to wish companies would stop making PINK toys

[frogsgoladidadidah]

This popped up in one of my FB groups today. I really feel the mothers pain. My DD loved green when she was little and trying to find green dresses was a nightmare. At least when the princess and the frog came out, I had the option of getting her a green dress up outfit.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?storyfbid=10154733686273408&id=122668598407&notifft=feedcomment&notiffid=1478417589571688&ref=m_notif

Its really annoying when parents insist that their child has a favorite colour and foist it upon them. Just because your child likes green doesn't mean she can't possibly have things in any other colour.

This link won't work for me. Can someone redo it please

My son is in Reception and has now developed an understanding that I like pink, because I'm a girl. And that every character in his cartoons that is a girl should be the one i like best. I have no idea where this gender bias has come from, other than his experience within society in general. I don't feel comfortable with it, but he is buying me a pink unicorn for my birthday so I'm hanging in there!

I have just Google play kitchens. The majority were not pink.

I don't dispute that girls often like pink. I like pint too. But if I want to buy something that isn't pink, I don't want it to cost me significantly more money.
I also don't dispute that money is the driving factor in the decision to make pink or blue toys. Manufacturers have convinced us that pink is a girls colour so that they can sell us the same product twice, if we have sons and daughters. Great idea if you make toys - you only have to make two colours (this keeping cost down) and you can sell twice as many!
I suspect that if more choice was available, fewer kids would see pink as a girl colour. It isn't that everyone hates pink, we would just like to get options.

I guess in my long winded way I am merely saying that I don't want my daughter to be conditioned to like pink just so that manufacturers can make more money.

Only one toy?

Blimey.

bobgoblin ds has started reception this year and he too has suddenly become very gender aware, I'm assuming there are loads of kids brining in the stereotype messages. I don't worry about it, I just tell him he can play with whatever he likes and be friends with who he wants. I'm not getting a unicorn though, just a princess playset!

It's a difficult one, I'm pretty ambivalent about gender issues. I'm neither anti pink nor a 'princess' type but I know many many parents who absolutely want to raise their daughters as princesses and their sons as football mad superhero fans, and that's absolutely their right. They aren't buying picking through lack of choice, they're actively seeking it out.

Girls have been brainwashed with pink for decades.
I have no idea why manufacturers still make most girls stuff in pink. (Or boys stuff in blue too) They think people want pink for girls and people buy their stuff so it will go on forever.
Probably started with that daft 'pink for a girl baby and blue for a boy'

I may have grown up quite liking pink if I had not felt it like I was supposed to because I am a girl.

Companies sell what people want to buy. If there wasn't a market, they wouldn't make it.

Do you not think that manufacturers are very skilled in persuading us to buy what they produce?

Funny with a quick google I've found a green pushchair toy and a green play kitchen... Took me 20 seconds max.

YABU

I have just Google play kitchens. The majority were not pink

But why are they pink at all? Generally speaking, kitchens aren't very often pink. And I bet blue play kitchens aren't easy to come by.

Most doll strollers are pink. However, Target, Toys R Us, and Amazon all offer other colors, including blue, red, green, and white.

But why are they pink at all? Generally speaking, kitchens aren't very often pink. And I bet blue play kitchens aren't easy to come by.

Yes there. Just Google 'play kitchens, again. First two offerings are blue and blue and green.

Why not pink? If you are happy with green and blue ones why not pink ones too. Why not all colours?

I hate when girls only have pink to choose from. However the pp said 90% were pink. They are not.

"Like it or not, pink is the most gendered colour by a wide margin. Blue is gendered as well but not to the same degree. Few would bat an eyelid at a girl wearing blue but most would notice a boy in pink."

Not sure that's still true... May depend on where you live. In our area (big cosmo town), the "cool" boys in dds' schools regularly wear pink. DD1 16yo's bf has his sport equipment and phone case in hot pink. Dd2 13yo had a friendly "pink off" v. the best boy futbol player in her year. I think some boys are reclaiming pink :)

So, this pink and blue thing. What exactly is the harm? Are you afraid that your baby girls will grow up to be princesses? Or so girlie that the mere thought of doing anything difficult will run their nails, or even standing at the front door with a pretty bow in their hair and dinner on the table for their husbands?

I just don't get it. DD liked dressing up in her dog outfit, she didn't grow up to wag her invisible tail and bark! She also loved pink. She did a lot of fishing when she was younger with DH. She had a pink fishing rod and a pink chair. She's a professional scuba diver, she has pink fins and mask.

The colour of anything she may have had as a child, has not caused her to turn in to anything other than a normal, well rounded adult!

When I was little you didn't really get pink toys.

I remember dm trying to find me things like a dolls tea set in pink and how thrilled I was when she managed.

So some girls like pink.

Maureen

What's wrong with pink and blue? Well to start with it's really boring that colour options are so limited. There's a whole rainbow to choose from and so often the choice for young children is pink or blue.

More importantly - although as your DD demonstrates it's not defining their destiny, it does set a context of what is expected and appropriate for boys and girls. Sure, all boys don't become engine drivers and all girls beauticians. But by subtly setting out from an early age that boys and girls must be different, and that (because different types of toys are more likely to be available in pink) that certain behaviours and interests are more appropriate for girls, we don't do our DC any favours.

My ds loves pink ........

DS2 (3) likes pink as well.

Since starting school, DS1 (5) has told DS2 on several occasions, when they've been given the choice of picking something that comes in several colours (water bottle most recently), that pink is for girls so DS2 should pick something else.

I've told them that boys can have the pink one if they like, but DS1's clearly picked up on peer pressure at school that he shouldn't be playing with or using pink things as they're for girls and he's a boy.

The subtle reinforcement that certain toys / activities are mainly for either girls or boys (shown by the handy e.g pink = for girls colour code), rather than all toys / activities being okay for all children, doesn't do anyone any favours.

Wow , why should they stop making pink toys??? A majority of girls love pink !!! This gender neutral nonsense is getting worse and worse, girls generally like pink and boys generally like blue ...... what's the problem???

Slightly off topic, but I'm amazed at the facebook group requests for 'anyone selling a'......highchair / sling / baby bouncer / car seat....'must be suitable for a boy' or 'must be suitable for a girl'
Power of marketing, as PPs have said.

I don't get why so many people have such an issue with pink...it's only a colour ffs....why should pink be banned??? Do people who want pink banned also want blue banned??? Cos surely that's just as bad as it's seen as a boy colour.

Some people need to chill out

Yanbu
When i was growing, 'girls' toys were hardly ever pink. But i had a pink water gun

7 or 8 years ago I wrote to ELC to complain about the pink globe they were selling. They said it sold well, and actually outsold the blue one. I started to reply to point out that globes are traditionally blue, blue blue is the internationally recognised colour for water on maps, but I was too busy banging my head against a brick wall.