Gender

[ericadawn16]

One of the things that is guaranteed to piss me off is when people continue the archaic notion of boys being blue and certain toys while girls are pink and different toys. This video really goes into the history of how blue and pink even came about...corporate marketing which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I highly recommend it. Also, I love you Toys'r'us of Europe, THAT's how you should market toys! I wish they'd do that here.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50137957n

Just the other day, a coworker was complaining about pink shirts in the boys' section and when I bought up that boys used to be clothed in dresses routinely until they were four or so...she shook her vehemently and went, "NOPE!"

How less messed up would our country be with issues of gender, male insecurity and lgbtq if it weren't for this shit?

Comments

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised at all the things in society that marketing has 'decided' for us. Like bacon as a breakfast food.

Pretty much we use, whether it's the colors we wear, the computers we use or the politics we believe in have been carefully designed for us.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

What's insane is that there's this backlash against pink in the sense that only really girly girls wear it - I guess that's a bad thing. So you can't win either way.

Personally I think a color is just a color. A lady is just a lady. As far as toys go, have you heard of GoldieBlox?

[eloriekam.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite outfits as a little girl was a shirt/trouser set that was navy blue and had, I think, some red striping. I believe it also had totally undisguised zippers. In other words, it was not at all girly. My parents *so* didn't go for the 'girly pink' stuff, or for gender-specific toys*, for which I'm extremely grateful, and I have to bite my tongue when my relatives do the 'girly pink' and 'girl toys' thing.

*One of my main outdoor toys, carefully moved between houses and used until it became completely unsafe (10 years in all weather in Michigan), was something like this. I also chipped a tooth on a trapeze bar. I had lots of stuffed animals, and a couple of dolls in the mix, but the main doll wore a blue dress and had achievable bodily proportions. *g* I played with Tinkertoys (back when some pieces were wood), and had one or two wooden farm sets. Later, little plastic horse models and barns for them made me excited. I also had a make-believe horse farm and wrote up episodes for what was probably Star Trek fanfiction even though it was set it a slightly different universe. ...OK, I'm done. I'm also not sure when I realized what Barbie dolls were. I was too busy with my other toys.

[malicehaughton.livejournal.com]

Myeh I grew up in a household where me and my brother would both play with barbies and collected action figures. One marketed towards girls only, the other boys only.

I loved me my full Voltron lion set like woah, and he loved his Barbie doll. Does it matter?

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

One of the things that is guaranteed to piss me off is when people continue the archaic notion of boys being blue and certain toys while girls are pink and different toys.

You are right about that - I think that a color should just be a color.

[nesmith.livejournal.com]

Or how less messed up would our country be if when presented with new facts and/or information people didn't turn into toddlers?

[quadratur.livejournal.com]

There are official pictures of my dad where he looks more like a girl than his older sister.

I guess I was lucky in that my mom didn't like pink as a color so I was dressed mostly in blue, yellow, orange, and green. I find this notion of pink only for girls and women ridiculous. Luckily it's not quiet as extreme in Germany as it seems to be in the US. I've had co-workers who wore pink or even fuchsia shirts with their suits and no-one assumed that they were gay. Fuchsia shirt and a charcoal grey suit is a stunning combinationon some men. Unfortunately the boss who wore that was also someone who sexually harassed female co-workers or a regular basis.

It's also interesting how they split the colors because in medieval times blue was the color of the Virgin Mary and thus linked to feminin virtues while red was the color of blood, war, and anger and thus linked to me. And in extension little blue (light blue) for girls and little red (pink) for boys.

[pwalkeri.livejournal.com]

The blue/pink idea actually used to be reversed.

Source: 5 gender stereotypes that used to be the exact opposite (http://www.cracked.com/article_19780_5-gender-stereotypes-that-used-to-be-exact-opposite.html).

[lil-1337.livejournal.com]

*Shakes head* uh, yes, historically documented. Sounds like you co-worker has some major issues of her own.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

This is why I have gender neutral everything for my kiddos...