I had a bit of a down moment this afternoon when I realised that Kinder Surprise - chocolate/toys that I always used to purchase for my children at Easter and Christmas had become gender orientated. OK I realise I am a bit slow in finding this out but that is maybe because my children are now grown up so I haven't purchased these for a while. Anyway, with my daughter home for Christmas I thought I might get her some for the Christmas stocking - well! No way! Barbie Kinder Surprise for the girls and Hot Wheels Kinder Surprise for the boys - apart from the new gender split where is the surprise in that. The coolest thing about Kinder Surprise was the surprise toy - usually with moving parts and containing some sort of simple machine.
According to the Independent news in UK Kinder said the toys weren't meant to "reinforce gender stereotypes, and, "We do not promote our products as gender specific." Say what!! Barbie and Hot Wheels, Pink and Blue - I bet if you put one of each egg in a room with a preschool boy and a preschool girl they would certainly know which one they were meant to choose.
Now, I have nothing against pink, and if girls want to wear head to toe pink all the time that is fine - they should be allowed to. What I do have a problem with though is that wearing pink means you are only interested in the surface features of life, such as clothes and makeup and nail colours.
Movements such as pinkstinks.org.uk; while totally valid and absolutely necessary, also cause a problem I believe. What about the girls who like pink, and stereotypical girls' stuff, but still want to follow not-stereotypical interests and maybe even be an Engineer, Physicist or Computer Scientist.
They need to know they can be all of these things and still like pink. It is not either/or - either girls like pink and makeup and clothes and they are vapid and artificial and have such goals in life to be a Future Hooters Girl or a Future WAG (both those slogans come from t-shirts for young girls by the way) or they don't like pink and they are serious, intelligent and independent.
Girls can be both. There is no scientific evidence that liking pink and pretty hairstyles reduces intelligence so can we please let girls be both - geeky doesn't mean unattractive or unpopular, intelligence and appearance are not linked so please .... let our girls just be young people, exploring the world and finding their own passions and interests without being constantly bombarded by stereotypes either one way or another. They second part of Pink Stinks slogan I much prefer .... There's more than one way to be a girl ... and let us celebrate all of those ways.
According to the Independent news in UK Kinder said the toys weren't meant to "reinforce gender stereotypes, and, "We do not promote our products as gender specific." Say what!! Barbie and Hot Wheels, Pink and Blue - I bet if you put one of each egg in a room with a preschool boy and a preschool girl they would certainly know which one they were meant to choose.
Interestingly enough, when they first came out the packaging contained the text "New Toys for Girls" but that was removed after they received petitions from people complaining about the limiting nature of the text. Boys should be able to buy a Barbie Kinder Surprise if they want. And fair enough. But I don't really think the text makes that much difference.
In my quick search round the Internet about this issue I came across some other things I didn't know about. There is a Pink Monopoly Edition which has (yep, wait for it) malls and boutiques, fashion shops, nail salons and spas and best of all it comes in a pretty pink box with mirrored insert (I presume just incase you need to do your hair or makeup while you are playing.)
Movements such as pinkstinks.org.uk; while totally valid and absolutely necessary, also cause a problem I believe. What about the girls who like pink, and stereotypical girls' stuff, but still want to follow not-stereotypical interests and maybe even be an Engineer, Physicist or Computer Scientist.
Girls can be both. There is no scientific evidence that liking pink and pretty hairstyles reduces intelligence so can we please let girls be both - geeky doesn't mean unattractive or unpopular, intelligence and appearance are not linked so please .... let our girls just be young people, exploring the world and finding their own passions and interests without being constantly bombarded by stereotypes either one way or another. They second part of Pink Stinks slogan I much prefer .... There's more than one way to be a girl ... and let us celebrate all of those ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment