if we allow advertisers to get away with it

She also believes that boys are cool for liking blue, and girls are babies for liking pink and princesses (again, this comes from school)

So really, she's getting the most awful mixed message that she must conform at any cost, yet her choices are inferior to those of boys

[LadyBigtoes]

Ok, well I said one way to fight it - I agree it's worth letting shops know you don't like it too.

And don't give me the old line that my argument is only for those who can afford it. I included tesco in my list, definitely comparable to asda. Plus charity shops, eBay etc have a range of colours too, by virtue of the fact that it comes from other shops.

The point Im making is that some parents are making this worse than it is by lamenting that something pink is aimed at girls and therefore limits girls, and so on. No it doesn't. You do, if you make a big deal of the girl association and even impose it when the manufacturer didn't put it there. Pink is just pink. It only gets its connotations from what people say and do and if you think pink is for girls then you are teaching your girls (and boys) that and limiting their choices yourself.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Hmm. That's a bit like saying " If cigarettes are advertised on television, then so be it. It's our job as parents to make sure our kids don't smoke"
Sorry, but I don't really feel much of a match for multi national corporations.
I really don't agree about the choice of colours either. I do sometimes go to H and M, which is OK, but I also look in M and S, BHS, Primark and Asda, and yes, it is a sea of pink/red/purple for girls. In Clarks yesterday every single one of the girls shoes was pink/red/purple.
Also, in cheaper shops, like Asda, there really isn't much that is "gender neutral" with regards to toys.

[LadyBigtoes]

I actually don't think the repeated comments on here that "you can only buy blue or pink toys/clothes" and "girls are forced into a pink box" are very helpful, because they're not true. There is a hell of a lot of this stuff about, but also millions of other toys and clothes, and you don't have to try that hard to offer your kids gender-neutral toys and a range of clothes colours.

I do agree that gender marketing has become much more polarised over my lifetime and that it does affect perceptions of what girls and boys can do, among some kids and some parents. It's something we need to fight. One way to do that is to make sure your DC realise that everything on offer is open to their choice, and make choices yourself without emphasising any gender bias or distinction.

Sainsbury's, Tesco, Next, Gap, Boden, H&M, are just a few of the mainstream clothes makers where you can get a huge range of colours for both sexes (including pink in the "boys" section) and many of those clothes are very unisex. As someone with an older boy and younger girl, there's very little we've bought for DS that isn't handed down to DD to wear. When she helps to choose her clothes in a shop, we look round all the clothes and she chooses what she likes - she's chosen lots from both "gender" sections.

Toys are the same - it's nonsense that there's only pink and blue. It does happen, and there are some dodgy gender-divided items (ELC I'm looking at you) but are you really saying there are no orange, yellow, red, purple and green toys? - of course there are. There are also millions of very unisex toys - most lego, our multicoloured marble run, toy animals, snap and similar games, magnext, playmobil, ikea model railway are all equally enjoyed by both my DC and any kids that come round.

However even if toys (or yoghurts) seem to be marketed in blue and pink colourways, it's our job as parents to present everything as if it is unisex anyway (because effectively, almost everything in life actually is unisex. With the exception of childbirth and breastfeeding everyone has the choice to buy or do anything their budget/ability/imagination allows).

If you see pink and blue yoghurts that DON'T say boys and girls on them and you sigh "Bah, boy and girl yogurts" I think you are part of the problem tbh.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

x post crowther! I could only dream of looking like Victoria Principal..

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Contrary to what TV tells us, there was not much glamour about it in 1980's Northern England!
(And what there was was strictly for the grown ups).
I think it is massively missing the point to say "why can't girls like pink?"
Of course they can. And I probably wouldn't try and steer ds into a pink T shirt (wouldn't suit him), but you can't underestimate what a number is being done on us by marketeers.
The pink/blue, Princess/Pirate, Football/Dolls things was always there, but more as an incidental thing. Now, the gender you are is EVERYTHING.
So, if you are naturally a pink-liking, sparkly, flower doodling, doll dressing up girl, then great-you are catered for.
More than that, you are "normal".
But what if you don't like pink? What if, when you get invited to a Princess and Pirates party, you would rather be a pirate?
In some areas, with some parents, that would be seen as cool. But in general, more and more, it would mean that child really setting themselves apart, and not being "typical".
It really, really wasn't always like this.

[Crowler]

The 80's were a glamorous time for adults. Michelle Pheiffer in Scarface is my sartorial guide.

[Crowler]

Kim - I was kidding.

[Sparklingbrook]

Oh ok 5 well i am reassured that DS1 & 2 both have their fair share of pink t shirts and shirts at the moment which they chose.

[5madthings]

nothing wrong with any child liking pink. everything wrong with the fact it is seen only as a girls colour! and that boys shouldnt like it. this gender stereotyping damages our boys just as much as girls.

[Sparklingbrook]

Does it matter if girls like pink things? It's a colour-that's all. As is blue.

As I said I must be out of date or it has passed me by, with it not being a major problem in the Sparkling household where the DSs can choose whatever they like colour wise, and when they were little toywise.

[Growlithe]

You didn't experience 'glamour' in the 80s? Are you sure you were there?

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

"They're just saying blue for adventure, pink for glamour"

Yes, and The World has already established that Pink is for Girls (ask any Infant School child). So the work is done.

Exactly.^^

The problem with this endless all pervasive gender stereotyping, is that it is very clearly telling children right from birth how they should be, and that, put simply boys "do" (adventurous is an active word) and girls "be" Glamourous is a passive word.

It's not "just" a yogurt. It's everywhere, on everything. And no, it wasn't like this in the 80's. I wore many of my older brothers hand me downs, and I don't remember particularly standing out from other girls. I also had some pretty dresses, but in all sorts of colours-yellow, green (yes burgundy!)
It is really sad how limiting the choices are now, and how even very very young children feel they have to conform, because they always just want to fit in.