Superficial gender notions?

[ladypuglover]

I have sons and they all had what we called gender equal toys such as toy kitchens with pretend food, doll houses that batman would take over, baby dolls and gear, and prend house cleaning toys.

My oldest wanted these plastic jelly shoes when he was around 3, they had a poof of jelly ribbons on them like you would see on packages with curled ribbons. I din't buy them as I was poor at the time and I never forgave myself for it. He did however get the little homemaker set he asked for. It had a toy broom, mop, ironing board and iron, feather duster and so forth. Today I would say he is straight man who knows how to cook and clean and does so willingly.

My second son wanted nothing for Christmas but a real vacuum that really sucked up dirt. He was 3 and my entire family looked everywhere for a toy vacuum that fit his requirements. My mom almost bought him a real vacuum that was priced cheap but we found a toy one that fit the bill at the last moment. That son is straight and in the navy.

My third son use to love to have his hair set in foam curlers as a toddler and would beg to have his hair put in "piggy butts" aka pigtails. He like his older and younger brothers played with barbies and GI Joes and would have them re-enact musicals that he watched on TV the night before. He is straight also.

My fourth son loved Dora as a toddler and had a lot of the toys. He also had a summer and winter set of Dora jammies that were meant for a girl but he didn't care because Dora was sooooo cool. He loves volleyball and likes it best when he is the only boy on the team but doesn't mind when there are other boys as long as they know all the ladies on the team are his ladies. The little ladies seem to love that my son is in love with each of them. He is now 11 and too young to guess what he will be but he is always on the lookout for a new girlfriend.

My youngest went through a stage where he just had to have his baby dolls with him at all times. He had several strollers and tiny diaper bags and he would fill those with toy baby stuff, cars and super heros and insisted that we had to bring at least 2 babies whereever we went. So at the store my son was a very proud daddy to his babies and made sure everyone knew it. He is only 9 and way to young to know if he will be straight or gay but he does have 2 girlfriends that he insists that he will marry when he grows up. Both of them at the same time. :shock:

So my point is that there is nothing wrong in letting a child play with toys as nothing will cause them to become straight or gay. They will be what they will be and even letting little boys play with toy kitchens will not promise any of them will ever empty the clean dishes or take out the trash. :roll:

[Feberin]

I hate how everything is Disney related these days. And not just princesses but Cars and other Disney movies. I wanted to find a cheap set of toddler bedding for my son but most places only carry Cars or Princesses. My son is only 1 1/2 and hasn't watched any Disney movies yet. I'm not going to get him bedding featuring something he doesn't even know. I finally found some really cute stuff at Ikea that was animals and letters.

That said we purchase things based on my son's interests. We got plenty of toys as gifts so we've only bought stuff for him for holidays. We've based what he gets on what he likes. He loves balls, cars and books so he mostly gets those. We've also given him blocks (a multi-colored set that includes pink along with other colors) and a set of muscial instruments. We're planning on getting him a play kitchen for Christmas and I really would love to get him a toy broom since he loves using our real one and I hate him playing with it since it's fairly dirty. My daycare provider was at one point keeping the "girl" toys away from him. However after I gave her permission he's now allowed to play with whatever. I was pretty annoyed that she did that and I feel bad that he was missing out playing with her kitchen set and dolls. I'm open to him playing with whatever he wants regardless of the assigned gender but I go off his interests. Most of his toys were because I saw him playing with them at a friend's house.

I'm not so whatever about clothing. I dress him mostly like a boy although he did wear a dress for his baptism. I'm not saying he has to be wearing something blue but he doesn't own pink clothing. If he wanted to wear pink when he was older I'd let him but I prefer him not in pink so I'm not going to buy stuff without him requesting it. Despite him wearing boy clothes I'm always being told that I have an adorable little girl so I don't think people really pay that much attention.

[deelaem]

Wow. I'm glad I read this thread. I figured it would be a pile-on about how mean radical feminists like me are when it comes to "feminine" things, but it didn't. You all have given this old feminist hope.

The point really is that we should treat little girls as being fully human, with wants, needs and preferences of their own. They will already have to conform to the patriarchy to various degrees just to get by in this world, but we can give them a fair chance by not forcing narrow gender stereotypes on them from the get-go.

