Superficial gender notions?

[wtfrenchtoast]

I've been thinking about this subject a lot lately, trying to figure out my own views. I'm not trying to offend anyone, and I'm definitely open to other viewpoints. I just want to see what other people think.

I've been reading some feminist blogs lately and it seems like a lot of them really hate the whole "pink and dolls for girls, blue and trucks for boys" stereotypes. A few months ago I read part of Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein (sp?), but I didn't get a chance to finish it before returning it to the library. I didn't agree with a lot of what she said though, and I don't agree with the abhorrence of pink-for-girls, blue-for-boys. For instance, in the book the author really went after the evils of the Disney Princesses. In my opinion, these gender notions are superficial and don't really matter. If I were to have a little girl, I would dress her up in pink and play princesses with her. Of course, if she showed interest in action figures or said she hates pink, I would respect that. I just don't see what's wrong with introducing these things. Same if I had a little boy. If he really wants a my little pony bedspread, fine. It's just a bedspread. But I would introduce him to stereotypically boy things first. I think boys and girls should be taught the same things in terms of values and self-worth. I will raise my children, no matter their sex, to respect themselves and others. I will encourage any interests or passions they have. I will tell them they can do absolutely anything they put their minds to. To me, these things are more important than giving my daughter toy cars to deliberately challenge the status quo.

I probably sound like I'm contradicting myself when I say I wouldn't care if my son wants a girly bedspread or whatever. I'm not trying to. I'm just saying that I'll probably get my son a superhero room set or something like that until he decides he wants something different. I genuinely wouldn't care if he wanted my little pony. I would just, initially, introduce him to more stereotypically male things because I don't see the problem in doing so. In other words, I think the idea that giving your daughters Disney princess toys is evil, is wrong. I don't think it's evil to have stereotypically male and female things, because I think that males and females are different. I don't think acknowledging that difference in terms of girl toys and boy toys is wrong. I do think it is wrong to say that different means less than. I know that fundie women like to use male/female differences as a support for the idea of submission. I think that is wrong because it places the man over the woman, and I don't see male/female differences as a hierarchy. Difference should not place women under men, but at the same time I don't see the problem in acknowledging differences. It's this that makes me feel like strong emphasis on gender neutral toys and rooms for children is kind of silly. In the end, it's something so superficial and I don't think it impacts a child in a strong way. I think raising your child to be strong, confident, and independent is much more important than a gender neutral childhood.

That beig said, this is totally based on my thoughts and opinions. I have no facts or studies to back anything up. And I certainly don't want to come off as telling anyone they can't raise a gender neutral child. I think people should be able to raise their children however they like, as long as the children aren't being abused. This is just how I feel. I would love some other opinions.

PS, forgive me for any typos, I did this on my phone. I'll try to fix them if I catch any.

[keeperrox]

But I would introduce him to stereotypically boy things first.

I guess my question would be why would you introduce gender specific things first? Just because that's what you know? Many of these things are mass-produced and mass-marketed, and so many of the children I know have more toys than they know what to do with. There are plenty of gender neutral toys that all children to use and expand their imaginations, yet the many of the gender specific toys force their play. There are so many books and stories, that don't play to gender stereotypes, too. The thing I don't get is why buy gender specific toys and books at all?

[wtfrenchtoast]

I would partly because that is what I know. And partly because I just don't see what's wrong with it. I wouldn't only buy gender-specific things. I agree that there are plenty of gender neutral toys available. My niece has plenty of gender neutral toys and books and things. I think that's great, but I don't see what's wrong with buying her a Princess Jasmine doll either.

[Confused_by_religion]

I think variety is a key. Most of the girls I know went through a violent pink phase when they just lived for anything pink and glittery and princess-y. Most of the boys went through a prolonged Superhero adoration phase. It would have created a lot of tension and stress if the parents had turned this into a big issue. Besides, what do you do if your mom and dad try to keep glitzy pink princess dolls from you? As soon as you can make your own decisions, you go into full glitzy pink princess mode anyway.

I think as long as the kids get access to a wide range of toys, films, stories etc. it's fine.

