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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be disappointed with Mumsnet for campaign for gender neutral books.

208 replies

raltheraffe · 21/11/2014 11:33

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2843801/Rapunzel-definitely-not-just-girls-says-publisher-announces-plans-make-children-s-books-gender-neutral.html

Apparently this all started with a MN campaign. What is so bad about books and toys for that matter that are biased towards one gender? I do not understand it at all.

I am donning my hard hat for this one, since it was people on here who came up with this daft campaign.

OP posts:
NoUnauthorisedParking · 21/11/2014 14:53

What if people don't want their kids to play with certain toys. Surely it's not for you to decide

Confused

cheesecakemom I think you've misunderstood.

This campaign is about removing boy/girl labels from books and toys.

MiddletonPink · 21/11/2014 14:53

I don't get wound up by that Edam. Really.

Tbh I would not buy a pink or a blue globe. Not because where they were placed in a store offended me but because I think they look cheap. I'd go elsewhere and buy a traditional one.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 21/11/2014 14:55
Confused

The majority of globes DO come in blue - given that water covers much of the earth Confused. Atlases and maps, including globes have a universal graphic language including colour coding. Having a pink one completely invalidates that.

I don't know why this needs explaining.

SevenZarkSeven · 21/11/2014 14:57

lol @ veto on blue globes Grin

edamsavestheday · 21/11/2014 14:59

Tonde, the blue one was just like the pink i.e. overwhelmingly the same shade of blue, rather than depicting the planet reasonably accurately. Madness that gender stereotyping had got so extreme!

SevenZarkSeven · 21/11/2014 15:00

Did the pink globe have magical unicorn lands added? because if you're not going to worry about a little thing like the sea being blue then I don't see that accuracy around land masses should be anything to be concerned with. The UK would look much better smooshed into a heart shape, for instance.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 21/11/2014 15:01

Ah, I didn't see the 'boys' one. But still, INSANE.

Ilovetobiteyourneck · 21/11/2014 15:07

YABU. For all the reasons stated above. I mean, really, why on earth would anyone want books to be labelled 'for girls' or 'for boys' in the first place? I just don't get it.

SevenZarkSeven · 21/11/2014 15:09

Reminds me of a "joke" my dad told me prob in the 90s

Woman goes to buy car
Man in showroom asks what sort
Woman says " a pink one"
Man says ah well they can all be pink but there's more to it than that & goes onto explain all about engine capacities, front vs rear drive, petrol v diesel etc etc and so on
I see says woman
So what sort of car would you like? says the man
"A pink one"

Cue my dad wetting himself laughing because it's funny because it's true! Women are frivolous, shallow and stupid!!!!!! hahahahahaha!!!!!

No-one should ever make the mistake of thinking that the difference in attitude towards "girls" things and "boys" things is benevolent, and the underlying reason as to why "girls" things are "crap" and "boys" things are fine, to the extent that girls can have "boys things" without too much fuss but god forbid a boy ever have something which is "for girls" - none of this stuff is benevolent at all. The reasons for it and the underlying messages are hateful messages of misogyny and homophobia.

TheLovelyBoots · 21/11/2014 15:19

The UK would look much better smooshed into a heart shape, for instance.

Snort.

A pink globe!!! Why?

BeCool · 21/11/2014 15:23

hmmm Unicorn land you say ...........

ouryve · 21/11/2014 15:35

Gosh, that ELC globe is even than the WHS one I stumbled across, the other day
www.whsmith.co.uk/pws/AJProductDetails.ice?ProductID=33665108&layout=quickbuy.pop.layout&type=

ouryve · 21/11/2014 15:36

even pinker. See. My fingers are too shocked to type it.

Chippednailvarnish · 21/11/2014 15:42

As the mother of a DS and DD the problem with gender colours are very clear. Take "Girls" Lego for example, it's all horses, cafes and shopping. Traditional Lego covers every conceivable variation, so why are the "Girls" sets so narrowly focused (never seen pink technics Lego) It drives me up the wall...

Chippednailvarnish · 21/11/2014 15:44

Pink fucking globes, FFS are girls too delicate to handle the truth that Atlas isn't holding us up and the earth is mainly blue?!?