The OP mentioned that she wanted to get pink things for her future little girl because she liked the color pink. Well, our kids are not us, so why not surround them with colors of all kinds let them eventually choose?

[Feberin]

This might be a selfish viewpoint but when it comes to having a little one I feel like I only get so much time to dress them entirely how I want to dress them so I'm going to take full advantage of it. Soon my son will be at an age where he can say that he hates wearing overalls (or just get so old that they look silly or be potty training and they're too impractical) but I think overalls are adorable! Same with dressing a little girl in dresses and such. She could decide that she will never wear another dress later but if I have a baby girl I'm going to enjoy doing frilly dresses.

[OddLittleBird]

I try to stay away from companies that draw such an obvious dividing line between the genders (Disney is one of them), mostly because my girls are smart enough to notice the difference at a really young age, and social enough to want to "go along". So we do baby dolls and dump trucks. They make mud pies in dresses (a lot of them with dinosaurs or alligators on them), and they have t shirts with cars on them. I actually avoid chain toy stores, and let them pick their own toys by interest online or in more thoughtful local toy shops. I love how well-rounded they are naturally, when allowed to be! I love it that my middle daughter loves her sparkly shoes, not because she wants to be the ubiquitous "princess", but because she's a lion tamer in the circus, and she needs them to shine in the spotlight. :mrgreen: I don't want to define their play/style for them one way or another, either by dictating it myself or by exposing them to companies with a crazy-strong gender agenda. They need space to be themselves, and I try hard to give it to them. :)

[Shoobydoo]

This thread has been very interesting to me. I think I am a good example of how representing both sides equally works well. As a child I had both "girl" toys and "boy" toys and most of what I can remember is my parents getting what I wanted, within reason. I had ponies (I particularly remember a pink unicorn that I broke the foot off of and started screaming bloody murder), dinosaurs, plastic fish, blocks, and most of these were used simultaneously. My ponies were homesteaders and then their kids got kidnapped by dinosaurs who hid them away in their walled cities, where they also sometimes were laid siege to by other dinosaurs. I also sometimes wore "boys" clothes, mostly because they had dinosaurs on them.

I think when I have kids, I'm going to keep the gender a secret from everyone outside my immediate family until it's born. That way any gifts would be gender neutral, and I'd try to keep things fairly neutral until the kid was old enough to choose toys and clothes for themselves. I would be worried if my boy picked girls clothes, but only because I don't really know how to deal well with the rude comments we'd inevitably get. I'd probably start a fight with some old lady and set a terrible example of how to deal with bullies.

[dawbs]

This might be a selfish viewpoint but when it comes to having a little one I feel like I only get so much time to dress them entirely how I want to dress them so I'm going to take full advantage of it. Soon my son will be at an age where he can say that he hates wearing overalls (or just get so old that they look silly or be potty training and they're too impractical) but I think overalls are adorable! Same with dressing a little girl in dresses and such. She could decide that she will never wear another dress later but if I have a baby girl I'm going to enjoy doing frilly dresses.

I think this is exactly why I come down so firmly on the opposite end.

People were trying to gender-sterotype my child before she was born--before they even knew her sex ("Oh, she did X, that's such a girl" "oh, no Y? you know that means boy"--we're not talking 'did the baby drop', more aggressive = male, shopping/sweets = female).

The moment she steps out into the world, I can't protect her from the obnoxious societal pressure--she'll be to fat or to thin or to pretty or to plain or to tomboy or to feminine or to....*something*. There will be pressure to 'keep sweet' and to buy into princess and frills. And there will be pressure to rebel against princesses and frills (I'll admit, I'd rather she rebelled). The giant Disney Marketing Machine will be using psychological tactics she's to young to counter to try to get her to buy buy buy buy buy and character imprint everything around her.

Right now, I get a chance to give her, for her birthday, both a toy truck and fairy wings and, without the 'girls want to be princesses/'trucks are for boys' mantras running in the background, let her explore what she wants. It's still not perfect, but this is the best chance she'll ever have to explore without prejudice being ever-present.

[Katiebug]

I think this is exactly why I come down so firmly on the opposite end.

People were trying to gender-sterotype my child before she was born--before they even knew her sex ("Oh, she did X, that's such a girl" "oh, no Y? you know that means boy"--we're not talking 'did the baby drop', more aggressive = male, shopping/sweets = female).