[CanadianHippie]

Gender stereotypes are superficial. Because they are superficial I wouldn't dream of introducing gender specific toys/ideas/games first. When I have children they will be introduced to both gender toys and gender neutral toys with none of them taking precedent. None of them will come "first", they will just appear when they do. I want my child to grow up in a house where biological sex does not dictate one's default preferences.

Also know that when I introduce my children to certain things, there is going to be a twist. My children will not be introduced to the princess in need of rescuing. The princess they will know is one who is capable of rescuing herself, slaying her own dragons, helping those who live on her lands, the ones she serves. They will no be introduced to that manly knight who feels emasculation when a woman helps him out. It will be a knight who may or may not be male, who feels gratitude towards those who offer useful, and effective advice, no matter what their gender or their station in life.

My children are going to learn other lessons as well, when it comes to gender. They aren't going to be learning "boys have a penis and girls have a vagina", they are going to be learning that what our body is, and who we are inside are often times the same, but sometimes they are different and that there is such a thing as a woman with a penis, or a man with a vagina.

Most importantly, they are going to learn that being happy and proud of who they are is what I want for them in their life, and if they are having trouble accepting themselves I will find away to help them without making it seem that who they are is wrong. I know the rest of society is not going to be following along with this, and I know it's going to be a lot of work on my part, and that we may come into contact with people who so vehemently disagree with the notions that they will hate, or act aggressively towards us. But I have no problem with the time and effort it will take to teach my children to stand up and say "no, that's not right. We can't treat people like that just because we don't like them."

Now that the manifesto is out of the way. I am assuming the these 'feminists' you are talking about are of the "sure my boy can do girly things, but I refuse to let my girl do girly things" variety. I put 'feminist' in quotations because I personally, don't consider them feminists any more than the "but men have to change first, I can't doing anything about it because I'm a woman" feminists. In short, they act like they are proponents of equality, but every time one of them opens their mouth to espouse their view point, the chauvinists cheer. The reason being that they are teaching the exact same things the patriarchy (hate that word BTW, just can't think of an alternative) they so dearly hate has been teaching for centuries... That being feminine just isn't good enough because it's not masculine. These radical feminists make me want to hurt someone. Just because I can see how they are inhibiting the progression of women's rights. Even worse, when they want to do to men, the same thing they fight against being done to women.

[CanadianHippie]

I think variety is a key. Most of the girls I know went through a violent pink phase when they just lived for anything pink and glittery and princess-y. Most of the boys went through a prolonged Superhero adoration phase. It would have created a lot of tension and stress if the parents had turned this into a big issue. Besides, what do you do if your mom and dad try to keep glitzy pink princess dolls from you? As soon as you can make your own decisions, you go into full glitzy pink princess mode anyway.

I think as long as the kids get access to a wide range of toys, films, stories etc. it's fine.

Hehe, as a girl I traded the "pink" phase for the "superhero" phase. For the longest time I wanted to be Superman. Thankfully my parents weren't into the "well she's a girl, she probably likes girl things" idea so there was no expectation that I would enjoy certain things. I've grown into a woman who has a wide range of interests that span the entire gender spectrum.

[Patsy]

I don't have the same perspective as you, wtfrenchtoast, but I don't think that encouraging or letting your kids follow gender stereotypes, and the gender-directed marketing for children, makes you some anti-feminist monster or directly feeds into the deterioration of society, or anything. I think most people's anti-pink, anti-princess stuff comes from two places:

1- a kind of reactionary extension of that 'levelling' effect that means all things feminine are bad (girls wearing overalls and playing superherocopdinosaur is great, boys wearing dresses and playing princesses is worrisome)

2- it's not that pink in itself is bad, it's that it has certain associations. It's not that wanting fancy pretty things is bad, it's that the modern trope of princess has a few troublesome implications still there.

One of my nieces loves pink and princesses, about which I don't really care (I just don't agree that those are the coollest things in the world; I'm sure my parents thought the same about pokemon). When she turned to me during a Disney movie and explicitly informed me that when bad things happen, a boy saves you and then you get married, I become concerned.

[ChickeyMonkey]

I have 2 boys: age 8 and 2.