Angry
SevenZarkSeven · 21/11/2014 15:45

chipped if you want to end up smashing your head on a desk go to amazon and put in "girls science kits"

holy schamoley

Chippednailvarnish · 21/11/2014 15:47

I'm still calming down from the Sexy PHD outfit and the pink bic pens that Amazon stock.

What's more depressing is that someone must be buying this crap...

edamsavestheday · 21/11/2014 15:52

oh Lord I'd forgotten the Sexy PhD costume...

edamsavestheday · 21/11/2014 15:52

hasn't someone shown that all the pink products cost more as well? ""Ladies' razors" are more expensive than mens' and so on?

AnyoneForTardis · 21/11/2014 17:33

Im with you OP.

next they'll be doing pink tutus in the boys clothing sections and bow ties in the girls!

oh, no, not really there'll BE no boys and girls clothes sections will there? they'll all be together.!

FFS.

Bodicea · 21/11/2014 18:55

Can we see the bunnies -Lyra - inthe dark materials trilogy- pretty popular

Bulbasaur · 21/11/2014 19:19

hasn't someone shown that all the pink products cost more as well? ""Ladies' razors" are more expensive than mens' and so on?

Actually, DH's razors are more expensive than mine and I use a Venus. Or used to. Now we do the Dollar Shave Club. 6 bucks a month for the same three bladed head you get with a Venus. But they're a special case. I like the automated process of never running out of razors. :)

I take issue with the fact that these campaigns focus on getting rid of pink instead of embracing it for both. It's still very much "pink is bad" there fore "girl stuff = bad". It's just doing the same thing society is already except they're trying to switch it so that girls can't like pink instead of boys.

We need more books about girls with strong girl heroes, not books suddenly being made gender neutral. Gender is a good thing.

Anyway, look up A Mighty Girl campaign. It's very much in line with what I agree with. Being a girl is awesome, here are some good books (and toys) with strong, well rounded female characters.

NorahBone · 21/11/2014 20:07

Surely the pink on globes are to indicate which countries are part of the Empire Shock
I have to admit, I bought my baby a few of those "that's not my..." books from a charity shop and although I got the pink That's not my Baby, I thought the fairy one was just too pink and twee. Then I had second thoughts and went back for the fairies and he loves it- so sparkly!
I'm surprised that this campaign is the least bit controversial, especially on Mumsnet but a lot of people seem to kind of miss the intention. And if anyone read the comments on the Daily Mail link, you have only yourself to blame Grin (didn't read it, but am guessing something to do with political correctness and mental illness.)

Devora · 21/11/2014 20:34

YABU.

Children learn through play and what they should learn is not that certain kinds of activity are off limits to them because they are a boy or a girl.

The trouble with saying 'parents can choose' is that our choices are narrowing all the time. I'm as old as Moses and remember that many, if not most, of the toys I played with with my brothers were gender neutral. That's really not the case now. and it becomes self-perpetuating: if my daughters are going to a birthday party I usually do end up buying something pink and sparkly purely because to buy, say, a Meccano set would be seen as Making a Big Grim Feminist Statement.

I have one daughter who has always enjoyed the whole range of toys - dinosaurs, trucks, My Little Pony, trains, Peppa Pig - and the other who is obsessed with pink, make-up, dolls, party shoes, dresses, princesses. She has always been much more receptive than her sister on the 'right' way of doing things and she has absolutely picked up on every gender cue going. It is, of course, her choice (though I do secretly think it's a bit of a shame to get through childhood without learning ANY dinosaur names or even once playing with a train set) and innocuous in itself. But what happens when she enters the pre-teen phase and translating it into a narrowly defined image of adult femininity?

Incidentally, she has also shed many tears over the last couple of years about not being blonde. Because it's not just about pink, it's about the overwhelming association of blonde with pretty, feminine and good. (My daughter is brown-skinned.) Now, that gets me STEAMING - and don't anybody tell me it's not important. My daughter's tears show it is.

BabCNesbitt · 21/11/2014 20:43

AnyoneforTardis: "oh, no, not really there'll BE no boys and girls clothes sections will there? they'll all be together.!"

And that would be bad why?