The moment she steps out into the world, I can't protect her from the obnoxious societal pressure--she'll be to fat or to thin or to pretty or to plain or to tomboy or to feminine or to....*something*. There will be pressure to 'keep sweet' and to buy into princess and frills. And there will be pressure to rebel against princesses and frills (I'll admit, I'd rather she rebelled). The giant Disney Marketing Machine will be using psychological tactics she's to young to counter to try to get her to buy buy buy buy buy and character imprint everything around her.

Right now, I get a chance to give her, for her birthday, both a toy truck and fairy wings and, without the 'girls want to be princesses/'trucks are for boys' mantras running in the background, let her explore what she wants. It's still not perfect, but this is the best chance she'll ever have to explore without prejudice being ever-present.

A-freaking-men! Our daughter is almost 13 months old and her room at daycare has kids from 9-14 months in age; five girls and three boys. One day her activity sheet will report that she and her little classmates played with toy trucks and cars and the next day I'll hear that they played with baby dolls and play food. The kids have zero concept that "dinosaurs are for boys" and "dolls are for girls".

Mr. Bug and I have a policy that if someone gifts us one of those obviously-gendered toys we will exchange it for the standard/original version. We've seen a startling trend of a lot of "classic" toys having a girly version released as well. Sorry, but my kid can play with the regular red bubble mower not the pink and purple one. She will be just fine with primary colored Duplo rather than the pink princess castle set (!), and we're not buying a pink princess play kitchen when there's a normally-colored play kitchen right next to it on the shelf. If you go to any store selling baby gear and toys you will see the girl things and the normal things. You will be hard pressed to find a car seat with trucks and cars on the cover, for example - but there is no shortage of pink floral patterned ones.

Don't get me started on finding gender-neutral clothing. Apparently girls shouldn't wear green, yellow, or other primary colors. :roll: I buy some things in the boys' section specifically to avoid neutrally colored clothes (grey, white, brown) with picot trim or ruffly behinds or pink stitching and bows. If I just want a green polo shirt or a pair of plain khaki pants I'm not going to find those in the baby girls' section. Sure, Little Bug has some dresses and pink and purple clothes. However it drives me nuts that society says she shouldn't wear a beige onesie with a teddy bear on it because that's for boys and/or it's lacking pink frippery. We consciously chose not to find out the baby's sex before delivery and will do so with all future children. Literally hours after her birth, my mother had gone to buy PINK, PINK, PINK. When I pointed out that we had plenty of baby clothes at home, the response was that a little girl "had" to have appropriate clothing or people would think she was a boy in her yellow duck and green frog and cream lambie apparel. :twisted: Our response was, "So what?"

I personally can't stand princesses and I'm not a fan of pink as a color. If she ends up being into princesses as she gets older, then that's her choice (I'd also rather she rebelled!) but I don't want her growing up feeling like she has to like princesses because she's a girl. So many people in our society treat girls differently from boys and IMO in some cases it causes problems. If we had a boy I'd feel the same way about stereotypically boyish things - who says a little boy can't play with a doll or a play kitchen rather than a truck or dinosaur?

I think I'm sensitive to gender roles and stereotypes because I am a woman in a heavily male-dominated profession and industry. Ironically enough my hobbies are quite traditionally-feminine; I knit, sew, and garden! I just don't want our kids to be shoehorned into a certain gender role. Once our kids are old enough to pick their own toys and clothes, they can play with and wear whatever they'd like. We just don't want them to only have "girl" or "boy" things.

[OddLittleBird]

Katiebug-when my girls got old enough to actually climb everything and roughhouse outside, I started buying them boys cargo shorts to play in...because the stupid girls' shorts were so shaped for "fashion" :roll: and short, they gave them horrific wedgies or wouldn't stay on. :| My thought was "Seriously? Our choices are uncomfortable booty shorts or dresses to climb and swing and explore in? Lame." They have things to do.

[Austin]

Maybe it was just my perspective because we have all boys, but this all didn't seem so pronounced 20 years ago as it seems now. Yes, there were pink clothes and pink toys, but not pink "versions" of toys (that I recall). Our eldest son had a doll, a cabbage patch doll that had red overalls, and he named it "Dorn". I have no idea if Dorn was male or female. It was rather heinous looking (it was a gift), but he loved Dorn, and so we all loved Dorn. I remember my husband lying down with him on his toddler bed at night softly singing to him, "Dorn, go away, you're no good for me" :lol: (FJers of a certain age will get that).

