Why is it so hard to call my daughter's soft toy monkey 'she'?

[wem]

I've become aware of the general tendency to call all non-gendered toys 'he' (i.e. anything other than dolls or babies dressed in pink), so when dd1 decided her monkey was a girl I've been trying my hardest to call it she, but 'he' slips out quite often. And I've really noticed that every single person who interacts with dd1 about her monkey (she takes it everywhere) says he. So it's fighting a losing battle as dd1 will then call it he anyway, even though she says it's a girl. Very confusing for her I would have thought.

It's a perfect example of the default being male, and female being 'other'. When I corrected one of my friends (only because dd1 was there) and said, 'it's a she', she said 'why?', as if there has to be a reason for the monkey to be female.

It's mostly pissing me of that even I can't stick to it. This stuff is really ingrained.

[MumToTheBoy]

I never gave the mouse in the gruffalo a gender until we saw the film version - now when I read the book I can hear James Cordens voice, so the mouse is now a he.

[Nagoo]

I've just read the Gruffalo. The mouse has no gender assigned, but everyone else is male.

In timmy time everyone is male bar the cat, I know from reading the Cbeebies magazine.

[smugaboo]

Re Timmy Time. That's an interesting one. I mean, are the animals all male? I expect Timmy is! Or do we just assume they are? They don't talk after all. Or do they all have gendered names? I don't recall.
I asked my girls if they thought the animals were boys or girls and they said boys - all except the cat. Hmm, cats are girls and dogs/everything else are boys?
Hmm again. Very aware of this issue in my house too.
YY - to the stupid MALE cow in Barnyard. WTF??

[Himalaya]

Mumtotheboy - yes you are right Barbie does kick ass at the end of Toy Story 3. But still she her identity is as a sexy, ditzy character, defined by her gender, rather than say a dog or pig that happens to be female.

.. I always thought Mouse in Grufallo was female - when we went to see in as a play, she was played by a woman.

[Cattleprod]

I had a female doll. I called her Tony Hart and didn't really think about her/his gender. I'm wondering if it was because she had short hair, as the doll I had with long blonde hair was called Valerie and was very girly.

All of my teddies were female - Lucy, Snowy, Tina and Debbie. As was my fox, Charlotte-Michelle. I think most toys were female apart from Humpty and Ken.

[akaemmafrost]

My dd calls everything 'she'. All cuddly toys, all book characters. She is 4. She gets quite upset if you try to reassign gender. I don't think it is a bad thing at this age. She will get enough male dominance in every day life when she is older. I personally think it is the first step to her seeing herself as thoroughly equal in all possible ways and I intend to build upon it.

[ggpp]

^^^^^^^6Wrong thing quoted, I meant whoever was saying about the lego house.

[ggpp]

Maybe you're thinking a little too much into what she's saying. I'm no expert but maybe she set her mind on making a house for 'Mister Brown' just by chance, and next time she gets the lego out she might just as likely build a house/ car/ shop/ whatever she thinks of, for a 'Mrs Smith'.

Perhaps the property ownership she recognises will relate to her experiances. Many youngsters will have maternal grandparents which they visit often and may be told they are going to 'Grandma's' or 'Grandad's', or if they visit an Aunt, it maybe 'Auntie's house'. It surely depends in early life what houses she knows and who owns them; not a preconception that houses are generally owned by males over the thousands of houses around the country. But obviously I don't know any detail about the people in your example.

[DontCallMePeanut]

What about Timmy Time? Most of the animals there are male.

The note about childrens authors reminded me of what eventually put me off Oliver Jeffers. As lovely as his stories are, the books that focused on the boy were very adventure based. But as soon as he wrote one focusing on a girl, it became about death, and all we saw the girl doing was being morose or reading.

[lalalahahaha]

As for toy story, the link between the film and tge merchandise is do strong that toys appealing to little girls had to be included to make as much money as possible. In the first toy story there are basically no females. I'm sure that once tge woody and buzz toys started selling, they came up with jessie pretty quickly.

Not sure why childrens authors don't do this more just in case it round mean their characters would appeal more to both sexes and then potentially sell more. It's not hard to write 'she' once in a while is it? I haven't seen any research about this but I think it definitely does matter.

[lalalahahaha]

The way animals are nearly always male in books really does my head in! Yes, the gruffalo's child is a girl but there isn't a single female in the whole gruffalo (unless I read it, cos I change the mouse and the owl into girls). No girls on any of those Mick inkpen books - kipper, wibbly pig etc. Percy the park keeper is surrounded by male animals. Why why why?!

