Yes, we've been complaining about it for decades.
I just wanted dinosaurs
If anyone ever doubts that the creation of consumer identities reinforces oppressive structures, they straight up need to look at the toy lines and corresponding tv shows that came out of the 80’s. Conforming to stereotypes is heavily rewarded because it makes you a realizable consumer. The media we watch is designed to make that process feel more personal and pleasurable. And we start kids in this consumer indoctrination process pretty much as soon as they can open their eyes
:yea:
It bothered me a lot back when I was a little “girl.” Haven’t really thought about it in a while. But yeah, I had to put up with a lot of sexism growing up. We do live in a society
What you call “chore” toys are good because kids wants to copy what their parents do, we have a toy kitchen set in our kitchen because the toddler wants to spend time with us but doesn’t exactly have a lot of finesse with the stove yet. They have their own cupboard and their own drawer in the fridge. And dolls make for great canvases for art projects, to learn basic sewing, and to experiment with haircuts in a way that they can go back from if they don’t like it. I had a kid try a mohawk on a doll before settling on an undercut. Also they get some real fucked up urges sometimes and I’d prefer them pulling heads off of dolls instead of breaking their siblings’ arms pushing them off the table or something.
That said, absolutely none of this is specific to either gender and a lot of good can be had by just letting kids pick their own toys in the store. I’ve taken to Amazon shopping for a lot of toys because at least there isn’t a “girl aisle” as if little girls are some sort of alternate creature with foreign needs. Most kids mix and match gendered toys if you let them and push back on all the gender that gets imposed on the experience.
Yeah my little niece has a tiny little mop she likes to wave around when it's time for everyone to clean up the kitchen. It's just fun doing what the adults are doing
Two is a little young but they can start hammering pretty early. They’re not strong enough to hold the hammer with one hand so strike risk is small since they get more control with 2. If you drill pilot holes that will hold the nails in place like halfway down it’s doable with guidance to build planters or bird houses probably at like 3
Yeah the problem isn’t the toys it’s the curation
Kids like dolls and dinosaurs regardless, so if you can get both
I dont find it weird because it's long been obvious to me. Toys and games are a way for children to learn and mimic behaviors that will be useful for them later. Animals practice hunting and chasing and being chased. Sports are about war.
It's not really a secret that for a long time women as a class served an essential economic role in socially reproductive labor (as well certain other industry, e.g. the history of textile production is dominated by women since antiquity.) Child-making and rearing was a uniquely important facet of this, since the number of births within a polity was directly dependent on the number of women able to bear children at any given time. Men don't have the same reproductive restrictions, so the number of them having children, being alive, etc. wasn't as important.
As an aside, this is a big reason I think why women-as-property was a large facet of cultures - they were simply very valuable, and to possess them, trade them, and extract value from all kinds of their labor, could make someone very rich.
So, while certain parts of the vast network of social structures that emerged to constrain women into these economic roles have largely ebbed, socialization through toys and play remains.
"Women were property because they made the babies" is kind of a TERFy/2nd wave feminist talking point though. Not all women can get pregnant/give birth/have uteruses. I don't think I'd tie womanhood to bearing children.
I might've misunderstood your point though so I don't want to attack you, if you want to expound further please feel free
Ok, maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but isn't "women perform this kind of reproductive labor" still a bio-essentialist argument? Because it hinges on the idea of women having certain hardwired biological roles, even though womanhood is a social category and women come in a vast array of different biological configurations? And for the record I'm not calling you or anyone else in this thread a bio-essentialist, personally, I'm just saying the argument, as I'm parsing it, sounds like such a kind.
What's being talked about is the broader social expectation that women perform reproductive labor. I don't think Bay_of_Piggies is claiming that to be fact or their own opinion. I mean, that this expectation was nearly universally held, and still is held by many, is not to say that it is right or good. Women were considered property in no small part because the majority of them were capable of and expected to make babies. That expectation is misogynistic and is a mainstay of the patriarchy. And yes, it would additionally be a TERFy thing to say if one were to claim that only women were capable of having babies, but it's not at all TERFy to recognize that this definitely was (and unforrunately still is to a degree) a widely held belief.
I may also have something wrong here, including the possibility that I may have misunderstood what you were even asking or unclear on. If so, I don't mean to unhelpfully explain the obvious.
Ehhhhhhhhh that's a pretty weird take and seems to erase a lot of women but at this point I'm convinced I'm missing something so in good faith I'm gonna disengage
The societal view of women throws out infertile women/trans women/and other groups as being functionally non existent. Of course in reality these groups are very real but by much of the mechanisms in patriarchal society, they might as well not be. Patriarchy values the woman as the mother and the baby maker first and foremost, and those women who could not fulfill this role are tossed to the side. Acknowledging this doesn't fall into gender essentialism, but rather critiques gender essentialist ideas.
It gets worse. For shows like Steven Universe or Adventure Time that were popular among both boys and girls, the networks have been known to push back. That means the show would be getting only some of each demographic and compete with their other shows for parts of their audience
They would rather have a show that specifically targets a single demographic to make their marketing budget accounting eaiser.
So a well written broadly intresting show is frowned upon sometimes
Beyond parody. "OH NO! WE CAN'T HAVE HITS, THAT MAKE WEIRDER SPREADSHEETS! We need to go back to "Bratz" and "That fucking canadian 12 yo who was constantly horny" "
I remember a stupid documental about He-Man, turns out girls were watching the show too and that was a problem for the fucking producers because they thought boys will stop watching the show if they saw their sisters enjoying it, so they made a spin off "specifically for girls" and the spinoff was garbage.
The American cartoon industry is trapped in an endless circle where they accidentally made something good, only for some chucklefuck exec who only thinks in toy sales to took notice and fuck it up
I was really mad about how dogshit Legend of Korra was and I'm relieved to know it was like that because of capitalism
Also the writer are libs but eh
Yeah it's a very old example of sexism and gender roles imposition. Like I imagine a giant fucking :porky-happy: crushing your child soft skull with its fucking finger while saying "YOU. LIKE. PINK. AND. YOU. LIKE. BABIES. CUZ. YOU. ARE. A. GIRL. AND. THAT'S. YOUR. WHOLE. I-DEN-TI-TY."
i remember inviting my friend (who was a girl) to my house in kindergarten and she stole a dinosaur and a toy car from me because her parents only gave her dolls
It's actually sad yet lmao