He also had a kitchen set. It was Little Tykes or some brand like that, and it was white with green and tan trim. When our boys were done "cooking", we gave it to our next door neighbor's little girl, and she seemed quite pleased with it.

Anyhoo, we just didn't worry about all that stuff too much at that time. Maybe it was easier because we didn't have girls and so the issues are maybe not that pronounced. It's probably a good thing, because I hate the whole "I'm-a-fairy-princess-damsel-in-distress" thing.

[O Latin]

I've never thought much about this (since I don't have kids), but looking back on the way I grew up, I had both "boy toys" and "girl toys." I don't think toys were quite as gendered at that point as they are now. Legos were Legos. There was no pink girly set (or if there was, my parents weren't going to waste money on it, they were going to buy the plain set of Legos for their two daughters and one son to all share). I wasn't all that into toys, anyway. I spent most of my time either reading or playing outside.

But even as a teenager, it never really occurred to me that some things were "for boys" and others were "for girls." My sister and I loved this pirate computer game that I'm pretty sure was designed mostly for boys, but that never even occurred to us. When I started taking voice lessons I would occasionally pick out songs about wooing girls or seafaring adventures or something and my voice teachers would say, "That's kind of a boy song," to which my response was always, "So?" (How much of a boy song could it be, I reasoned, if it was in the high soprano book). And a lot of my favorite books had boys as the main characters because they generally had more interesting adventures and spent less of the book falling in love. I guess to me it just seems natural not to segregate toys or interests based on gender. I do love pink though.

[pebbles]

My thoughts have always been that I will never force a certain toy or colour on my child because of their gender, but at the same time I will not try to steer them away from stereotypical boy/girl stuff if that is what they genuinely like. I have no problem with my (hypothetical) daughter playing soccer and having Transformer toys, but neither do I have a problem with her playing with a plastic kitchen or a baby doll. I'll just try to make it as free a choice as possible.

Strangely enough I often feel judged by my liking of traditionally 'girly' activities and my very 'feminine' appearance, and I sometimes find I have to defend myself in order for other feminists to accept that I share the same beliefs as them. I'm still working towards being comfortable with that.

[BlackHawk]

My partner and I have a plan for our future children. We plan to get mostly, if not only, educational toys. We don't have a lot of outside influence in the toy buying department (his parents will get whatever we want them to) so we feel like we can failsafe this a little better. Personally, we plan to stick to wooden toys that are educational and fun. Why Barbies or Transformers to begin with? What do they teach our children? Nothing, in my opinion. Why not a well made doll and a nice kitchen set? A hammer toy with wooden pegs or possibly a nice kinnetic set. I just don't see the point in frilly nonsense toys.

As for sheets and stuff... meh, our children will sleep on the same type we do. Solid colors with a nice bedspread that will last them. Why buy them pink ponies or transformers when they are 6 if they are going to be on the same bed their entire life... why not buy them a nice set that will last many years, not go by the wayside when the "next big thing" comes around.

Okay, I fully admit I can say this because my partner and I are idealists when it comes to raising children. We are not parents as of right now, just paper pregnant to become parents. This may all change in a few years when I'm giving in to my child and letting them have that one barbie... which then turns into 5bazillion! But to start out with our philosophy is nothing nonsense. If it does not further them in any way (and honestly, barbies and transformers do not) it will not be bought by us or stay in the house.

[Guest Anonymous]

Why Transformers to begin with?

It's a car that turns into a robot! That's cool, I don't care who you are. My partner and I found his stash of Transformers when we moved and we played with those sons of bitches. (Mine got lost at some point, I'm not over it.)

[Charliemae]

Colors don't have gender.

It always grates me a little tiny bit when I hear "pink is a GIRL color" "blue is a BOY color". Um, no?