When it was time to get new socks, my oldest (about 4 years old, or so) picked the pastel girl socks - you know, the ones that you fold over?

He chose pink hair gel to spike his faux-hawk because he wanted to "look cute." (He was 7 at the time).

I paint his nails, usually black, sometimes silver (last Halloween he was the silver Iron Man, so it went with the costume) if he wants me to. His aunt took his black nail polish off while we were at her house & that really irritated me because she has no right to decide if he should or shouldn't wear nail polish. He was old enough at the time to make that decision.

One boy at the park saw his nails and asked if he was gay. My husband shut him down about that real quick, which I'm happy about.

He went through this phase of wearing gloves during the winter (and summer, too, which is weird because it's HOT during the summer! What the hell!). They're the knit kind that have fingers, not the fingerless mittens. He wanted a pair of the Skelanimal mittens that were at Target during Halloween a few years ago. The colors are purple and a darker pink. I told him that if anyone at school gives him trouble about the gloves, to tell them, "So what? I like them. It's just a color." and to act like it doesn't bother him.

He likes to put on my makeup (when I actually use it, which is rare), and I let him. It's basically just powder to try to even out my skin tone and absorb oil, but it's still makeup.

He picked the pink zinc oxide to use for his face when going to the beach (which I've finally used this year at the pool, but on me and the 2 -year-old).

I try not to look at whether or not the toy is gender-specific, but rather if it will clutter up my house and actually be played with for more than 2 days. Is it a piece of crap that will break or have a probably large amount of lead in it because it's so cheaply made.

I don't worry about my son's sexuality because of the colors or toys he picks. Kids love color and it seems that girls get more color variation in their toys and clothes. I'll be honest in that it does bother me a bit if he wanted to wear girl shoes, but that's because I don't want people to hurt his feelings if they make fun of him for his preference of footwear.

What I worry about is other kids making fun of him for liking things that are "traditionally" female-oriented items or colors. When his nails were black, I told him to tell anyone who commented on them that rock stars and all kinds of people paint their nails. What's the big deal?

I want my sons to be able to chose things that they like not because they're "boy toys/colors/etc.", but because the color appeals to them, the toys are fun for them, and they simply like what they like because they like it. I just don't want them to be ridiculed for their choices when society has placed arbitrary values to things like color and toys.

I never did the princess thing. In fact, I watched The 3 Stooges in reruns on Saturday morning, then Tarzan. I pretended I was Tarzan, wore a torn up old shirt (that I tore up myself), and jumped around on the furniture in my room (my room was also the TV room for us kids, as it had once been the garage and made into a real room by the former owners. So we had a couch in there and my bed, etc.). Tarzan got to do WAY more cooler things than any princess ever did. :)

And that is my real-life contribution to the gender stereotypes of our society. The interesting thing is that my husband an his family are Vietnamese from Vietnam (so our sons are first generation Americans on their father's side, right?), so you'd think they'd buy into the way of thinking of "this is how a boy acts and dresses, and this is how a girl acts and dresses" but my husband doesn't really care. He just wants him to behave, eat his food, do well in school, and listen to us when we tell him to do something. My husband can be a pain in the ass when we talk about many things, but when it comes to gender issues he's more liberal and practical in his thinking. By practical I mean that if the wife/woman makes more money than the husband, who cares? That means more money for the family unit. Who cares who earned it, what matters is that it's earned and it benefits both the man and the woman. He's doesn't feel emasculated by a woman doing better than him.

And I will now end my tome.

[aelar]

I'm one of those 'pink and Disney princesses is bad' kind of people. I wouldn't let them put a pink hat on my baby when she was born, and it really confused the nurses because that's how they tell sex. I was asked several times about circumcision until I pulled out the tiny Jayne hat a friend had knitted for us, (red, orange, and yellow) and plunked that on my daughter's head instead of the blue. They still tended to think she was a boy, (because primary colors =boy, pastel colors= girl) but they stopped automatically assuming. It was actually sort of funny, especially how each shift change the old nurse carefully explained to the new one that I had a girl, never mind the hat.

