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.

[ButThereAgain]

All yogurt is girl-stuff really. The gender divide in dairy produce: females make the milk, marketing men add the bullshit.

[Growlithe]

And you have to ask why Muller want to make them. Because they want to reinforce gender stereotypes for some sinister reason, or because their market research people have discovered that these will appeal to and attract children and so they will sell more yoghurts? The kids yoghurt section is full of pots that will appeal to either gender, they aren't the first to do this, and I'm not the first parent to buy them.

[ButThereAgain]

All that delicious nutritious white stuff, the exclusive province of female manufacture. It wouldn't be fair not to let the menfolk stir in some bullshit to serve with it. They'd think they weren't needed.

[themaltesefalcon]

Oh shite, I normally quite like Tesco advertising.

Bottles of vodka and whiskey and cognac dancing in time to "Boogie Wonderland."

Oh yes.

[nooka]

Depressing. But Muller 'yogurt' is disgusting anyway. Yogurt should be made from milk and cultures and nothing else IMO why all the crap has to be added is beyond me (well not really I know it's because it is cheaper)

[mrsjay]

I saw it the other day and thought nice ballet shoes for the girls and space rocket for the boys jeezo, I actually think this girl/boy thing is getting worse I don't think it was so prevalent (is that the right word) when dds were younger, you would think it would get better not worse 15odd years on ,

[Sparklingbrook]

There must have been a focus group at some point. And Muller wouldn't make them if they didn't sell.

[NeuroticSweetTalk]

You're not being unreasonable, quite frankly I'm getting sick of it all 'gender specific' colours, toys, interests, careers (which isn't actually too bad anymore) and now food. It's ridiculous.

[Sparklingbrook]

Perhaps because my two are 14 and 11 years old I don't see this as much as people with younger children, Am I a bit out of date?

[jojane]

we have had all of these - the shoes, the hearts, the footballs and the rockets. my children will eat any of them regardless of gender although i did have to keep a look out for the fashion ones as dd saw them advertised and wanted me to get them. ds (6 ) wanted the hearts in his lunchbox!

[jojane]

i get them because they are smaller than the big corner yogurts

[FreeButtonBee]

I have boy/girl twins and this sort of shit pisses me off big style. I am often buying (at least) two of things and I would like to have the option of things in more than two colors. What about green and orange and purple and yellow and even red! Why can't I get a toothbrush not in pink?! (Actually, I did manage to get oral b toothbrushes in green and purple - hooray!).

I don't mind my DTD using something that's blue (or DTS using pink), but for lots of things, I need things in different colors so I know which one is for which baby! And it's soul destroying to go a house full of blue/pink.

[devilinside]

The sad thing is DD is so paranoid that everything she owns/wears must be for girls. Yet at the same time is picking up on the message that pink is for babies and is to be looked down upon. What a horrible mixed message for an 8 year old.

She would easily succumb to this type of advertising and start to believe that girls and boys require different foods.

Hopefully these yoghurts will go the same way as the Crispello bar (left to rot in the bargain bins)

[Minty82]

I randomly remembered yesterday that when I was small, Pampers nappies came in either pink or blue packaging, and they had a massive marketing campaign boasting that their nappies were specially made to be more absorbent in the different areas of the nappy that boy/girl pee would reach. That one, at least, seems to have fallen by the wayside!

[Crowler]

I'm a bit at the poster upstream who's just saying, be a good role model for your kids and everything else will fall in place.

I started this parenting lark with the best intentions for a gender-neutral upbringing for what became 2 boys - I'm sure you all know the drill - and now, most days they're just terrified at the prospect of possessing some quality or object that may be construed as girly.

I've now become what I never really wanted to be, which is a "shrill" feminist (rather than a super-cool feminist), because I have to scream my message to be heard above all the bullshit noise my kids hear.

[Minty82]

Oh that's interesting Kim - we've not reached the pull-ups stage yet! Thought I'd found a lone example of children's marketing being more gender-specific in the 80s than now!

[Growlithe]

Crowler but why did you try for a 'gender-neutral upbringing' for your children? They aren't gender neutral.

We can let our girls like pink things, hearts, flowers, shoes etc, and still provide them with the right attitude and belief in themselves. You can't control all the inputs into their lives (and why would you want to), but you can give them the right values to recognise what is important and what isn't. Then you don't have to scream over the bullshit, because the bullshit doesn't matter.

[Crowler]

Growlithe, the idea of kids having a gender-specific upbringing is a modern marketing invention.

When I was growing up in the 70's/80's (I'm dating myself here), kids had the same exact stuff (with the obvious exceptions like dresses for special occasions) until they were teenagers. I never had a pink notebook or snow-boots.

[ariadneoliver]

There are plenty more pointlessly gendered products about! Squirrel underwear anyone?

pinterest.com/socimages/pointlessly-gendered-products/

thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/19/more-examples-of-gendered-products-for-kids/

[Crowler]

And, Growlithe: I do "provide them with the right attitude and belief in themselves", but the bullshit remains a force to be reckoned with.

[Growlithe]

Crowler but I also grew up in the 70s and 80s, and I and my sister played with dolls and prams and wore skirts and pink clothes, while my brothers wore boys stuff and played football, soldiers and cowboys and indians. They didn't grow up chauvinistic anymore than I grew up an airheaded bimbo.

We were girls and boys, and our parents gave us the same values and opportunities.

[Crowler]

I doubt I'd have any common views with someone who thinks gender-specific marketing of yogurt is OK.

[meddie]

I grew up in the 70's too and back then we had 7 colours in our rainbow, of which I wore many different variations. I dont actually remember there being a pink one. I just think this reducton of everything to either female=pink and male=blue just so fucking boring tbh.
Even trying to shop for a greeting card the other day and nearly all the cards for women where pink themed (except the speciality humour ones) Just depressing. I bloody hate pink.
interesting the ink for the muller kids site has games.
Under the blue banner 'show your footie skills' and under the pink banner 'catch a basket full of love (boak) and paint with flowers'

[Growlithe]

Hang on, in the 70s and 80s all the babies wore little pink or blue knitted cardigans.

Its just a colour, its just a yoghurt. Teach your kids that and it won't matter to their lives.