That's where started and now I realize that neither do toys, or sports, or books or games. It's a difficult subject because if you were raised in a culture with set gender expectations (like most of America) then you have to step back to see the affects. Seeing your own "normal" as incorrect can take a lot of mental arobiecs at first, or at least if did for me. :oops:

Idk how relevant this is but I found it interesting. When I took my first education class we read a research study where people where people were put in a room with a baby and some toys. The baby was sometimes dressed in blue, sometimes pink and sometimes yellow. When people thought the baby was a boy they would typically reach for the toys and engage the infant that way. In pink babies were talked to and held more. Babies in yellow were met with confusion with several participates checking inside the diaper to figure out how to relate and interact.

[Turtle]

I was discussing this with a friend not so long ago, and I realized how much easier it is to have a boy first. I didn't make an effort to buy "boy" toys/clothes, but the toys and clothes marketed towards boys are so much more engaging (toys) and comfortable (clothes) for playing. Like others have mentioned, even toys like blocks, puzzles, ect. that are marketed toward girls are pink/princessy theme. Even baby stuff, like bouncers and teethers, can be bought in pink/pastel colors for girls. Which is especially crap because at that age, they get so much out of the stimulation of seeing all the primary colors. We actually got most of my son's toys as gifts/hand me downs from family, and I'm sure if we had a girl first they would have gravitated toward pink.

So all the toys at our house are colorful, engaging and generally involve hands-on/problem solving skills. If we had a girl first, we would have had to go out of our way to make that happen, which is pretty sad to think about. It seems that most toys marketed toward boys require them to think or put things together (legos, blogs, Thomas the Train tracks, race tracks for example) as well as use their imagination, while most toys marketed toward girls require them to maybe use their imagination, but not even that much if they are playing with Barbie and acting out the Barbie movie with the cookie cutter plot/disney moves with their princess dolls.

[liltwinstar]

While I was scrolling through this thread, I remembered something funny. Apparently when my twin and I were babies, mom bought two dresses - one pink, one blue. I've seen pictures of said dresses; they were both made of some kind of lightweight cotton, lots of lace and ruffles, etc. Anyway, my sis was in the pink dress and I was in the blue dress and we both had on white lace bonnets, white lace-edged socks, and black mary janes....and some dumb woman INSISTED that I was a boy because I was in the blue dress!!!!

People are strange.

[JesusFightClub]

When I was a child my favourite thing ever was a toy Uzi. It is fair to say I was not a girly girl. ;) It proves nothing really about how a child will be when they grow up, but I know it really disappointed my mum.

[keen23]

I have three daughters, ages 8, 6 and 4. My house, at times looks like Barbie, Hello Kitty, and My Little Pony are laying siege on the house with glitter guns. But the girls also have a play kitchen (the Little Tykes original model in white, yellow and blue), legos, toy cars (which, sometimes Barbie wears as roller skates I admit), baby dolls, doll house and enough art supplies to stock a classroom. They play with everything. Sometimes they use the Legos to build a house, and sometimes they use the Legos to build a high-chair for their babies. They've been known to use Barbie legs as guns and crayons as "makeup." The doll house is equally likely to be used for furniture arranging as it is a stable or a wall of a fort. There are no rules for toys, they do what they want with them. Sure, they watch the Disney movies- Tangled and Princess and the Frog are favorites, and not stereotypical damsels in distress- but they also watch Whale Rider, Matilda and Alice in Wonderland.

[dawn]

They've been known to use Barbie legs as guns

I used to play war with my dolls. Headless army vs. one arm/one leg army :violence-guntoting:

I don't remember a lot of pink in my childhood, I don't think it was so prevalent back in the seventies/early eighties when I was a little girl.

[Maggie Mae]

I'm wondering when the whole "theme" nursery/child's room got so popular. I can't stand pastel colours, nor can I see the point of creating a nursery when it's just going to have to be remade into a child's room & then into a teen room in a few years. Not to mention that it would be at least 18 years before I get my room back and can make it into a yoga studio. /tarynesq tangent

I was born in the early 1980s and my mom has always said that she made it a point to avoid barbies & plastic dolls. My grandparents gave me "The Heart Family" and my other grandmother gave me barbies & skippers. My Ken was always cheating on Barbie with Skipper and the baby dolls were always escaping from the orphanage. Oh, and I frequently had all of the barbie/ken/skipper/random dolls live in a happy family and run from Nazi Austria into the mountains (pillows) and then settle down on the side of a volcano (a red pillow) so they would have to flee to California (the barbie swimming pool) where they would live together and raise the heart family babies and model their high fashion. Would it have mattered if I hadn't had barbies? Not really. I also had the entire collection of Rainbow Brite dolls and could probably recap some of my efforts, but generally speaking, Rainbow Brite realized that Murkey Dismal wasn't so bad and they gave birth to the sprites. And put them in an orphanage where they had to toil under the evil watch of the big brown one who's name I can't remember

It makes me sad to think that anyone's play is restricted. It makes me sad to think that there are people who would say "no, that's a boy toy" or "that's a girl toy"

It also irritates me when people say "he's all boy" and excuses bad behavior based on gender.

