This reading was really interesting to me because I can
relate to so much of what Orenstein says, especially in chapter 3
“Pinked”. Working in retail, especially
with the Christmas season coming up, I have spent a lot of my time recently
working with toys and seeing this split between girls toys and boys toys. On one side of the section we have girls
toys, with Barbie’s, baby dolls, and arts and crafts, and on the other side we
have boy toys, such as Lego’s, action figures, and cars and trucks. Never do the two mix.
In the girls section you see all the boxes are some mixture
of pink, purple, light blue, and any other “soft” colors. Whereas, all of the boxes in the boys section
are a mixture of darker blues, black, red, and more “hard” colors. You can tell right away who they are
marketing to just by looking at the packaging.
The thing that gets me the most upset though, is how
companies actively try to keep boys toys and girl toys separate. One of the biggest offenders that I see is
Lego. For years there has only been one
type of Lego (granted they had tried many times to “appeal” to girls) and girls
were typically told that they shouldn’t use them because bricks are for boys,
even though I know many girls who liked Legos growing up. But now Lego has come out with new sets just
for girls, like Friends and Elves. Where
the boys sets are all about action and adventure, all the girls sets are about
cooking and taking care of animals. And
to make sure that the two types of sets never mix they make the color pallets
completely different, just like the outside packaging, and even the mini
figures are built completely different.
This is a phenomenal video about the difference between regular Lego's for boys and Lego's attempt to reach out to girls. She even talks about how this segregation relates to Orenstein's writing in Cinderella Ate My Daughter. I know it is a little long but if you have the time, check it out.
Final Thoughts
It is kind of astonishing just how far companies go to keep girls toys and boys toys separate, and how they justify it by saying, "Girls are born liking these things," when that is far from the case. Why can't we just let toys be toys and let kids play with whatever they want whether it's a boy playing with dolls or girls playing with regular Legos?
I agree with you about the ordeal reading Legos. Its wrong, a girl and boy should be accepted if they want to play with all colors of legos. A boy should not be embarrassed to play with a lego cooking set and girls should be able to play with construction and action sets.
ReplyDeleteI think this happens because we let it happen. It sucks though. I want to teach my little nieces they are can be engineers and pick what ever they see fit!
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about the idea of girls being born loving pink. That is taking it to the extreme rather than saying what is really causing which is the consumers, by having only pink things for girls and constantly feeding that color into our brains what else do you expect? The whole Legos thing bothers me because growing up I loved my Barbie but also my Legos. I don't like the pink and princess themed Legos it just doesn't make sense to me.
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