Bad show Natwest. What was wrong with the gender neutral piggy banks?

[PiousPrat]

DP has just got back from the bank after seeing about opening extra savings accounts for the DC. I asked if they would get piggy banks as I remember them from when I was a kid and desperately wanted the baby one as it was so cute. Apparently the do still do piggy banks for accounts for the under 11s.

They have a choice of 2 piggy banks, a footballer or a ballerina I am struggling to think of any way they could be more gender prescribed, unless they had one piggy bank attached to a hoover standing next to a sink while rocking a piglet with it's hoof.

Am I over thinking things to think that this is unacceptable in this day and age, and is just reinforcing gender stereotypes to small, impressionable children?

Ew. I sometimes wonder why we bother. It's like all this shite has gone full circle.

Things were going to radically change in the late 70's /early 80's. I was part of it ffs!

Not sure what happened

It's all so unnecessary isn't it? How hard is it to have gender neutral stuff like that? In fact it would probably be cheaper for NatWest just to have one type of child's piggy bank e.g. a doctor, teacher, athlete or just a pig for god's sake! I mean let's face it do female pigs look that much different from male pigs? All very odd.

As a child I don't think I would have been happy with a ballerina piggy bank - being the least likely child ever to be a ballerina. Wasn't much interested in football either (rugby, now that's a different story!). I suspect I might have gone to another bank if they had been the choices.

I know this is the feminist thread, but really????? I have 5 DC. 3 girls, 1 boy. If they had been along to the bank, 3 gilrs would have loved the ballerina one, the other would have asked for the football one like her brother. Were the bank saying only a boy could have the football one and only a girl the ballerina one? If so, I disagree with them, if not, then I think you are overthinking it all and should just chill and let children be children, ballerina or football!!

Ahh yes "over-thinking" and "chill". One more and I get a line.

You are not over thinking, no. Gender polarisation gets worse all the time.

Positive attitude, I don't know if they were specifying which child could have which piggy bank, since i wasn't there. What I object to is that those were the only choices. The way our society is structured, it is assumed that when there are 2 options for children's toys that one will be for girls and one for boys, which implies that not only do the children expected to received these toys get no say in expressing their individuality, but also that it further reinforces the idea that boys and girls are very different creatures and must behave, do and like things entirely dependant on what is between their legs at birth.

Can you honestly say it doesn't rile you to think that someone (society) is suggesting that any daughter you have would be weak and ineffective, shallow and vapid and only any use to decorate a mans arm or clean a house? Because that is exactly what happens when we allow the gender divide to go unchallenged. It starts with 'oh you are a girl so must wear pretty pink dresses' and progresses to 'you mustn't get dirty, it isn't ladylike' which is only a short hop to 'there there dear, don't worry your pretty head. Just go shopping'

Back off Scallops I only need someone to say 'dungarees' and call me a hairy legged rug munched and i have a full house

Ha, Hand Dive, just need a 'Get-a-grip' now!

I think Natwest are only doing what seems to be expected, they have not always done this and probably some bigwig walked around a toy store and thought this is the the done thing and what people want.

"they have not always done this" - yes, so why are they doing it now? Why do "people" want this now? Companies don't necessarily give people what they want. They often give people what they think they want or even shape people's perspectives to their perspective. That is why it is good to step back and analyse.

Would it help if I quickly posted, "I bought my daughter up with gender neutral parenting and it just turns out that she LOVES pink and ballerinas all by herself and with no influence from the media or commerce at all!'

There - 'HOUSE'

It's not like Natwest are selling these items so they are not obtaining profit for it they are doing it to seem 'in with the times'. Companies/businesses look at sells what are selling they make more of what doesn't goes on the scrap heap. It's a very symbiotic relationship and it is difficult to completely blame people for buying or businesses for making because it is a bit of both.

S2E they aren't selling the individual banks, but they are using them as a selling point for a product (children's savings accounts) which they are selling. On further reading, it looks like you can only get the piggy bank if you set up a DD for £10 a month so NatWest are using gender stereotypes to appeal to young, impressionable children in order to benefit from them. To me, that is not OK on several levels, but maybe I am just being a dungaree clad hairy legger

Sorry, forgot I can't edit and got click happy with the post button.

I'm not entirely sure i would say 'symbiotic' either. That implies a mutually beneficial arrangement for both parties. I would lean more towards parasitic if we are going to stick with biological terms

Ds (6) hates football but loves dancing so given the choice would choose the ballerina one. Or is he expected to choose the footballer one because he's a boy?

I guess they are using it as a selling point, but I think the piggy banks are a nice to have rather than need to have so shouldn't be the main cause for people setting up an account with them.

