Fearless Friday - The Santa Edition
In this season of shopping, especially for children, Mary Ann Sieghart's article in the (British) Independent is oh so timely: http://dft.ba/-1h57. Perhaps my favorite line was the quotation from the 1918 catalog, which described pink (then the color for boys) as being the stronger color, while blue was delicate and dainty. I can't think of anything that makes more apparent the arbitrary nature of assigning certain colors to one gender or the other, even as it makes equally visible the strong-boy, delicate-and-dainty-girl dichotomy that always makes me snicker. I don't even need one hand to count the number of girls I know or have known who would qualify for the "delicate and dainty label;" though they may be generally feminine, most of the women I know are more "wild woman" than anything else.
Sieghart's article rang a regular peal of bells for me. I may never have begged my parents for a carpentry set, but I enjoyed being able to use the tools in my father's workshop, and to their credit, my parents never made any comments about carpentry or cooking being gender-specific skills. While they don't necessarily hold with gender equality (or gay marriage, for that matter), they believe that being able to use tools, whether to build or to make a meal, are survival skills. Not only did they give my sister and me the basics, but we watched my mother upholster chairs and, whenever my mother's back went out, my father turned into the chief cook.
That not everyone thinks that way because crystal clear to me when my daughter was young. We were down visiting my in-laws and she was exploring the bookcases in the back holiday, where the old toys were kept. She came back to the living room with a truck and showed it to BH's great-aunt, who immediately said, "Oh, but you don't want to play with that?" My response was immediate, "Yes, she does." But BH's great-aunt was in her late 80s at the time, so I let it go, even as I encouraged BD to play with whatever toys she wanted.
Sieghart's article also reminded me of a report done by another student in the Gender, Sexuality, and Communications class that I took last spring semester. She had examined picture books published, looking at those published recently and those published earlier. While her study was flawed, in that she looked at publication dates rather than copyright dates (as a result, such classic titles as Madeleine and Curious George were included in her list), the truly recent books tended to reinforce gender stereotypes as least as strongly as the classics did. True, there are exceptions like My Princess Boy, but they are rare.
Perhaps it was Sieghart's article that inspired by visit to a local indie toystore this week (although I did tell myself I was merely going in search of a standard kazoo). Indie toystores are a lot like indie bookstores--less full of mass market. The toystore had plenty of shelves filled with wooden games and blocks, not to mention the classic 1945 Slinky. Some costumes also caught my eye, and while I was disappointed that the packaging for the knight's tabard showed only two boys--I've always had a hankering to take lessons in swordsmanship--I was at least mildly reassured by the chef's costume and its packaging, which featured a boy on the left and a girl on the right, each modeling the white-with-red-and-white-checked trim apron, cap, and oven glove. It's small, but at least it shows someone, somewhere, is thinking about these things.
Most of all, though, I want to echo Sieghart's final plea: While society has become more equal, if we want it to move toward equal treatment not simply of cis-gender but of transgender individuals, we need to resist the efforts of business (in the back of my head, Mel Brooks' voice from Spaceballs, Da Movie, says "moychandizing") to create a chasm between boys and girls.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear of any encounters you had this year with gender-specific (or gender-neutral) toys this holiday season.
Sieghart's article rang a regular peal of bells for me. I may never have begged my parents for a carpentry set, but I enjoyed being able to use the tools in my father's workshop, and to their credit, my parents never made any comments about carpentry or cooking being gender-specific skills. While they don't necessarily hold with gender equality (or gay marriage, for that matter), they believe that being able to use tools, whether to build or to make a meal, are survival skills. Not only did they give my sister and me the basics, but we watched my mother upholster chairs and, whenever my mother's back went out, my father turned into the chief cook.
That not everyone thinks that way because crystal clear to me when my daughter was young. We were down visiting my in-laws and she was exploring the bookcases in the back holiday, where the old toys were kept. She came back to the living room with a truck and showed it to BH's great-aunt, who immediately said, "Oh, but you don't want to play with that?" My response was immediate, "Yes, she does." But BH's great-aunt was in her late 80s at the time, so I let it go, even as I encouraged BD to play with whatever toys she wanted.
Sieghart's article also reminded me of a report done by another student in the Gender, Sexuality, and Communications class that I took last spring semester. She had examined picture books published, looking at those published recently and those published earlier. While her study was flawed, in that she looked at publication dates rather than copyright dates (as a result, such classic titles as Madeleine and Curious George were included in her list), the truly recent books tended to reinforce gender stereotypes as least as strongly as the classics did. True, there are exceptions like My Princess Boy, but they are rare.
Perhaps it was Sieghart's article that inspired by visit to a local indie toystore this week (although I did tell myself I was merely going in search of a standard kazoo). Indie toystores are a lot like indie bookstores--less full of mass market. The toystore had plenty of shelves filled with wooden games and blocks, not to mention the classic 1945 Slinky. Some costumes also caught my eye, and while I was disappointed that the packaging for the knight's tabard showed only two boys--I've always had a hankering to take lessons in swordsmanship--I was at least mildly reassured by the chef's costume and its packaging, which featured a boy on the left and a girl on the right, each modeling the white-with-red-and-white-checked trim apron, cap, and oven glove. It's small, but at least it shows someone, somewhere, is thinking about these things.
Most of all, though, I want to echo Sieghart's final plea: While society has become more equal, if we want it to move toward equal treatment not simply of cis-gender but of transgender individuals, we need to resist the efforts of business (in the back of my head, Mel Brooks' voice from Spaceballs, Da Movie, says "moychandizing") to create a chasm between boys and girls.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear of any encounters you had this year with gender-specific (or gender-neutral) toys this holiday season.