Professor and blogger Rebacca Hains appeared on “Fox and Friends” today and made excellent points about the ramifications of gender segregated toys and what we’re teaching kids through sexist marketing. The show started with Sabrina Schaeffer of Independent Women’s Forum, justifying gender segregation in toy stores:
It doesn’t mean that girls can’t go on to do anything that little boys can go on to do. It’s just that they like to play differently, and that’s okay.
This is a common argument for gender segregation of little kids. Nothing wrong with marketing make-up and dress up and shopping toys to girls. It’s just play, silly. No big deal.
The show ends with this point from Hains:
some girls want the chemistry set. And they shouldn’t feel like it’s just for boys. If we don’t say, “Hey, these are jobs for men and these are jobs for women,” why would we say, “These are toys for boys and toys for girls,” when toys are really kids’ work?
Don’t we want more female chemists? How is that going to happen?
Check out what my friend’s 6 month old daughter just received from her grandmother. (Can you read “teaches” and “laugh and learn?” below) 6 month old child, from her grandmother.
I just finished A Wrinkle in Time, and I have chills. This is the book I have been waiting to read. Not only do I love the story and the characters, but it’s beautifully written.
So many books I love with strong female protagonists like The Wizard of Oz, Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Alice and Wonderland, The Golden Compass, surround the girl with males, males, males. So many writers seem comfortable allowing a female be powerful as long as her gender is resresented by a minority of characters in the book. Not so with Wrinkle. Not only do we have Meg, but also Meg’s mother, a scientist. Wrinkle is, in fact, all about science. How cool is that?
Besides Meg’s mother, there is a trio of powerful and magical females: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. That’s not all. Near the end of the book we meet another amazing female, the incredible Aunt Beast. In Wrinkle in Time, readers see five powerful females mentor a female protagonist. Does anyone know of another narrative on earth where we see this? If so, please tell me, because from my experience, this scenario is like seeing a unicorn in the real world.
Here’s the passage where Aunt Beast names herself for Meg:
“What should I call you, please?” Meg asked.
“Well, now. First, try not to say any words for a moment. Think within your own mind. Think of all the things you call people, different kinds of people.”
While Meg thought, the beast murmured to her gently. “No, mother is a special,a one-name; and a father you have here. Not just friend, nor teacher, nor brother, nor sister. What is acquaintance? What a funny, hard word. Aunt. Maybe. Yes, perhaps that will do. And you think of such odd words about me. Thing, and monster! Monster, what a horrid sort of word. I really do not think I a am a monster. Beast. That will do. Aunt Beast.“
Part of what I love about this passage is that every writer goes through a similar process as she thinks of how to name a character. So often, a writer will assign this kind of powerful character the male gender, but the character could be any gender as this writing shows.
For much of Wrinkle, there is the typical one female (Meg) to two male (Charles Wallace and Calvin) trio. But given all the female characters in the book, Meg is still, not a Minority Feisty.
Narratives mimic real life and real life mimics narratives, it’s all the same thing really. If we are willing to recognize it, we all get to the point where we realize we must do it alone. Sometimes that thing is dramatic, when we give birth or it could be when we write a novel or when we confront someone we’ve been afraid to. But it can also be something like cleaning your house or making your bed. If you live your life heroically, realizing only you can do it, happens all the time, without resentment but with a sense of destiny. It is this revelation upon which endless narratives are based, but so often, in fiction, this human situation is assigned to males. I just wrote about an exception to this rule in Land of Stories. Here it is in Wrinkle the whole sequence: Someone else do it, I can’t; okay, I will. I must be me, here I go. Resistance, choice, action:
Meg could no longer stand it,and she cried out desparingly, “Then what are you going to do? Are you just going to throw Charles Wallace away?”
Mrs Which’s voice rolled formidably across the hall. “Ssilencce cchilldd.”
But Meg could not be silent. She pressed closely against Aunt Beast, but Aunt Beast did not put the protecting tentacles around her. “I can’t go!” Meg cried. “I can’t! You know I can’t.”
“Did annybbodyy ask yyou ttoo?” The grim voice made Meg’s skin prickle into gooseflesh.
She burst into tears. She started beating at Aunt Beast like a small child having a tantrum. Her tears rained down her face and spattered Aunt Beast’s fur. Aunt Beast stood quietly against the assault.
“All right, I’ll go!” Meg sobbed. “I know you want me to go!”
“We want nothing from you that you do without grace,” Mrs. Whatsit said, “or that you do without understanding.”
