This week has been a total bust. I am still sick. I haven’t gotten ANYTHING done! For a fairly type A person like me, this really chaps my hide. Mid-week, after giving up on A) studying, B) blogging, C) cleaning, or D) bathing (no worries, Chance has been well taken care of throughout and luckily, work has been slow), after sitting for one too many hours watching children’s programming I finally pulled the huge pile of holiday catalogs to my side and started flipping through them.
I mean, if I don’t have the brain power/energy for anything else I might as well Christmas shop, right? (One more thing off my plate when I finally get to the huge research paper due for school. Argh)
So as I’m flipping through the ten million catalogs I noticed an oh-so-(sadly-)familiar pattern, and on behalf of chicks everywhere I just want to say, I’m offended. Apparently the toy industry feels little girls are consumed with toys centered around grooming themselves. And pink. Lots and lots of pink.
Now I don’t have a problem with pink in general. It’s not my favorite color in the world, and in particular I really don’t care for carnation pink (ala Barbie), but I’m not going to say I haven’t occasionally worn something pink. Or you know, had a fabulous accessory like deep rose pumps that looked so kicking offset by my mint green top. (What?) I understand that lots of little girls (and women) love the color.
But when I encounter a tsunami of pink merchandise as a sweeping symbol for all things female? Yeah, it kind of makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
It’s like when you go to your local sporting event and want to buy a new shirt for your team. You expect to find something kick-ass in teal and black with lots of teeth and all that’s available is a pink crop top with curly script.
Gag
I also am kind of offended (and always have been) that the color pink is just assumed to be universally loved by all women, that it inherently symbolizes our gender, and is automatically co-opted by any cause or jackass merchandiser who wants to get female participation or dollars. (And then I feel bad because I know pink is for breast cancer, and yes, I DO SUPPORT breast cancer research!)
But still. Me girl. Me like pink. Ugh. I mean technically, if you’re going to pick a color as a symbol of the physical female gender it’s, um, the wrong color pink. If you know what I’m saying.
And why is there no sweeping symbolic color for men and all things male?
Now, yes, I have a boy, so why am I worried about this? Because I shop for little girls. I hope to have a little girl one day. And frankly, I wasn’t quite into this crap when I was a kid. Yes, as a little girl I did like pink, but I wasn’t into grooming myself or grooming accessories (that came much later). I also really, really wanted to be Indiana Jones, and an adventurer-archaeologist in pink would just not blend into a desert dig or jungle at all.
As a kid, I wasn’t really drawn to a lot of the “typical” girl toys and I have to imagine there are still girls out there who aren’t into them. In fact, I know one little girl who’s interests fall along the same lines mine did. A lot of interest in science and nature, lots of leanings towards the alternative. For her last birthday I bought her goth clothes and she really loved them. It was easy to shop for her; I simply picked out stuff I would have loved to get at that age. And never got. I do remember getting my first Hello Kitty collectible something-or-other and having no idea what to do with it. Ditto with the first nail polish kit.
(See? Because you CAN be female, like shoes, and still not like pink or doing your nails. I’m just saying. I’ve also noticed that you pay a premium for “female empowerment” merchandise, but that’s a whole other WTF post.)
So anyway, out of the gajillion catalogs I did find a few that had more options for girl toys than just pink and grooming yourself, and I wanted to share these with you. I thought The Met catalog, Back To Basics Toys, and Flax Art all have nice general purpose toys.
How about all of you? Any nice shopping alternatives to the onslaught of stereotypical and clichéd toys out there? For boys and girls?
As for you men out there, I think it’s high time you all picked your color of inherent maleness. (But don’t pick black because then what would the disaffected youth and middle-aged women of America wear?) OK? Go!
– the weirdgirl
Can’t comment on this. My daughter loves pink and bows and brushes and all that stuff. We’re part of the problem.
come by our way, wg. Sparkability.com, oompa.com, mahardrygoods.com etc.
some great stuff and more… 🙂
I feel your pain. Really I do.