I know this is the historical norm but it just seems weird now. Other types of written material (someone mentioned babycare stuff) make a big effort to change the pronouns around. It's not that hard is it? Everyone would think it was odd if all tge characters in all the books little boys read were female but little girls have to read exclusively male stuff all the time.

[DontCallMePeanut]

Barbie was great in Toy Story 3... and in the end credits of Toy Story 2...

Rather oddly, I've noticed ALL of DS's favourite toys are female humans. Or a female train. Bullseye is the exception to the rule, but even then DS only see's him as an extension to Jessie.

But on the subject of Toy Story, Pixar films do have a tendency to be male centered, as in Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille and Up. It's the reason I cheered when I found out the lead character in their next film (Brave) is going to be a female.

[Nagoo]

Except for the pretty butterflies, hey dexifehatz

We don't have stuffed animals in this house really, DS never went for them and DD prefers stuff she can try to eat I have made it my mission to buy up all the female playmobil on ebay to even up the balance of pirates :)

Is there a way to denote 'femininity' to an animal or toy that would be acceptable from a feminist stance? I suppose the fact that we would need to make the toys 'other' would be wrong in itself.....

[Dexifehatz]

Everyone knows that dogs are he and cats are she.Horses are he and fish are she.Birds are she and insects are he.

[MumToTheBoy]

Himalaya - barbie wasn't a sap in toy story 3, the bit where she ties up ken and destroys his clothes is brilliant!

I have 5 yr old ds and am having an issue at the moment where he is adamant our house belongs to daddy and that only daddy paid for it. I keep explaining that I also work full time and pay half of the house (in fact I earn more than my dh) but as I am a teacher he doesnt see it as full time, cos I pick him up everyday and have all the holidays off with him.

How can I stop this view that daddy is the boss/ pays for the house? It is certainly not coming from my dh or myself, possibly could be coming from his peers at school as most of the mums don't work at all.

[StealthPolarBear]

I noticed the gruffalo's child as well because it is unusual.
Rosie's hat is good (I was about to say "Rosie is a fireman" which kind of proves the point I think )
And in fact in the snail and the whale, the snail is female too

[Himalaya]

... And in the movie Barnyard, the main character is a cow - with big pink udders, who is male. WTF?? but somehow that doesn't seem weird, where calling a gender neutral toy 'she' does.

[Himalaya]

Thanks OP, id never thought about this but yes, all my cuddly toys (except cats - i think because we had female cats) were male, and all my DSs were. It's hard to think of teddies etc as femal unless they have a bow on their head or a tutu or an apron(!)


Just thinking about Toy Story the only female characters are the obviously female ones - Jess, Bo Peep, Barbie, Mrs Potato Head.I think (all?) the potentially either way characters - slinky dog, pig, dino, penguin, teddy bears etc... are all male. (...maybe the speak and spell is female??). Jess is a great character, but all the rest are girlfriends/wives/complete saps.

[tethersend]

I agree, it is undoubtedly a feminist issue.

[GentlemanGin]

I have done this too, but I'm getting better at it simply because I kept pulling myself up on it. Presently I've moved beyond saying 'he' but I tend to pause, process and then say 'she'' .

But my dd hasn't assigned any gender yet herself.

It's a weird one.

[HandDivedScallopsrgreat]

Thanks for the book tips SQ and Peanut.

tethers interesting you say that about gender disappointment and your preconceptions of gender. That's why I think that this is a feminist issue.

[tethersend]

Thanks Lenin- I don't doubt it

The thing is, most people don't even realise they're doing it... If you have something which needs to be looked after or cared for, it's automatically gendered male.

[tethersend]

I am so glad this thread is here.

I suffered from very bad ante-natal depression and gender disappointment when pg with DD. I had always wanted a boy, and was devastated to find I was expecting a girl. I was lucky enough to have access to a very skilled specialist counsellor at the hospital, and we explored some of the preconceptions I had about gender- ones I didn't even know I held.

The thing is, it went right back to my childhood, where all my favourite toys and loved items had been male and subconsciously I could not imagine loving anything female. It really shocked me that I could feel this way, and I had to really challenge myself about what I believed it meant to be female. It was fascinating.

DD arrived, and I could not love her more. She is currently singing a song about going to the shops to me whilst playing a (pink ) guitar and she is truly amazing. I have made a conscious decision to ensure that her toys are male and female as the effect of having one-gendered toys on me was immense.