Pink Princess
We were talking about pink. The color pink, not the singer.
I said something to the effect of how I hate that it is marketed towards girls in everything, leaving their poor parents without much option.
My friend replied "But I don't see why my daughter can't be allowed to play princess while she is a kid? I would much rather she go through her pink phase while she is young, than when she is say 16."
Knowing that I was entering the minefield where we non-parents are inevitably killed, - simply because we do not have children and therefore must shut up - I dropped the subject.
But what I was thinking was something like this:
When it comes to children's clothing there is a horrific gender gap that, honestly, makes them into the teenagers they become later on.
If we teach tiny kids that girls should be pleasing and pretty and that boys should be monster loving super heroes, can we be surprised when a thirteen year old girl is having sex with multiple partners and a thirteen year old boy is violent?
If all marketing is geared towards putting the value of a girl into how beautiful she is and whether she is wanted by all, can we be surprised that she seeks that same attention when she grows older? Is it strange that she wants to wear the sexy clothes that MTV- princesses are wearing? It seems to me that it is the next logical step.
The same goes for boys. If a boy is taught that his value is in relation to how violent he can be towards perceived bad guys, can we be surprised when he is violent at all?
We ask that teenagers know right from wrong, but how are they supposed to know any better than we teach them?
I don't know what it is like to be a parent, I can only imagine that it is a life full of wondering whether any of the thousands of decisions one has to make for one's kids will eventually harm them.
But perhaps there needs to be a quiet uprising against the gender marketing monster?
I said something to the effect of how I hate that it is marketed towards girls in everything, leaving their poor parents without much option.
My friend replied "But I don't see why my daughter can't be allowed to play princess while she is a kid? I would much rather she go through her pink phase while she is young, than when she is say 16."
Knowing that I was entering the minefield where we non-parents are inevitably killed, - simply because we do not have children and therefore must shut up - I dropped the subject.
But what I was thinking was something like this:
When it comes to children's clothing there is a horrific gender gap that, honestly, makes them into the teenagers they become later on.
If we teach tiny kids that girls should be pleasing and pretty and that boys should be monster loving super heroes, can we be surprised when a thirteen year old girl is having sex with multiple partners and a thirteen year old boy is violent?
If all marketing is geared towards putting the value of a girl into how beautiful she is and whether she is wanted by all, can we be surprised that she seeks that same attention when she grows older? Is it strange that she wants to wear the sexy clothes that MTV- princesses are wearing? It seems to me that it is the next logical step.
The same goes for boys. If a boy is taught that his value is in relation to how violent he can be towards perceived bad guys, can we be surprised when he is violent at all?
We ask that teenagers know right from wrong, but how are they supposed to know any better than we teach them?
I don't know what it is like to be a parent, I can only imagine that it is a life full of wondering whether any of the thousands of decisions one has to make for one's kids will eventually harm them.
But perhaps there needs to be a quiet uprising against the gender marketing monster?
posted by disinterpreter at 10:58 AM
7 Comments:
I agree with the pink thing. I don't have any daughters but I would never dress them exclusively in pink. A little now and then is fine. I think it's up to parents to try not to push "gender" perferences on our children. My son's favorite color is pink, and that's cool. Of course, I own a hot pink guitar so who am I to judge.
I do think boys and girls naturally tend towards certain toys. Boys tend to like building toys/cars/guns/etc. while girls tend more towards dolls and such. Again, this is a generalization as one of my friends has 2 daughters who love video games and study Karate ith mom. Parents need to concentrate on nurturing their kids interests. I think if parents are supportive of their kids efforts, that will help to turn them into well adjusted adults.
Another excellent post Elin. It again pre-empts an entry I am planning on this very topic - I have been reading a little on the subject, though it will take me a while to cobble it together.
Thank you Chameleon, I look forward to reading it! Sydwynd, so cool about the Pink!
As much as I would love it if there were absolutely no diffrences between the genders, I too must admit that there seem to be some. However, my own, very private and not at all scientific view is this: there are physical diffrences, these influence certain behavioural diffrences. What is up to us though, is channeling these physical diffrences in a constructive way so that they don't feel pressured to fit into anything. The way it is now it seems that we are contructing humans that are doomed to fail, especially in their inter-communicative skills. If all girls are waiting for a prince and all boys want to kill someone...well I don't see how they can avoid ending up getting a divorce;).
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We tried to give our children the same types of toys when they were young; my son had a doll and a pushchair and my daughter model railway, for example. She tended to wear his cast-off clothes when she was younger.
Despite that, six or more years on, she's a girly girl (aged 8) and he's a boy with the usual interest in violence (aged 9). She had a pink Barbie phase, of course. No prompting from us. Peer pressure happens even when you are three.
I don't know what happened to my comments there, and I don't seem to be able to delete them. Argh.
Anyway.
Alan, that is exactly my point, we can't raise children in a vacum.
But the children's toy and clothing market is making it close to impossible for parents to make the choices they think are suitable- such as yours, which btw I find refreshing and sane!
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