I hate Christmas. It the worst time of the year and I always amazed over how stupid people act during this time. No offense to you of course. With that off my mind, we celebrate Christmas because my wife likes it and we also want to give our kids some good traditions. We limit presents to a maximum of 4. On on Christmas eve and three when the kings arrive. I don’t want one single present but will probably end of with something since wife likes to shop. Rest of our stuff we pick up whenever needed. Presents are nicer to me when they are not a big deal and whe no one expects to get one.
The pink trend has been apparent for many years. Apparently boys only likes trucks, tractors, cars, and action figures. Preferably in blue color. I have no good solutions for this trend except buy whatever you want. The colors don’t offend me since I never cared about their meaning to start with. Of course it’s a terrible stereotype for society in whole but people are in general stupid and fall for this. Few stand up and ask the questions you just did.
I would suggest tp do ALL shopping onlime to avoid running in to billions of people in the stores. Standing in line is such a waste of time.
AD
I ran into this when I was Halloween shopping. Ally didn’t want to be a princess or witch. She wanted to be a monster. They don’t make little girls monster costumes. So I had to look through the little boys racks. (didn’t find one there either, but still…)
Also, When I bought Ally training pants, I asked if she wanted the package that had pink in it or the white ones with pink flowers. She turned them both down and picked up the “pretty blue ones” instead. Go Ally!
Pink definitely has its place, but there is way too much of it out there.
You know, at the turn of the century it was the other way around, where pink was a masculine color and blue was for girls. Weird, eh?
It’s because pink is a weak color and girls are weak, right?
I KID I KID
I don’t have any small children to shop for, so I hadn’t realized that pink was so all pervasive for girls. I’m not a bright pink fan either. In fact, I don’t think I own anything pink at all.
I never played with girl toys when I was little. I guess I’m making up for it now by playing with Shrinky Dinks and sewing cute little purses.
It’s funny because I think I would be classified as “girly” – much more so now than when I was a kid. I love clothes, shoes, purses, but I also like cars, boxing, and science fiction. And there are certain uber-feminine icons that I LOVE, like retro-50s pinup girls, drag queens, even Barbie (but without the pink). I don’t have anything against “girly” stuff, I just get a little sick of the pervasiveness of pink. Sometimes the onslaught seems to both mock my intelligence, and refuses to give us any alternatives as women. You know?
And might I point out that some men look fabulous in pink! (CroutonBoy, I’m sure you would be stunning.)
Mary, i could not agree more – I am so pissed off when I go to a Panthers game and see Pink freaking jerseys – do they think we can’t quite handle the “boy” version of this? totally annoying – I don’t want a friggin NY Yankees hat in PINK! what is up with that anyway!?
There is a colour for boys. Ever noticed, how when you walk through the ToysRUs aisles, there is the GIRL aisle (aka Barbie, a sickly-sweet pink wasteland) and the BOY aisle (the one with all the trucks and commando dollies. Oh, sorry *action figures*.) And that aisle, WG? That aisle is Black and Red.
Check it out.
Oh, and my boy? He wears pink more often than I do. I have not one solitary pink item in my wardrobe, whereas he has a pink shirt which, like every other shirt in his closet, he wears open over t-shirt and jeans.
Pink: not just for girls any more.
I agree–there is no particular color for either gender. (There are traditional colors for stages of life. For more on this, I highly recommend–for both men and women–“Iron John: A Book About Men”, by Robert Bly (ISBN 0-679-73119-9)). But the “blue for boys, pink for girls” is just a quirk of our society. Yes, one of my two favorite colors is blue–electric blue. But that’s because of my personality, not my sex. In fact, my other favorite color is pink–hot pink. I love both equally.
And as for what women wear, I pay no attention to the colors–unless they’re particularly vivid, in which case I’m crazy about them! Actually, I pay more attention to what women wear. I am especially attracted to women wearing skirts and dresses. Now I realize they can’t wear them for everything (horseback riding, for example)–in which case I prefer womens’-cut jeans. But I absolutely despise pants (other than jeans) on women–it makes them look masculine as hell! Still, that’s just my opinion. Finally, I agree on what you say about “girls'” toys and “boys'” toys. Sure, I’d be a little concerned if my son wanted to play with a tea set all the time, but not some of the time. When I was a kid, I played with my sister’s toys sometimes–didn’t cause me any gender-confusion.