My main reason for being so insistent about pink was the reading that I did about how from birth we treat boys and girls differently. Girls are handled more gently, spoken to more softly, played with differently, etc. How can we fail to produce different results if we are doing things differently from the start? This bugs the heck out of me, and yet I'm sure that I treat my daughter a little differently than I would a son, even knowing about this bias we get instilled with. The least I can do is try to avoid playing into it too much by avoiding the big cues about gender, and if anything, giving the 'boy' signal instead of the 'girl' one.

It's not because I think being a girl or being feminine is a bad thing, but I do feel like a lot of qualities that get ascribed to being feminine are inferior to the ones ascribed to being masculine. There's nothing wrong with loving beautiful things, being compassionate and sensitive, being artistic, being nurturing. I do think that being passive, delicate, timid, finicky, and squeamish -are- inferior to being assertive, strong, confident, open-minded, and pragmatic. I want my daughter to develop the best of qualities, and be a potent, dynamic little person, not afraid to be totally herself.

I'm not trying to defy gender stereotypes by turning her into a little boy, but to give her the chance to pick her own preferences more freely, I do think I need to deliberately offer the 'boy' choices, because the entirety of our culture is pushing the 'girl' ones. I am trying to buy things that are gender neutral as much as possible, but if there are only gendered options, I'm going for the 'boy' versions the majority of the time.

Also, I just dislike pink, always have. I was a lavender girl instead during my unicorn and princess phase, and I always preferred the fantasy stories where the knight was a girl or the princess was kickass. My daughter is getting a blue and green room that is lovely, but not 'girly' or even 'babyish' but when she gets old enough to express a color preference, I'll grit my teeth through a pink phase if I have to, but I'm not going to let her do the Disney thing (because I'm anti-commercialization, I don't like Transformers either).

[maybeizfundie]

We are kind of wierd, because we are a conservative family, follow a pretty "traditional" lifestyle and do hold to gender differences.

However, I don't care that my middle son has a pink unicorn for his pillow pet. Or that he really loves occasionally getting the floral sheets on his bed, alternating with the space-themed sheets. :D Because, as you said, these kinds of things really are superficial (and cultural). But, he also has his little heart set on a glow-in-the-dark sword. He's just a little boy who knows what he likes, and maybe has more ecclectic taste than some other little boys. It helps that we stay away from a lot of media targeted at kids, and avoid major themes in general. I'm not going to do the Boys-need-WWW-macho-ness and Girls-are-little-princesses stuff. Just in general, I find that a lot of the toys that are super gender specific are plastic, kitschy, and cheap, so I don't like them for that reason, lol. We don't spend a lot of time in toy stores or toy aisles, and the kids aren't getting innundated with ads that tell them they should want these things.

I heard a little boy getting yelled at the other day. "Don't let me EVER catch you doing that. That's a GIRL toy. You're a BOY." And then some little girls chanting at him "Go homo! Go homo!" :( Can't he just be a little boy whose attention was captured by a toy? Yeesh.

[Patsy]

My main reason for being so insistent about pink was the reading that I did about how from birth we treat boys and girls differently.

Yes, yes, yes. See: the parents who kept their baby Storm's sex on a need-to-know basis, but everyone kicked up a fuss and they ended up in the news because how darrrrre you take away my right to discriminate from the second they're born! Also, the thread about the same issue ("babyshower rant"): viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2256

It's not because I think being a girl or being feminine is a bad thing, but I do feel like a lot of qualities that get ascribed to being feminine are inferior to the ones ascribed to being masculine.

A very fair point, and something I entirely missed in my comment. You're right, a lot of 'feminine' things, both traditionally and today, are... bad, really. Encouraging someone to be weak, submissive, holding themselves back and putting themselves down around others, are all bad things.

I heard a little boy getting yelled at the other day. "Don't let me EVER catch you doing that. That's a GIRL toy. You're a BOY."

I read a response to that a few years ago that I'll have on hand to use in the future: "Are you a boy? Is that your toy? Then it's a boy toy. Have fun with it."

[CynicMom]

wtfrenchtoast, I can tell you about my experiences. I have a son and daughter.

