Posted by skyfox
on Fri 25 Nov 11, 1:45 PM to skyfox's blog.
I was in the queue at the post office, and there was a woman in front of me with a beautiful blond curly-haired little girl. The girl must have been between 2 and 4yo; I couldn't see the woman's face. Next to the queue was a strategically placed display of those cheap 1 pound toys, you know, guns that will only fire once, plastic nails, dolls, the usual plastic tat. The little girl was pointing at different toys saying "boys, boys, boys" and occasionally "girls" or "yellow". What really infuriated me, though, was that the parent-figure (mother? grandmother?) agreed with every pronunciation that the girl made, even commenting that "all the toys are for boys" (there were a lot of guns facing the girl). This went on for several minutes (slow post office) and I became madder and madder that the gender stereotypes presented in these toys (fake nails in pink, dolls in pink, guns in blue, etc.) were being not only noticed by the little girl, but also confirmed and encouraged by the parent. But I couldn't think of anything to say.
I know that correcting someone else's parenting is a touchy subject at the best of times, and perhaps even more so in Scotland - and this wasn't a posh neighbourhood either, so saying the wrong thing could result in a very messy situation. In the end I opted to say nothing because I couldn't think of a way to gently point of the negative effects of encouraging gender stereotyping at such a young age.
If you're wondering, the negative effects are thus:
At my mother-in-law's wedding, gifts were given to the grandchildren. My niece and step-daughter enjoyed playing with kid k'nex, so my mother-in-law gave kid k'nex to a granddaughter of a similar age. The girl burst into tears complaining that it was boy's toy. And this doesn't even touch upon Scotland's very machissmo culture and how expectations of femininity can be damaging if they are not met. So, yes, I believe that encouraging children to separate toys into "boys" and "girls" is encouraging a damaging stereotype.
I was as angry as if they had a magazine and she was pointing at the black people saying "n---er, n---er, n---er". But I couldn't think of anything to say. So I said nothing. The best I could come up with after the fact was something about how it's amazing that children can pick up on the gender stereotypes presented by the toy companies and how it's a shame that girl can't be encouraged to be a spy or police officer in their toys. But that was about 10 minutes later.
There are a number of feminists on IC of all shades, so what think you? If you see a parent encouraging gender stereotypes, would you intervene or say something? If so, what would you say?
| 25 Nov 11, 2:08 PM MisstressvsSolicedog UK(NN), 17 mths  |
i tend to agree that gender steryo streyo st ste ( that word you used ) is and can be a pain,, but the thing is the profound amount of it about and how many voice's against then the people who see no harm in it, etc etc somtime's it easier to punch someone in war time the factorys would be crying out for Women to make weapon's and bomb's as soon as it's all over encouragment to get back into the kitchen,, funny ol world Please excuse crap spelling cause i,m rubbish | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 2:10 PM geek_love 2 yrs |
This is quite interesting : http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/dn135...
I hate the people that love me and they hate me. | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 3:00 PM Trusttolove UK(LS), 13 mths |
i know exactly what you mean about how hard it is to just say something at the time. years ago i was put in a horrible position in the housing office where i was chatting to an older woman as we waited our turns. we were both white (well i still am ) and there were a number of people of different backgrounds in the queue , none white. we had been happily chatting when all of a sudden she said 'if i blacked my face up i'd go straight to the top of the list' recently there had been a lot of houses allocated to Somali refugees and i guess that's what she was referring to. i was mortified! but i didn't say a word. i stood in excruciated silence trying desperately to think of something to say, all the while thinking to myself 'oh my god they think i'm a racist....i'm behaving like a racist...i'm colluding by my silence.....say something...oh god'on hearing the story a friend gave me some advice. she helped me to think up some spur of the moment retorts to oppressive statements. and she encouraged me to practice saying them out loud. it felt silly at first but i was so proud when i was able to say "i dont agree with that" and later on "that sounds like a racist comment to me" i agree its much harder when it involves a child and not wishing to contradict a carer but i think there could be a way. recently my godson came home from school to tell me that "pink is a girls' colour" i told him "yeah but the magic secret is that you can choose if you want" since then both he and his brother have worn pink t shirts to school and one was heard telling another boy 'no its not a girls' colour because i'm wearing it and i'm a boy' i dont know if the 'magic secret' of choice would work in public but you could always practice it in case. i'd love to know what happens. good luck x | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 3:05 PM skyfox UK(EH), 5 yrs  |
It's worth noting that (in the study in the link above) the female monkeys played with both "wheeled and plush" (boys and girls) toys equally. But biological imperative aside, I would not have had a problem if the little girl had said "boring" instead of "boys". And it may in fact be the case that she *meant* boring when she said boys. But the reaction of the parent to confirm that the spy kits and police handcuffs were for boys while the shoes were for girls pains me. No, not "pains", more like "Frustrates", "Irritates" and "Infuriates". The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 3:10 PM Xafar UK(S), 12 yrs £    |
the post office... any uk post office... is possibly the most soul destroying place on the planet... apart from B&Q on a wednesday... Mac
"Me Man Whore... You Jane..." | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 3:56 PM karena UK(CW), 6 yrs |
To comment on a subject like this to the carer of a child not known to you could be a very touchy subject. We can though make a difference with the children we know, and they will go into nursery/school and make a difference in their friends life's. My son regularly played with my friends daughters pram when little. I eventually bought him a little one of his own and his teddy bear or action man went everywhere in that pram. His younger brother's went on to have that as a fav toy along with their kitchen.