[keeperrox]

Growing up I had pretty much gender neutral toys, other than Barbies. However, my favorite thing to play with was my doll house and my critters that lived in it. I had the Bear Family, the Rabbit Family, the Mouse Family, and who I remember as the Chipmunk Family, but I'm now realizing that it was probably the Hamster Family. I would totally buy them for any gender child that I have if my parents didn't keep them (and I don't think they did).

[PBrooke]

I I also had the entire collection of Rainbow Brite dolls and could probably recap some of my efforts, but generally speaking, Rainbow Brite realized that Murkey Dismal wasn't so bad and they gave birth to the sprites. And put them in an orphanage where they had to toil under the evil watch of the big brown one who's name I can't remember

Lurky. :D

[clibbyjo]

I took my youngest,(a boy)who was about 2 and into pink tutu's at the time to a Christian/fundie homeschool gymnastics class. Those mothers didn't DARE say a word to me, I am sure we were discussed when I left. They hated me anyway as I was the only one not religious or from their church. Oh well.

I bought all neutral toys for my firstborn .Wooden,educational everything. Also a kitchen, shopping cart, sandbox, Cozy coupe etc.. I said NO GUNS or cheap plastic and he ended up owning both by age 5. The girl has never been girly, she has a few barbies and dolls, but she prefers hockey over everything else. My youngest loves music and likes to wear leather jackets, hats, gloves whatever. I don't care and if anyone would say anything to my kids about their clothes to make them feel weird or bad, I will be having a little discussion(loud enough for the world to hear) with them. Lucky our group is used to the "eccentric" dressers.Two, 9 year old girls had tutu's on today at playgroup.One kid is 14 and has aspergers and a love to wear superhero clothes. Everyone is used to all this and just says "nice cape" to make him happy or whatever.A few years ago my daughter only wore crazy patterns togther and my youngest only wore suits(with a tie and fedora of course) and no one batted an eye. I dress up in costumes as much as my kids do, so its no surprise where they get it from.

I was anti Disney for a long time, so they never saw the princess movies.

MY oldest son is color blind, so he has never cared much about colors and only played with Legos for 14 years so he was easy enough. :)

[Letgo]

My first children were boy/girl twins so we had toys intended for both sexes from the beginning. I watched my kids because I wondered how much influence our expectations have on the choices children make. My twins played together most of the time, regardless of the type of toy. Both played with dolls (my son had his own) and both played with trucks. They had trains, trikes, a sandbox, a kitchen, dishes, brooms, vacuums, a lawn mower, wheelbarrows, dolls, etc. They chose to play with all of it, together, and didn't care if a toy was for a boy or a girl. They did not watch television or movies so they didn't have a clue about princess stuff. The closest either ever got to playing dress up was to wear a cowboy hat. My son wore hair bows or barrettes if his sister did. He liked to try on dresses when she did and wanted some of his own-he just liked doing whatever she did. And she was definitely the leader. We didn't do guns, although my husband hunts and has probably two dozen or so. Neither of my twins was ever told anything was for a girl or boy-at least by us. By around age four, I could see my son starting to prefer to play with trucks and abandoning his dolls. He also began following my husband around like a puppy and wanting to do whatever Daddy did. My daughter stuck to her dolls, and now, as an adult, still loves babies and children. She was and is more of a tomboy, and is not very domestic. My son cooks more than my daughter does. Neither is gay. They had access to a variety of gender specific toys and both of them liked many of those meant for the opposite gender. It didn't hurt either one. Both chose to be what they are. They had a great time as little kids and some of my favorite memories are of them playing together when they did not know I was watching and listening. Wish I could go back and revisit those days...sigh...