Meg’s tears stopped as abruptly as they had started. “But I do understand.” She felt tired and unexpectedly peaceful. Now the coldness that, under Aunt Beast’s ministrations, had left her body had also left her mind. She looked toward her father and her confused anger was gone and she felt only love and pride. She smiled at him, asking forgiveness, and then pressed up against Aunt Beast. This time Aunt Beast’s arms went around her.
Mrs. Which’s voice was grave. “Whatt ddoo yyou unnnddersstanndd?”
“That it has to be me. It can’t be anyone else. I don’t understand Charles, but he understands me. I’m the one who’s closets to him. Father’s been away for so long, since Charles Wallace was a baby. They don’t know each other. And Calvin’s only known Charles for such a little time. If it had been longer, then he would have been the one, but–oh, I see, I understand. It has to be me. There isn’t anyone else.”
In the passage where Meg fights IT, just as Harry Potter with Voledemort, she wins by using love over hate. This is the scene I was longing for in kidlit while reading all 7 of the Harry Potter series. Reading ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ felt, to me, like a starving person getting food.
Though Wrinkle is not without sexism. Here’s a scene from the planet Camazotz:
She walked along the quiet street. It was dark and the street was deserted. No children playing ball or skipping rope. No mother figures at the doors. No father figures returning from work.
There are other instances like that one, but there is so much positive here. Wrinkle is a writer’s book, too. I’ll leave you with one last passage that is one of the most beautiful metaphors for creativity, God, raising children, life, that I’ve ever read. Here’s Mrs Whatsit explaining a sonnet to Calvin.
“It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?”
“Yes,” Calvin nodded.
“And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?”
“No.”
“But within this strict form, the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” Calvin nodded again.
The trick here, for me anyway, is figuring out what the form is. Sometimes, we believe that the “rules” are the rule, that they are “natural.” For example, in so many narratives for kids, not to mention adults, like Ratatouille, have seen a Minority Feisty complain about sexism, instead of getting to see a female hero. That is “rule” that desperately needs to be broken. The resistance, choice, action is a rule I believe in.
Many of you have asked me to clarify what ages books are appropriate for. It’s hard for me to say that. We get different things about books at different times.
When I look at books or movies for my kids, the number one offensive thing is sexism. I would rather my kids hear swear words than see Cinderella any day. I’ve also written quite a lot of Reel Girl about violence. I don’t like gore, but much of violence in stories is metaphorical, it raises the stakes to depict visually what we, as humans, feel. Can you imagine dreams without violence? My daughter whipped through Wrinkle in Time. She just turned 7. I’m 44 and I’m blogging about it. I could tell my daughter really liked it, and she read a lot of it by herself. I’m not sure what she ‘got.’ I remember being confused by parts of this book as a kid. I do know that while reading this book, my daughter saw many females being brave and heroic, respected, admired, and loved my the males in their lives.
If there’s one really useful thing I’ve learned in my 10 years so far of being a parent, it’s not to pigeonhole my kids. Kids change, and when I assign attributes of a certain stage as if they were permanent personality traits, I can see how it limits them. I get the urge to do this. It’s nice to for a parent to feel like a child has a clear identity. Also, if you have multiple kids, putting them in different categories can smooth things out. Every child has her little box and as a parent, you can work to protect those boundaries for her. Pigeonholing kids can reduce conflict in the short term.
The first way I clearly learned that pigeonholing had a negative effect was with food. Since my kids could eat, I encouraged them to try different foods, that there are no “good” foods or “bad” foods. My kids don’t have to eat broccoli and then get dessert. We don’t even do dessert. They can eat what they want, when they want. There is much writing about this on Reel GIrl, more from when I first started this blog then now, because we are practically food conflict free in our house. The segue is that, because of this philosophy, I never said: “This kid likes pizza, that one likes bagels.” Instead, I told them that their taste buds change all the time, and to keep trying foods, even if they think they don’t like them. I honestly believe, just that, has kept their eating open and flexible. They are risk-takers with food, which may not seem to a big deal for an adult, but it is for a kid.
Obviously, I’m also against pigeonholing because I hate how women are continually fragmented: the smart one or the pretty one. Humans are complex. Pigeonholing them is an a illusion of a simplicity.
Finally, not to get too Buddhist here, but change is the only thing that is real. It’s scary for everyone, but I think it’s much healthier to train kids to embrace it rather than avoid it.
Students show greater gains when they are taught that the mind, like a muscle, gets stronger with work, as opposed to being told that talents are fixed and you’re born either quick or slow.