For businesses that sell recreational items (like toys) I would say it is a symbiotic relationship. We don't need them, we buy them because they make us happier or our children happier (in the case of toys) we are getting something out of it.

For the sell of food or health related items that I guess is more parasitic relationship we buy those items because we have too.

I am not sure how we can change this attitude, companies are not doing this to spite people they do it because they think on a mass scale rather than individuals because they are trying to sell. They aim for the people who buy them the most, so whilst there are boys not into football there are many more who are so the companies aim for this market even though there are girls who like football.

What about the boys who don't like football - how many of them are going to cheerfully pick a ballerina?

How many girls who don't like ballerinas are well into football? different toys. And then on top of that enforcing a

It's the most appalling combination of separating the genders as different - so different that they have to havestrong male stereotype onto the boys (football) and strong female one onto the girls (ballet) which further excludes all the children who don't like those things - pointing out to them (even more than they are already aware) that they are out of the ordinary because they don't like what they are "supposed" to.

Awful.

Even if they felt that boys and girls have to have different sorts of pigs because the sky will fall in if they have the same one, they could have gone for things that shoute you will conform just a little less loudly!

WTF happened to my post? Bloody DH laptop!

What about the boys who don't like football - how many of them are going to cheerfully pick a ballerina?
How many girls who don't like ballerinas are well into football?

It's the most appalling combination of separating the genders as different - so different that they have to have different toys. And then on top of that enforcing a strong male stereotype onto the boys (football) and strong female one onto the girls (ballet) which further excludes all the children who don't like those things - pointing out to them (even more than they are already aware) that they are out of the ordinary because they don't like what they are "supposed" to.

Is what it should have said!

How interesting S2E when I said about symbiosis and parasitism, I had in mind that the companies were parasitic, not the consumer as, to my mind, it is the companies and their advertising that shape a great deal of what is 'in' right now, so create an artificial need which allows them to 'feed' from the public by taking our money for something we don't actually need, but have been convinced that we have.

I find it interesting that you automatically assumed that the public/consumers were the parasites. I wonder if that would have anything to do with our individual ideas about big business and consumer society?

I took s2e to mean that companies could act in a parasitic manner with things that people are compelled to buy eg food, but where there is a choice like luxuries and toys it's more of a symbiotic relationship.

could be wrong though!

Yes that is what I meant SQ

Thank you

yes, it is lazy and uninspired stereotyping - what SQ said - (although, I wonder if you can tell the football one is/has to be a boy?), as I remember they don't have any hair, and just look like pigs with clothes on...

Does anyone remember the original family? The dad looked like a captain of industry and the mum look like Maggie Thatcher. I think she was a career-pig rather than a stay-at-home-pig, the children looked like they went an exclusive piglet boarding school.

I wonder if they went for the ballet/football piglets in attempt to be less elitist, but then fell over their feet with this cack handed attempt.

What would others suggest, given that (a) they don't want to do too many pig designs, (b) they don't want to have loads of unwanted piglets (e.g. if they made boy ballet dancing pigs, there probably wouldn't be so many takers) and (c) it is hard to humanise a pig without giving it a gender and (d) they probably don't wnat to do school uniform since they've done it before... pig design answers on a postcard please

SQ S2E - Sorry to derail the pigs, but I don't know what you mean by parasitism - (i mean I do know what the word means, but...) you seem to be saying that businesses that produce things people need like food and medicine must be parasites? eh?

Himalaya I was referring to PiousPrat post

"Sorry, forgot I can't edit and got click happy with the post button.

I'm not entirely sure i would say 'symbiotic' either. That implies a mutually beneficial arrangement for both parties. I would lean more towards parasitic if we are going to stick with biological terms "

I said if any businesses are parasitic it would more likely be necessity ones rather than recreational ones because one is driven by need whilst the other is a want. I don't think it is parasitic I was playing devils advocate for the basis of discussion.

Much as I hate to derail a thread, I am going to do it anyway

I would be more inclined to say that a necessity supplier could be seen as a symbiotic relationship (although not a true one, as the benefits are nowhere near equal for all parties) because both the consumer and the company gain from it. I would say things like toy manufacturers, especially those marketing gender specific toys, are parasitic as they artificially create a need, then step into the breach to fill it but on their terms so the company makes all the gain (in this case money and reinforcing societal stereotypes) while the customer is bled dry (of their money and shot at equality, not to mention sanity if the toy in question plays bloody music).

Himalaya I'm not sure what the alternative would be, apart from a return to making a set number of pig types and giving them out at savings milestones so that everyone gets the same. That or having either an actual pig piggy bank, albeit a cartoonists one for cuteness, or giving the pig some sort of accessory like a jaunty crown and letting the child decide if they want to attribute gender to it themselves.