This Christmas my youngest son will be receiving a pink doll’s house. I am sure that when he opens it, certain relatives will be convinced that Mummy and Daddy only bought it “to make a point”. They will assume that despite his apparent joy, Youngest is secretly yearning for a mega murder machine, or whatever it is boys are meant to want. This isn’t true, though; we got him the doll’s house because he saw one in Toys R Us and has had his heart set on it ever since (hence we got him a second-hand, not-quite-as-good-but-he’ll-never-notice-it version off eBay).
You may think I’m wrong to second-guess the reactions of my nearest and dearest to our stereotype-busting purchase. Believe me, they’ve got form. Two years ago my eldest son got a dressing up set so he could look like the witch in Julia Donaldson’s Room On The Broom. All day he ran around the house chanting “I’m a witch, I’m a witch” and every single time a helpful grandparent felt the need to chip in with “no, you’re a wizard”. But he wasn’t a wizard. Apart from anything else, “wizard” wouldn’t scan or rhyme if you tried to put it into the story. “You’ll confuse him”, they said. Yet my son wasn’t feeling remotely confused, at least not until he was told he couldn’t be who he was pretending to be and that he had to pretend to be a person whom he hadn’t even imagined yet.
I don’t have particularly strict ideas about which toys my children should or shouldn’t play with, although I prefer it if said things are one, cheap and two, not mind-numbingly boring. I buy some things which are deemed to be for boys and some things which aren’t. This shouldn’t be a big deal, yet it is. Giving your children gifts that transgress “accepted” gender boundaries can be surprisingly controversial. Even so, those who object the most tend to be the same people who’ll tell you “but they’re only toys!” the minute you point out how rubbish the gender stereotyping that goes into all the advertising can be.
This year the Swedish toy chain Top Toy has caused something of a stir by producing a gender-reversed toy catalogue, in which girls play with toy guns and boys with doll’s houses. This is just for Sweden, mind. They’ve produced the same catalogue for Denmark, but with everything back to “normal” – the same layout but with the boys getting their guns and the girls trooping back to the home. Funny, that. The fact that Top Toy have previously been sanctioned – in Sweden but not in Denmark – for using stereotypical images does suggest that there’s more than a little cynicism in this apparently revolutionary vision. Either that, or they’re just taking the piss. Ah, well. It’s not great but if you’re a parent who’s against aggressive gender stereotyping, you’ll take whatever crumbs of comfort you can find. So I’m still slightly heartened by this.
The catalogue isn’t gender-neutral – they’ve picked up on the same binary roles but switched them around. Hence a terribly lazy criticism to make – and one which occurs frequently in response to Sarah Ditum’s Guardian piece on the subject – is “ha! They’ve got girls playing with guns! Is that what you feminists want?” To be honest, I’d rather not have anyone playing with guns (this is why I bought plastic light sabres instead. On reflection, this was not much better, but I’m less worried about my sons getting drawn into Jedi gang warfare later in life). Another desperate criticism is that this kind of “reversal” stops children from exploring their “gender identity” – which, apparently, they already have, right from the moment they draw their first breath. It’s a strange kind of fear that drives this. On the one hand we’re told to just let the children play, but on the other there’s a massive desire to police this supposed “freedom”.
It strikes me that gender stereotyping in toys is worse than it used to be. When I was a child there were girls’ toys (which I received and played with), boys’ toys (which my brother received and I played with) and neutral toys (which everyone played with, usually ending in a massive fight). These days nothing is allowed to be in-between. Two days ago I came across a special “girlz talk” edition of Jenga. Jenga! It’s “the original wood stacking game, with a pretty pink twist, and cool questions”! So now you can pull out a pretty pink block and get asked to “name someone you have a crush on right now”. Whatever happened to just pulling out a normal bit of wood and making sure the tower didn’t fall over? Is that now considered too unfeminine? I realise that toy manufacturers are always on the lookout for new angles and USPs, but can’t they do better than this? Hell, I could sit around all day coming up with things that haven’t yet been dyed pink. How about a pink Star Wars Death Star that asks you whether you’d rather snog Han Solo or cuddle an Ewok? Am I the first one to think of that, or is George Lucas just wavering on the copyright?
There’s the odd occasion when all this is useful. Like the time when we bought some Children in Need cupcakes and my five-year-old noticed that the cake cases were pink so “only Mummy is allowed to eat them”. Obviously I told him this was wrong, but only after I’d eaten the cakes. That was good. But the rest of the time it’s rubbish. Perhaps we focus on children because when it comes to adult gender stereotyping there’s nowhere left to go. Women are doing a million and one things which were meant to turn us into hysterical, sexless husks yet the fact is we’re still fully functioning human beings. I bet that’s annoying for sexists. At least with children you’re still in with a chance of telling them what they’re meant to like and having them believe you.
Anyhow, I’m looking forward to the grand opening of the pink doll’s house come Christmas Day, at least once I get the present for my five-year-old sorted. Following a trip to the Gloucester Waterways Museum he’s requested a life-size, fully operational canal lock. He wants it so much he’s even written to Santa for the first time ever. I have to say, whether it’s available in pink or blue will be the least of my worries.
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