My son was really into Dore the Explorer. I encouraged it because it got him curious about map reading and problem solving. So I looked for Dora toys for him. Guess what?! ALL Dora toys are for girls! If you're a boy it's assumed you like Diego instead (a different show starring a boy). We're pretty open-minded but I couldn't see buying tons of pink things for my son (he didn't know the products existed). So I made my own gender-neutral Dora products. (Parents and other kids love them and always ask where we found them)

Now I have both genders (the daughter is fairly young) and I'm shocked at how behaviors get labeled differently. My son loved playing with the cars we gave him. When he hugged the cars and put them on the changing table to get a diaper change people said "he loves playing with cars!" and smiled approvingly. He also loved to dress himself. People said "he loves learning new skills!" My daughter hugs a toy and gets "she is SO nurturing!" (false) she loves to dress herself and gets "she loves playing dress-up!". Same behavior. Different label. Over time I've become extremely anti-label. Why can't they just be children?!

Walk down any Walmart toy section. There is the boy isle and the girl isle and no overlap between them. And the girl isle is all about superficial things while the boy isle is all about exploring and destruction. If the girl isle gets any blocks, they have to be pink blocks. The truth is these distinctions are artificial ones created by marketers to sell more products (because if everything is tied in to gender you have to buy 2x as much). The harm? Well there isn't if your children just happen to follow the stereotype exactly. But what are the freaking odds? Will your daughter ever want to explore the world or express anger? Will your son ever want to cuddle or wear nice clothes? Will your son want to read or get good grades (those are for girls)? Will your daughter want to consider a career in math or science (those are for boys)? If so, you may want to be very conscious of the stereotypes they get exposed to.

[dawbs]

I rankle at the pink because it is so so SO pervasive. It's everywhere. It's impossible to escape. It's marketed to children who don't even understand marketing yet. (THAT is my big issue w/ the princess crap--marketing. Not (okay, not a lot) the 'please rescue me, handsome prince' crap, not the obnoxious sterotypes (which are improving--they're more active and less just about the dresses), it's the subtle ever-present 'buy this to make you happy' that exists around them --I think this article actually addresses what's discussed in the OP and the marketing --My child isn't even a year old yet, and I have trouble finding (affordable) things that are gender neutral in some areas and if my ILs had their way, everything she owned would be pink and say 'princess')

I think there's a lot of subconscious pressure on little girls (I won't speak to little boys because I wasn't one) to conform to the stereotypes that are presented to them. Marketing was less pervasive 30 years ago, and I remember the attitude of 'what's wrong with you that you don't like pink?' that made me claim pink was my favorite color :roll:

[Antigone]

I got a mixed bag in my daughter. She can be girly all out some days. She likes the Disney Princesses and Dora the Explorer, she likes wearing dresses, and she loves the colors pink and purple, and loves to wear nail polish. That's about where it ends. When she grows up she wants to be a butt-kicking spy like the spies in "Spy Kids" and "James Bond". She loves sharks, and is a soccer fiend and wants to learn extreme x-sports (skateboarding, bikes, motorcross, EVERYTHING).

So. Her grandmother tried to dress her up in a frilly confection of a dress when she was 2 or 3, and the words out of her mouth were "Grandma, bite my shiny metal ass." That I think, is our general response to anything that is "gender biased" and she seems to have picked that up, so we will not worry too much until she gets older and more coscious of society/herself, etc.

I've got to pick up that book. Thanks for mentioning it! I'd also mention "Raising Cain" and "Reviving Ophelia" for those who are interested in the role of gender and society in our children's lives.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

If the girl isle gets any blocks, they have to be pink blocks.

This part has apparently increased quite a bit in recent times as compared with the 1970's even. I suppose it used to be "why are you getting your girl blocks/balls/legos?" and now it's changed over to a "well, okay, you can get your girl blocks/balls/legos but here, have some pink and purple girl-marketed ones! Look, we made a shopping mall set!" It's that Barbie pink and purple combination, just very much not my thing. I like more saturated colors - give me red, skip the pink.

I've seen similar rants over clothing, too - the pink is everywhere on girl clothes, particularly the cheaper lines. If it's cut for a girl, odds are it's pink or at the very least pastel, and featuring some sort of teenage "shopping is awesome!" or "sassy girl" type logos. Thankfully things improve somewhat in the older sizes.