And this is true. It’s called brain plasticity. Your brain changes and grows for your whole life, based on your experiences. Your brain grows most rapidly, when you are a kid. The more experiences, the better.
A sentence in my daughter’s book for 8-12 year olds (“Creep Over: Read it and Weep” by P.J. Night):
“Her mom was really smart, just not at math–even third grade math.”
ARGH!
One of these quotes would not be a problem, but there’s a pattern of it in kids’ media. It’s what Melissa Wardy of Pigtail Pals calls the “drip, drip, drip.” No one even notices the repetition of sexism, it’s become so normal. And by the way, this sentence could describe me. I’ve posted about how much I hate helping my daughters with math. I hated math. They can tell. They read or write, I’m totally into it. They do math, my husband helps them. Thus, I pass the gender stereotype on to a new generation. There are a multitude of reasons why girls are supposed to be good at art and words, not math and sciences, many of which I’ve blogged about. But it’s not “natural” for all girls anymore than it is for girls to wear pink.
So, I’d like to ask you, as you’re reading books with your kids, please post sexist, stereotyped quotes in this comments section or on Reel Girl’s Facebook page. I’m really curious about them. I can think of one that has always bugged me from Ramona about how she has boring brown hair and brown eyes. I can’t stand reading that to my brown-eyed, brown haired daughter. Again, if this were one book, but when so many book have blonde, blue-eyed heroines, when we just saw this dichotomy again in “Smurfs 2.” Enough already.
Besides finishing the Harry Potter series this summer, I got to read Catching Fire and Mockingjay, finally completing TheHunger Games trilogy.
I am a huge fan of this series. Panem remains the only magical world I have read about or seen on TV or in the movies where gender equality exists. If you know of another one, please tell me. I am not referring to a world where a female protagonist fights against or overcomes sexism. I am referring to a world where there is no sexism.
In Panem, females and males are in power positions. Both genders are, consistently, commanders of armies, directors of films, murderers, heroes, doctors, victims, and presidents. Males and females can be weak or strong, compassionate or cruel, leaders or followers. Characters in Panem are portrayed as complex individuals with conflict and contradiction just like real humans.
So here’s the only passage, the only passage, in the whole trilogy where I found stereotypical sexism from the year 2013 infecting Panem. Both women and men in Panem wear make-up. Vanity depends on profession and geography, not gender, so it’s not the make-up that bugged me here.
But its Posy, Gale’s five-year-old sister who helps the most. She scoots along the bench to Octavia and touches her skin with a tentative finger. “You’re green. Are you sick?”
“It’s a fashion thing, Posy, like wearing lipstick,” I say.
“It’s meant to be pretty,” whispers Octavia, and I can see the tears threatening to spill over her lashes.
Posy considers this and says matter-of-factly, “I think you’d be pretty in any color.”
The tiniest of smiles forms on Octavia’s lips. “Thank you.”
“If you really want to impress Posy, you’ll have to dye yourself bright pink,” says Gale, thumping his tray down beside me. “That’s her favorite color.”
When I read that section, I groaned. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with one little girl among many declaring pink is her favorite color. But, in 2013, pink has become such a symbol of the way marketers limit diversity, limit girls, and gender segregate toys and products for kids. How many colors are there in the world? How many “choices” do little girls get? it bummed me out to see a four year old girl, the only one in the series I remember, get her love for pink affirmed.
I have many complaints about gender stereotyping in Harry Potter, but one of the scenes that really got under my skin is about pink. The Weasley twins’s magical store, Weasley ‘s Wizard Wheezes, is so cool and creative, but it turns out to be as sexist and gender segregated as as any Target. Here’s Fred Weasley doing some marketing:
“Haven’t you girls found our special WonderWitch products yet,” asked Fred. “Follow me, ladies….”
Near the window was an array of violently pink products around which a cluster of excited girls was giggling enthusiastically.
What’s the problem with this? Just a couple days ago, when I posted about sexism and gender stereotypes at the shoe store, Stride Rite, I received hundreds of comments like this one:
I remind you once again, that it’s not. Pink was first a “boy” color, a version of red which symbolized strength. Blue was a “girl” color, associated with the Virgin Mary. That’s why in the early Disney movies, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice in Wonderland all wore blue.
How many times, when challenging gender stereotypes, do we hear the argument that these limits placed on girls are just natural?
In 2013, when children and adults see, again and again, that girls in fantasy world, whether its books, TV, movies, or toys, consistently “choose” pink, it appears to validate misconceptions like the commenter’s above. And if girls “naturally” prefer pink, it follows that they are naturally drawn to all those pink things, whether its princesses, toys about make-up, shopping, or fashion.