Friends who came for tea, also played with said toys, and a couple of the boys insisted they wanted prams for presents, and so it went on
"Sometimes what seems like surrender isn't surrender at all. It's about what's going on in our hearts. About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it, whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater." - Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer Edited 25 Nov 11, 3:57 PM by karena | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 4:16 PM bohnanza UK(FK), 12 yrs  |
Tell him pink is a boy's colour. Stephen Fry says so at 2:16. I have the perfect accent for conflict resolution, shame about the personality. | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 4:17 PM Ember2b1 UK(WV), 12 mths |
This is very annoying, my son came through the other week with his pushchair and babies (okay daughters old cast off's but I kept them for him) and his grandfather looked horrified. He asked "WHAT are you doing with that!" disdain dripping from each syllable. I just looked at him (paddington hard glare) then smiled saying "he is pushing his babies, why?" Funnily enough nothing more was said! | ||
| 25 Nov 11, 7:07 PM Incandescence UK, 3 yrs |
I remember when my eldest son was about 3, we went for a wander round the local car boot sale (one of the stalls sold the most amazing millionaire's shortbread  ) and my son saw a little doll's buggy and wanted it to push around. I was horrified at his Father's reaction (he didn't want him to have it because it was a girl's toy!). I bought the pram for £1.00 (it was falling to bits) just to make a point and said son wandered round boot sale as happy as larry with his juice cup strapped into the pram. When we got home he never looked at it again and it went in the bin.I think it's very sad when children are exposed to this type of thing (among other things) at such a young age and normally out of pure ignorance. However, I'd never interfere or say anything to a parent I didn't know about how they bring up/deal with their children. On another occassion I was in ASDA with the same son. He would have been about 4. He has Autism and at that time was going through a particularly bad tantruming stage (mainly brought on by frustration and an inability to understand and connect with 'the world'). He particularly hated shopping! He was doing a bit of a throwing himself about, which I was ignoring because I'd learnt that to react to it only made it worse, and I heard a woman at the next till telling her friend that what he needed was a good smack. She was lucky not to get a smack in the mouth! I did though, in no uncertain terms, explain to her (loudly enough to embarress her and make her feel completely awful) that she had no idea what she was talking about and shouldn't judge people when she knows nothign about them or interfere in how other parents deal with their children (I could [almost] see the point if I'd been smacking him).
In the beginning god created man ... that was his first mistake ... everybody knows the lady should always come first Edited 25 Nov 11, 7:12 PM by Incandescence | ||
| 26 Nov 11, 5:52 AM ocimum_sanctum UK(EH), 2 yrs |
Also, saying something like that in a post-office would be an exceedingly quick way to get yourself ostracized from the community... post-offices tend to be a bit like gossip-columns.
While I tend to be rather uncomfortable with gender stereotypes, there are other issues at play here not least a healthy measure of pragmatism. Enforcing - or reinforcing - gender stereotypes when it comes to things like clothes, toys, activities, etc can obviously be potentially damaging however I suspect the motivation is not as an end in itself but to reduce the chance of the child being socially excluded. By ensuring the child conforms to social expectation it is reducing the likelihood of the child being bullied or outcast, which in many places in Scotland is an exceedingly important consideration. Things may have moved on but when I went to school, the poor kid that got "singled-out" due to some arbitrary weakness was usually subjected to some fairly violent treatment by the school bullies; looking back, I'm still surprised at quite how sadistic the evil wee shites could be (would make most folk on here look positively benign). The problem is compounded as with some frequency the parents of said bullies can be "aff thir nut", well connected and will back their wean to the hilt. So as soon as a complaint is made, or one of the bullies actually challenged, before you know it a whole extended family is suddenly involved. I'm not saying it's right but when a parent has to make a decision over what colour to dress their children, it can be much easier to just go with the trend: the other way may be inviting more grief than it's worth. If things have improved since I was at school, great, but that's how things worked when I was a kid and my school was by no means an exception to the rule. As an example of the influence of society, take the example of adult female/male clothing. If I had an open choice, I would more than likely wear what we currently consider "womens" clothes (frankly, I think women have better choice). I do not however wander down the street in a dress because it's not worth either the hassle nor increased risk to safety, this is bearing in mind that I'm not exactly under-confident if challenged and fairly tall+rather heavy build. As an adult, I have the information to assess and make that decision; children do not, so the parent must make judgement calls for the child. So in the scenario you described, I would suggest you made the right choice by not saying anything: any criticism you may have levied at the parent/carer would be your opinion - in her circumstances and context she may actually have been making the better choice for the child, albeit likely in complete ignorance of the surrounding debate.
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