tomboys

[zenandtheartofbaking]

OK, it's probably not quite serious enough for the news section but ... I thought it was sort of timely after Christmas.

I don't know about you but we've been hit by an avalanche of gender specific toys. Plus, my dd, who I used to smugly believe had eluded gender stereotypes, has succumbed to the pink side and has spent the last couple of days channelling Sharpei, from "High School Musical".

Sigh.

here

My DD1 (4.5) has received no less than 4 Barbies for Christmas. Four! But she is quite a tomboy and would rather be reading, drawing, climbing trees or swimming. Sometimes I feel she plays with this pink stuff or dresses up as a princess because she feels that this is what she should be doing rather than what she wants to do.

Sigh. That's what I envisioned for my dd - a sort of tolerance of the strange, capitalist world of gender-stereotyped children's marketing, whilst she herself roamed free beyond it. This Christmas has made me wonder whether I am going to have to intervene a little more; to put forward an argument popular culture seems to have moved away from.
[Frowny, gloomy emoticon]

I was a tomboy too and I lot of my adult friends have confessed they were too. Looking back, i think I liked dipping into the boy's world but having the choice to have girls stuff too.

i really dislike the way everything is over gendered nowadays. When you look at a pair of jeans you can immediately tell if they are made for a boy or a girl. In my day everyone wore stripy t shirts and jeans from Ladybird.

I agreed with lots of the article and find everything far too gender-discriminatory these days. I was a tomboy and both my DDs, 6 and 9 call themselves tomboys. TBH, I wouldn't know what to do with really girly girls.

Agree completely about the over-gendering. It was much better in the early 70s, when a lot of boy/girl stuff was the same.

In a way though, being a tomboy isn't so important these days, because women have so much more opportunity to do "masculine" things that used to be denied to them.

the Victorian tomboys were dreaming a fantasy that would never be allowed to them - their modern day decendants wear jeans and study engineering at university, and nowadays, nobody calls that tomboyish behaviour.

My dd2 is only 3 but is a very strong minded little girl. She is obsessed with being a boy and has a very strong sense of self image. She will only wear boy's clothes, she becomes genuinely distressed whenever I try to put her in a dress. She prefers the company of boys, although she gets on well with dd1.

She likes to be called a boy's name, loves tractors, Thomas, Hotwheels etc. Collects dinosaurs, loves dressing up as a builder/fireman/policeman etc. Is happy as a pig in swill when 'helping' dh to chop wood, build walls etc.

Thanks for the article, it has made me feel even more proud of my little ruffian!

Nighbynight - yes, that was generally my approach too. This Christmas was a bit of a shock because I think the full force of the capitalist power behind popular culture's gender stereotypes was brought home to our living room.
I mean ... Sharpei!!

I think I saw my dd growing up much more like By the Sea's and the fact that's not the way it's going sort of demonstrates the intervention of the wider culture into my own sphere of parenting.

Good to hear how much tomboy support there is out there, though.

Mooseheart - my DD2 was just like that at that age liking to be called boys' names and refusing to wear any sort of dress or skirt from 27 months. I have always just let her be herself (she has a fantastic loving personality) but was very worried when she started school as the summer uniform is only dresses or skirts for girls (which I tried to challenge but the headteacher is a bit strange about it). Thankfully, she was okay about it when the time came and now is in year 2 and has friends that are boys and girls and is just her own person and lovely.

DD2 who is almost 3 asked for a Hulk and a Wall.e from Santa, she opened her first present a Hulk and was delighted. Opened her second and burst into tears as it was a Baby Born, we had to quickly give her the Wall.e present phew!

Hulk was last seen in the passenger side of a pink beetle being driven by Barbie

Thanks ByTheSea . Mine too is v loving and we let her be herself. It can be exasperating at times though as she is soooo particular about what she wears (she also goes through phases of dressing up as particular characters she admires, it provokes some bewildered looks from other mums on the school run), sometimes it's hard to know whether we should 'pander' to it or just let her get on with it. We've done the latter so far.

Mooseheart, when DD2 was 2 1/2, we know she was ready to potty train, so I got her some knickers which we refused to wear. So we were in Tesco one day not that long after and she saw Bob the Builder pants in the boys' section and asked for them. I asked "Will you definitely wear them?" and she promised she would. Within a day or two, she was fully trained and never looked back. She didn't wear knickers til this year.

she refused to wear.

OMG! My DD2 will ONLY wear Bob and Thomas pants! It was the Thomas pants that swung it on the potty training, but the Bob pants had to be later introduced as she refused to wear DD1's hand me downs!

She does look cute in boy's pants though - especially with her wild curly hair!

Your dd sounds fab, Bythesea!

I read the article and agree that marketing towards children is horribly gendered these days. Am very glad I have a boy! Girls who come round to play are usually VERY happy to get their hands on trains/Dr Who/pirate dressing up stuff. I had one little girl who was cross that we didn't have any fairy dressing up stuff. I bought a tutu for 30p from the school fair - ds loves it and stalks around looking extraordinarily pleased with himself.

Funny little characters, aren't they?

I wanted to get my 4 year old dd a dolls house for Christmas, but she was very insistent she wanted a castle with knights. I kind of like that.

I don't recall the article saying toys are becoming more gendered because women's choices are broader. Seems far more likely that it's because manufacturers and retailers can make lots more money if they can persuade us that girls and boys need different toys in different colours.

I quite liked Sprogger's musing-beyond-the-article. And I rather liked that thought. Takes us into the whole realm of who drives culture, though. eg. are we passive dupes of a capitalist/anti-feminist culture industry or is culture merely responsive to our desires and hidden insecurities. The idea of a market driven rush to blue/pink differentiation is more neutral in that respect.
Have to say, though, this Christmas really did make me feel like a small rock being battered by a pop. cult. radically opposed to my wishes and ideals. In the past I've always been v. agnostic about pop. cult. and rather liked its contradictory impulses, directions and wishes.

A bit of both, perhaps Zen? The market is certainly keener to fulfil those of our wishes that give them more profit.

Another thought - our views have perhaps been skewed by growing up in the 1970s?
Little girls have always had frills if they could afford them - 1960s/70s was the only time when frills weren't fashionable for girls, and we were brought up in dungarees. So maybe what we are seeing, is the return to the "natural" state of things - but it turns our stomachs because it wasnt like that when we were children.

LOL nighbynight, I was a little girl in the 1970s and wore long party dresses with puff sleeves and velvet skirts and later on frilly layered skirts and white frilly blouses - all that stuff was very fashionable in the 1970s...

gosh anna, were you in london or something?

we were out in the sticks, and went to parties in jeans! I remember my mother lamenting that she couldnt even find a proper frilly frock in teh shops (she was a child in the 1930s. Think Violet Elizabeth Bott.)

No, actually, thinking about it, I feel sure that she didnt send us in jeans, but I distinctly remember other chidlren wearing them.

Not at all, I was in the deepest Kent countryside. My mother made all my party dresses (and a lot of the rest of our clothes). I remember the 1970s as a lot more girly and frilly than the 1980s (which was all egalitarian and power suity).