[Joykins]

I didn't force gendered toys on my son, but when he seemed attracted to stuff that was extremely froufrou-girly I did gently guide him toward other things, because he's different enough on other levels and I didn't want him to receive additional bullying. My daughter has always gravitated toward the girly things on her own.

You go into parenthood thinking you're going to raise your children so wonderfully and then they go to day care /school/ play with another kid and one of them is quoting SpongeBob while the other one is doing some kind of hoochie dance while lip-syncing a Haley Cyrus song and you wonder what happened. This may be why the fundies isolate them!

[Confused_by_religion]

"You go into parenthood thinking you're going to raise your children so wonderfully and then they go to day care /school/ play with another kid and one of them is quoting SpongeBob while the other one is doing some kind of hoochie dance while lip-syncing a Haley Cyrus song and you wonder what happened. This may be why the fundies isolate them!"

=> I can SO see the point. I've got a teenage boy who is a really gentle soul but mistakenly believes that he's got to be cool and tough and whatnot. He's buying into the whole rap culture thing and of course can't be isolated from it, unless I moved to some godforsaken village in the north of Lapland and smashed the computer and radio. I guess by now it would be some relief if he asked for something pink and glitzy, lol. I'm so sick of rap music! :cry:

[bananacat]

Wow, I think you completely misunderstand. Nobody is saying that girls should be forced to wear blue and that boys should be forbidden from using trucks. But if you think that only exposing kids to stereotypically correct things won't influence and limit them, then you are very naive. I would be fine if my daughter wanted to wear pink frills, but only if it's a completely free and unrestrained choice. I would also be fine if my son wanted to wear pink frills. I just don't want my daughter to end with everything pink just because that's the easiest choice.

You seem to unaware of the constant total onslaught of social pressure to conform. My niece has short hair for convenience, and my mom complains about it constantly. Try letting your son wear pink and see what criticisms you get from total strangers (if he's old enough to not just look like a girl).

And of course, all these things influence how others treat your child. If you have an infant, try an experiment. Regardless of the sex, put them in a pink frilly dress one day, a blue onesie with trucks on it the next day, and something green and yellow with frogs the next day. Your child will be treated differently by complete strangers. This has a life-long impact. Kids get social conditioning from day one. If they cry out and adults are annoyed, they learn to behave like a proper young lady. If they cry out and adults tolerate it more, they learn that boys will be boys and they don't need to control themselves. Every child has an inherent nature and some will overcome all this conditioning, but we're all influenced by it to some extent.

Think of even the trivial things that you never notice. Is your great uncle more likely to give a cheap sliding puzzle to a boy than to a girl? Over a lifetime, this can add up to fewer chances for a girl to explore puzzles and become good a solving them. Is your son less likely to given a baby doll? Sure he can overcome it, but it will be just that much more work for him to become a good carer for his own children. These little things don't seem like much but they can add up over time and on the scale of a population it can have a statistical effect.

[keeperrox]

I(THAT is my big issue w/ the princess crap--marketing. Not (okay, not a lot) the 'please rescue me, handsome prince' crap, not the obnoxious sterotypes (which are improving--they're more active and less just about the dresses), it's the subtle ever-present 'buy this to make you happy' that exists around them --I think this article actually addresses what's discussed in the OP and the marketing --My child isn't even a year old yet, and I have trouble finding (affordable) things that are gender neutral in some areas and if my ILs had their way, everything she owned would be pink and say 'princess')

This to the Nth degree.

[ElphabaGalinda]

I think there are nothing wrong with girls having a couple of pink/disney princess things and boys having a couple cars or whatever. It's a problem when that's ALL they have. Variety is important, and as babies/toddlers i plan to get my children the most gender neutral toys available (but of all colours, because i want them to know that anyone can like any colour), and then when they're old enough to express a preference for what kind of toys they like, i will follow that preference.

Incidentally, as a little girl I loved Disney princesses, particularly the damsel in distress kind. But that's because I wanted to be the one to slay the dragon and rescue them from their tower and then we'd be queen and queen and live happily ever after. So that didn't really influence what I thought I could be, since I didn't really want to be the princess, I wanted to be her night in shinning armor:) But it's still not the greatest thing. Modern disney princesses, such as Rapunzel, who rescued herself eventually, are much better examples.