Of course, what the persistence of pink in the fantasy world really shows, is that writers, directors, and producers all live in and are influenced by the sexist real world. That is why, obviously, that the fantasy world, a world that should have limitless possibilities, where anything is possible, often turns out to be as sexist as the real one. We ought to be showing kids something more imaginative.
Besides going to a lot of shitty kids’ movies this summer, I finished the Harry Potter series. That actually happened at the beginning of the summer, but I’ve avoided blogging about it. Part of the reason is I needed to work on my own book instead of blogging. But, also, I pretty much feel like I’ve said everything about Harry Potter that I have to say. Still, I promised to check in once I was finished, so I’m doing that now.
My favorite book in the series is Book 6, probably because Dumbledore is my favorite character, and Half-Blood Prince is all Harry and Dumbledore. Also, I really liked hearing about Voldemort’s childhood and witnessing how he became so evil. And I mean witnessing. J.K. Rowling doesn’t just do a flashback. She has you go into a magical pensieve where memories are stored, and then she leads you through the actual events. She’s a truly masterful story teller.
I initially thought that the most feminist of the books was 5, because Hermione has a big part, and there is, finally, a female teacher of the Dark Arts, Dolores Umbridge, who’s a great villain. But, unfortunately, after posting my views, I received quite a few comments about the alleged rape of Umbridge. You can look those posts up, if you want. The links to most everything I’ve written on Reel Girl about the Harry Potter series is cut and pasted below, most recent first. This sentence from one of my posts pretty much sums up my views:
If Harry Potter, a series with a male protagonist, titled for that male, where the author was told by her publisher to use initials to hide her gender, is considered feminist because a third of the characters in power positions are female, we have a long way to go before achieving gender equality in the fantasy world.
When I was with my six year old daughter at the book store, and she chose Land of Stories by “Glee” actor Chris Colfer, I was skeptical. Colfer is an actor. And twenty-three years old. And male. Not only that, from the back book cover, it was obvious Land of Stories is reimagined fairy tales. Been there, done that. Nonetheless, my daughter insisted, and as a rule, I generally buy my kids a book if they really want it, because from my experience, resistance only makes it more desirable.
My daughter plowed through the book, requested its sequel, and then finished over 500 pages in about a week. My daughter, now just turned 7, read most of the book herself, so I only got snips here and there, when I read it to her. From the scenes I read, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. The protagonists are twins, Alexandra and Conner. I get annoyed by how books with a female protagonist seem to need to balance her with a co-starring male. Can’t we just see the female protag? Or what about sisters? Or female buddies? Why is that pairing so rare?
But in most parts of Land of Stories that I read, Alex is a strong and brave character. Here are a couple passages that won me over as we neared the finish of the second book, The Enchantress Returns.
“You have to save the fairy-tale world, Alex!” Conner said. “You have to save the Otherworld and Mom, too!”
Alex’s grip around her brother’s feet tightened. “I can’t save anything without you,” she said.
“Yes, you can,” he said. “It was always meant to be you! You’re the one who got us here and you’re the one who is going to get us out! You heard the ghosts– you’re the heir of magic! You’ve got to defeat the Enchantress so this world can go on!”
“I can’t do it alone,” she said, terrified to lose him.
“Yes, you can,” Conner said. “I’m really sorry about this.”
Conner kicked Alex off of him, and the vines consumed him entirely. They dragged him and Trollbella down into the ground and disappeared.
“Conner!” Alex yelled after him, but it was no use. He was gone.
Alex looked across the camp just in time to see the vines pull Red, Froggy, Jack, and Goldilocks into the ground with one, final heave. As soon as Trollbella, Red, and the others clinging on to them had been taken, all the vines in the campsite disappeared into the ground. They had com efor the queens.
Alex got to her feet and looked around in shock. In a matter of minutes, all of her friends and her brother had been taken from her. She had no choice but to finish the quest alone– it was all up to her now.
Love it! Of course, as I reading this to my daughter, I was thinking: “Right on, Conner, get out of there. Alex needs to do this.”
Unlike Harry Potter’s magical world, this Fairy world has an almost equal number of females and males in power in the government, with a the Fairy Godmother at the head, and the evil enchantress as the villain. Here’s a passage that describes the governing group.
