Don't mind me, i'm just
going to rant for a bit
In my experience as a
kid, I cared not for whether my favorite characters on TV were male
or female. I never understood why it mattered, so what if Astro boy
was a boy, I’d call myself Astro boy and be the coolest person in
the game any way. I never pretended to be April O'Neal...why would
it? It was the turtles were were cool so I pretended to be one of
them. Gender didn't matter. So when I saw Batman Returns in the
cinema twice, as in we came out of one session, bought tickets and
went straight back in, I was there to see batman. In black, and all
manly like (I was about 9 so it wasn't like that at all). The Disney
princesses of the day bored me for the most part, and seriously who
wouldn't get bored waiting to be rescued? And I had care bears, My
little Ponies and VOLTRON in my toy box like any kids of the 80's.
Jump forward to having
my own girls, I'd spent very little time thinking about how girls
were represented or marketed towards because who cared? Really,
girls like what girls like just as boy like what boys like, why the
heck not? We make up our own minds, right?
Well to an extent, yes.
But as a mother of two girls, and being in the middle of weathering
a Christmas season I have to say my husband and I find ourselves both
completely disgusted and utterly confused at some of the things we
see.
The example that first
comes to my mind when I think of shocking advertising material is
Disney's boxes of books.
My husband spotted this and was truly disgusted. Our youngest LOVES Toy Story, and Finding Nemo, I personally loved The Lion King when I was young. In fact of the 'girls' books we regularly view 'Tangled' and “Tinkerbell' The rest, not so much. This could be why.
But Disney has changed
and evolved through time. There are a number of their 'Princess'
movies that we let the girls watch now, and this isn't actually an
anti Disney post because we see things like this on the shelf as
well.
Google Search Result:
Nerf for Girls
Ok, so yes I did the
search with this result in mind, because I knew what would come up.
Nerf, for girls...seriously? Why does it have to be pink, and
purple? I'm a long time hater of the colour pink, largely because it
was expected that as a girl I’d like it. However, that
aside...why?
I'm going to start with
my least outrage-y stance here, the colour.
It's pink, so does the
colour make this
Nerf Rebelle Crush
Blaster
appeal more than this?
Nerf Vortex Firestrike
WHY? Because it's
pink? If you look closely the Firestrike is clearly cooler, no
question, it has a laser pointer (light beam) built in.
Colour aside because
even my husband acknowledges that the pink, white ad black does in
fact look cool (“But why does it have to be for girls?”)
Let's look at the names
of these weapons.
The Crush Blaster
The Sweet Revenge
Blaster
And my personal
favourite, The Heart Breaker Crossbow.
Seriously?
The standard range of
nerf have these:
Hailfire Blaster
Firestrike
Strongarm Blaster
Electro Storm
And so many more that
are no where near as offensive.
Why do the 'girls'
weapons get names that clearly imply not only personal Vendetta's but
romances and or romantic feelings. Girls are perfectly capable of
more than just soft squishy feelings towards other people, and we
certainly should be held in better regard to think that should our
squishy feelings not be reciprocated, or go unnoticed that we might
take up arms and assault the offenders.
Seeing the names of
these weapons makes me see red (not pink, a full blown red), it
really winds me up and I want yell at everyone nearby that it isn't
acceptable!!!!
No, one last thing
about the 'girls' Nerf range, the entire thing is called the
'Rebelle' Range.
So as a girl if you are
so inclined to enjoy partaking in the shooting of your friendship a
fun manner, you are in fact a rebel (and of course it's girl so it's
two l's and an e worthy).
To be honest I didn't
notice much of any of this until my husband pointed it out to me, and
that was merely because I wasn't paying a lot of attention to it, I
don't much care for nerf, it's just not my geek point. But my
husband sure did.
We've discussed the
other range of toys that's been under fire for 'girly-fying' their
toys, LEGO. They did make things pink and purple yes, and sure
there's more stereotypically 'girl' things in the Lego friends range,
but there's also karate practitioners, and Inventors, and vets. So
at the very least they have tried to keep the field relatively even.
And to be honest my girls get a mix of all the Lego ranges quite
happily.
I see so many things
coming out for 'girls' and it being just what the boys get but in
pink. It's really very frustrating. Superhero underwear...great,
love to see that for girls it's annoying that they only get tinker
bell, princesses and Dora to choose from. But why is the batman
symbol pink? I'd love to see more dinosaur, and superhero and star
wars clothes in the 'girls' section. Or perhaps with the exception
of some articles which are specifically designed for one gender or
the other (yes I’m aware it is necessary for some things) just have
a general clothing section and ditch the genderisation.
Toys certainly NEVER
need to be categorised by gender and I even shop in some shops over
others because they format their catalogues by category (dress up,
building, vehicles) rather than girls and boys sections.
In my world my friends
allow their children the freedom to like what they like, boys that
like pink and play with dolls, girls that love green and play with
cars, movies and tv shows that have both male and female
protagonists, not just one or the other. But not so for everyone
else and people must be falling for this marketing if they're still
doing it.
Please, Stop and think,
and maybe if we as consumers just stop buying into this garbage
they'd change their tactics.
Maybe...unlikely I know
but still
Rant over.
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