[Terrie]

The problem, in my mind, is that it may start out superficial, but it quickly becomes something more. There's a great blog at http://disneyprincessrecovery.blogspot.com/ that talks about how the "Disney Princess" thing had a very negative effect on the writer's daughter. Rigid roles, lack of imaginative play. The gendered toys don't happen in isolation. And it gets applied to a lot of things that don't require it. Why are the red, blue and yellow beach toys for boys and pink and purple ones for girls? Seriously, why? Why not make them sets of yellow and green, which are fairly gender neutral?

[VodouDoll]

Me too, ElphabaGalinda! My mom bought me a Barbie, but poor Barbie spent most of her time trapped under the table or on top of the china cabinet or behind the TV so my brother and I could rescue her with our Transformers. My mom dispared of ever getting me to actually play with a girl toy. And as for Disney Princesses, I wasn't interested. It seemed like they spent most of their time asleep or hanging out doing nothing while the action happened somewhere else. My mom would try to play Snow White with me, but I always insisted on being Doc the dwarf. After all, he was the leader and got to work in the diamond mine all day. Snow White just hung around and cleaned. What fun is that? And when we played Sleeping Beauty, I wanted to be the bad witch because she had magical powers and minions. I was never into being the princess. But instead of forcing me to play princess and decorating my room pink, my parents gave me a blue rug and bedspread and a baseball bat and bought me a hat like Doc wears so I could play dress up like him. And when my little brother was super into pink and princess and stuff, they got him a My Little Pony and princess dresses to play dress up in and a pink pillowcase. People told my parents he'd grow up to be gay. He didn't, but he did grow up to be secure in what he likes and stand up to people who try to tell him what he should and shouldn't enjoy. Who cares what other people think?

[liltwinstar]

I don't have kids, and I'm annoyed by all the marketing. Even in the grocery store, sometimes fruits and veggies have Disney or other characters on them, which drives me batty. I know parents have a tough job, so I don't blame them, but the constant pushing by Disney and other companies seems way over the top to me. I think I read once that Disney was even giving away free infant onesies to mothers still in the hospital, which to me is just an attempt to get a foot in the door before the baby is even home. Treating tiny babies as consumers when they're not even a week old really, really bothers me. A lot.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Me too, ElphabaGalinda! My mom bought me a Barbie, but poor Barbie spent most of her time trapped under the table or on top of the china cabinet or behind the TV so my brother and I could rescue her with our Transformers. My mom dispared of ever getting me to actually play with a girl toy. And as for Disney Princesses, I wasn't interested. It seemed like they spent most of their time asleep or hanging out doing nothing while the action happened somewhere else. My mom would try to play Snow White with me, but I always insisted on being Doc the dwarf. After all, he was the leader and got to work in the diamond mine all day. Snow White just hung around and cleaned. What fun is that? And when we played Sleeping Beauty, I wanted to be the bad witch because she had magical powers and minions. I was never into being the princess. But instead of forcing me to play princess and decorating my room pink, my parents gave me a blue rug and bedspread and a baseball bat and bought me a hat like Doc wears so I could play dress up like him. And when my little brother was super into pink and princess and stuff, they got him a My Little Pony and princess dresses to play dress up in and a pink pillowcase. People told my parents he'd grow up to be gay. He didn't, but he did grow up to be secure in what he likes and stand up to people who try to tell him what he should and shouldn't enjoy. Who cares what other people think?

I played Barbies the same way as you :D But I didn't have transformers, so one Barbie would just rescue the other one. Funny about Snow White and Sleeping Beauty...they both needed "true love's kiss" to be saved, and I always wanted to be the one to give it to them :D So I would always be the prince. And my parents didn't mind at all. It's all about what kids want to do.

[Terrie]

And when my little brother was super into pink and princess and stuff, they got him a My Little Pony and princess dresses to play dress up in and a pink pillowcase.

My brother had My Little Ponies. He also has more of a fashion sense than I do. But he's very much straight (not that there's anything wrong with that).