Hung across the wall from top to bottom were Queen Snow White and King Chandler, Queen Cinderella and King Chance, Queen Sleeping Beauty and King Chase, Queen Rapunzel. and members of the Fairy Council. And now, withe the inclusion of Red and Trollbella, the entire Happily Ever After Assembly was at the Enchantress’s mercy.
I appreciate all the subtle ways Colfer recognizes female power. The female characters are not princesses but queens and they are listed before their male partners. Red is Little Red Riding Hood and Trollbella is the leader of the Trolls. It’s great to read a story about what happens to these princesses after they marry and their adventures are supposedly over. Its also nice that Rapunzel remains unmarried. It is interesting that Colfer makes an effort to pair of the others and gives the kings big roles. It’s sort of like giving a female protags a male twin, and other passages I read, the deference of the Queens annoyed me.
Here’s the passage that made me a true fan. How does Alex find the strength to save Fairy-tale world all alone? She has a dream where goes into a cave and meets four little girls: Lucy of Narnia, Alice of Wonderland, Dorothy of Oz, and Wendy of Neverland. They five girls talk together about the various ways Alex could try to destroy the Enchantress.
She looked up at the girls and around the cave. “Now I understand the meaning of my dream,” she said. “Deep down, I knew I could never kill the Enchantress, so I was searching for another way. The cave represents my questioning and you represent the answer— because ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always thought of you when I had a problem.”
“Why is that?” said Alice.
“I suppose I’ve learned so much from you,” Alex said. “I always wanted to be as loving as Wendy, or as curious as Alex, or as brave as Lucy, or as adventurous as Dorothy– I always saw a little bit of myself when I read about each of you.”
I’m not a fan of Wendy, but I named my oldest daughter Lucy and my second Alice after those incredible characters. I really enjoyed the pages where they come together and mentor Alex, giving her sage advice from their own experience.
The writing in these books is not the greatest. There is a lot of word repetition in sentences like: “It happened so fast Alex wasn’t sure what happened.” Also, too many adverbs: “Her hair anxiously swayed above her.” But Colfer is twenty-three, for goodness sake. I’ll be following his writing career. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next.
If you have read these two books, please let me know what you think. With the caveat that I have only read passages of them, Reel Girl rates Land of Stories ***HH***
My expectations were low but “Smurfs 2” surpassed them.
Not only does “Smurfs 2” feature the famous posse of too many to count males accompanied by just one female, but this movie is all about fathers. A movie for kids centered on fatherhood could be great, but when the Smurfs are already so creepily male dominated, the erasure of mothers is alarming and disturbing. The good, golden-haired female pitted against the evil, dark-haired female trope, central to “Smurfs 2,” is so tired in kid fantasy world (not to mention the grown-up world) that I was slack jawed to see it again, even though, of course, I shouldn’t have been. That’s why it’s a trope, right?
Did you know that evil Gargamel created Smurfette as a ploy to infiltrate the Smurfs? That’s right, Smurfette, the only female Smurf, isn’t even a real Smurf. It’s only when Papa Smurf comes to care for Smurfette as a daughter that he uses a magic potion to transform her. At that point, not only does he change her skin to blue but her hair to blonde, thus becoming Smurfette’s true father.
“Smurfs 2” opens with that backstory and then brings us to present day with a scene showing the Smurfs gawk at Smurfette as she swishes her blonde locks around in slow-mo. But there’s trouble in paradise: every year on her birthday, Smurfette is haunted by a dream in which she once again turns evil, and her hair, once again, turns brown.
Cut to Gargamel who has created/ fathered a new race: the Naughties. Evil, dark-haired Vexy has a similar mission to Smurfette’s years ago. Gargamel sends to Vexy to infiltrate Smurfville to recover his “daughter,” hoping that Smurfette will reveal to him the secret potion Papa Smurf used to turn her into a Smurf, thus Gargamel can create Smurfs himself.
Cut to the human world where Patrick is having a birthday party for his son, Blue, to which his father, Victor, arrives. (Got that? Three generations of males.) Victor serves the kids corn dogs that happen to be fried in peanut oil. A young party guest has an allergic reaction, and the celebration is ruined. That’s the latest in a long line of events that lead to Patrick’s deep frustration with his loving but bumbling father. Turns out, Victor is not Patrick’s biological father, but his step father. Patrick’s “real” father walked out on him years ago. So you see, the conflict of true paternity experienced by Smurfette– wondering if her “real” father Papa Smurf or Gargamel– is mirrored by the Patrick’s own dilemma: can his step-father be his “real” father?
Both Papa Smurf and Gargamel essentially “give birth” without any need of females, kind of like our own Judeo-Christian creation myth and its independent and endlessly resourceful male God. While Smurfette has no mother at all, Patrick’s mother is hardly mentioned in the movie. I couldn’t even tell if she’s dead or alive.
Now, for the good news. There are threeMinority Feisty in this movie. This was my first Smurf movie so I don’t know if that’s a record, though the pathetic female to male ratio is of course where the term, the Smurfette Principle, originated from. In case you don’t know what Minority Feisty means here’s a cut and paste from Reel Girl’s review of “Planes.”
Today, if you see a movie for children, it will most often have a male protagonist, while females, who are, in fact, half of the kid population, are presented as if they were a minority. Within that minority, there will be a strong female or two who reviewers will invariably call “feisty.” I call these characters the “Minority Feisty.” The trope has evolved from the Smurfette principle in that there is often more than one, and she is presented as strong. But rarely is she the protagonist. Her power, lines, and screen time are carefully and consistently circumscribed to show that she is not as important as the male star. Still, the Minority Feisty is supposed to pacify parents, making them feel that, unlike those sexist films of yesteryear, this movie is contemporary and feminist.
Smurfette spends most of the movie as a captured damsel in distress who the male smurfs, and mostly male humans, must rescue, but like most Minority Feisty, she has her moments of courage and brilliance. Also, upon befriending her enemy, Vexy, while Smurfette never says, “I want to stay with you because I can’t stand being the only female in Smurfville,” she does express joy at having the sister she never did.
Grace is another Minority Feisty. She’s Patrick’s wife, Blue’s mom, and she’s cool and brave. But the central human, with the conflict and the transition, not to mention the lines and the screen time, is clearly Patrick.
Vexy is an okay Minority Feisty. I enjoyed her badness and watching her transition. Did you read that part about transition? We now have–are you ready– 2 female Smurfs! And Vexy stays brunette. Thus with “Smurfs 2,” the Smurfette principle truly evolves into the Minority Feisty: two females and one of them is a bad-ass. Is that progress or what? According to the Geena Davis Institute, at this rate, it will be only 700 years before we get gender equality in the fantasy world.
Reel Girl rates “Smurfs 2” ***SS*** for gender stereotyping
Normal boys will NOT wear pink, girly shoes. It’s just a fact of nature. That is the reason society and marketers accept different preferences for different genders. Get over it! Who wants to live in a world where there are two genders who all look alike, have the same preferences, etc. What a boring world you liberal nuts would desire to live in!
Pink was first a “boy” color, a version of red which symbolized strength. Blue was a “girl” color, associated with the Virgin Mary. That’s why in the early Disney movies, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice in Wonderland all wore blue.
But today, because of marketing, we get comments like the one above from adults and from kids. Here it is again:
Normal boys will NOT wear pink…It’s just a fact of nature.
People keep asking me if I want “gender neutral.” I’m not even sure what that means, and the question misses the point. I want options. I want all kids to see many more images of powerful and complex females, to see girls taking risks, saving the world, being brave, smart, and going on adventures in the fantasy world and in the real one.
Here’s my four year old daughter. I wouldn’t call her a “tomboy,” whatever that means. She likes pants; she likes dresses; she like yellow, she likes pink, she likes black. She likes to race and play soccer and read and make art. She loves superheroes and her mermaid Barbie.
My daughter chose Star Wars shoes because her male cousin had them. So part of her decision was made from just hanging out with a boy, something we don’t see nearly enough of today with all these gender segregated toys and marketing. At school, wearing her new shoes, my daughter was teased by a five year old girl who told her she was wearing “boy shoes.” How long until my daughter stops going to the “boy” side of stores?
My 7 year old daughter told me that at her school, a first grade boy was playing with a castle, and she heard a first grade girl keep telling him: “That’s a girl toy.” The girl wouldn’t let up until the boy stopped playing and moved away. Gender stereotyping leads to bullying and that limits all kids. And gender stereotyping is everywhere. Even if I don’t shop at Stride Rite, my kids will still see this ad in the window. The Stride Rite store is in a San Francisco neighborhood where lots of kids go school. Hundreds of children will see this ad every day.
I agree with the commenters. I wish Stride Rite would recognize that we don’t want want to live in a world where two genders all look alike and have all the same preferences. All kids need to see more female protagonists and strong female characters. Stride Rite, are you listening?
As always, I welcome your comments, but don’t use this space to trash Tucker Carlson. Attack the argument, not the idea. The last thing I want is to mimic the trolls.
