Posts Tagged ‘gender stereotypes’

I think what JC Penney did this week over the Ellen Degeneres/1 Million Moms fiasco was commendable. Highly commendable. No business should cower to biggotry and homophobia. The family values I teach my children are acceptance, love, and kindness for all human beings. I believe in equality, to my very core.

JC Penney played the firestorm beautifully, and they needed to, because they needed a PR homerun. They got one — as many of the parents and concerned adults this fall who were outraged over the back-to-back mudslide of the ”I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother does it for me” T-Shirt Gate and the objectifying Phoebe Cates/pool tv commercial are now all wild for the JC Penney shop-in taking place this weekend. I won’t be attending.

I fully support Gay rights, the LGBT community, and the right to equality. But I also support our daughters, and I’ll be busy giving a keynote address on the role of women and girls in the media, ironically. I try my best not to shop at places that sell my daughter short, and teach my son not to expect much from girls.

I just went through all 8 pages of tops offered online for girls sizes 7-16. With the exception of a few “nerd” references on t-shirts showing Hello Kitty wearing thick black glasses, the vast majority of the shirts referenced shopping, bff’s, high heels, make-up, Peace, cupcakes, and phrases like “Fame, Fashion, and Friends”.

I just want more for my girl, ya know?

The t-shirt that helped Pigtail Pals go on one of our two wild viral events this fall is still selling like crazy — Pretty’s Got Nothing To Do With It. You can get yours here. Because you won’t find anything like it at JC Penney.

Pigtail Pal's best-selling tee that builds girls up.

The back of our Pretty tee, words were collected from our Facebook community as they described their daughters.

This just in from a Pigtail Pals Parent after a weekend trip to Legoland:

“After being there I realized the problem is far bigger than their friends line. The shows we saw have not one respectable female character (they manage to portray even cleopat…ra like a kardashian sister). Their kids meals and collectible cups come in pink or blue. The blue ones have several lego characters (ninjas, pirates, etc) on one side and a huge pirate ship scene on the other. The pink ones have 3 “sassy” looking girls (not lego figures) on both sides. They’re not doing anything, or supposed to be anything. They’re just standing there with big doey eyes being,……I don’t know……..”cool” girls, I guess? And then there’s still this. In fun town (which was pretty fun before I saw this), there are two life size characters built entirely from legos. there’s a male police officer and a female firefighter. Cool, right? Except the man is talking into his walkie talkie, while the woman is………wait for it…….not putting out a fire, but……….putting on lipstick!!! WTH???” -Sarah L.

Next, check out the second installment of this fantastic video series by our colleague Feminist Frequency.

(Skip to 8:30 if you are short on time, but the whole thing is well worth it!)

I’ve just heard from my colleagues at SPARK that Lego has not responded to our petition with 51,600 signatures from Lego customers upset over the gender stereotypes represented in the new Lego Friends line. They’ve issued press releases battling our talking points, but they have not responded to 51,600 voices. Nor has Lego responded to the two certified letters SPARK and sister orgs have sent requesting a meeting.  Maybe Lego is unaware of how a brand’s identity can become easily and quickly tarnished by people on the internet (see: JC Penney, Chap Stick, and Komen).  

As I sit here in my family room watching my kids play with their Legos (they are building a house for whales with an art room), I find myself wondering how big Pigtail Pals would have to get where I wouldn’t care about 51,600 people being upset with my product and feeling no sense of responsibility to answer them. Maybe “meet in the middle” is lost in translation on the Danes.

Let’s heat things up. Let Lego hear what you have to say. Give your kids a voice, and let them write a letter or color a picture expressing their feelings. This is far from over, especially as I’m getting numerous reports from parents that they bought the a piece from the Friends line with an open mind, and were discouraged when their daughter lost interest in about 20 minutes. I don’t think that has anything to do with girls and their interest or ability in building as it does more reflect the lameness of these Friends sets.

Lego could have done have hit one out of the park with this line. Instead we have a wall of purple boxes representing what I think are an outsider’s stereotypes of what American girls are like. I think girls worldwide deserve better.

Let Lego hear your voice, and if you would like your letter published here, please send me a copy at info@pigtailpals.com. Children’s letters and pictures are most welcome as well!

michael.mcnally@LEGO.com
Jørgen.VigKnudstorp@LEGO.com
Charlotte.Simonsen@LEGO.com
Mads.Nipper@LEGO.com

or

*the formatting on the blog is acting up today, please just ignore and enjoy the content!*

Lily and Noah’s mom emailed the following correspondence to me. The kids had asked her if she was going to write a letter to Lego regarding the new Friends line that their family was unhappy with. She suggested they do it. And so they did.

 I would like the girls going to the moon and making friends with aliens, or crawling through creepy underground tunnels, or exploring ancient Mayan temples, or traveling the world.

 Thanks,

Noah H.  (Brother of Lily H.)

9 Year Old Lego Builder

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Dear,

Thanks for your interest in our products.

We’re really sorry to hear that you’re disappointed with your new LEGO Friends line. We try really hard to give LEGO fans what they want an we are glad you let us know when you feel we are not getting it right.

We have a team of experts in Denmark whose job it is to invent and test new LEGO sets, themes and toys. They tell me it takes years to check everything. They need to test all the new ideas, talk to the factory about how to make them, work out what sort of box it needs to go in and then deliver the new sets to all the shops in 130 countries!

As you can see, a lot of thought goes into your toys and although LEGO toys aren’t the cheapest in the shop, I hope you understand we invent and make LEGO sets to last a lifetime, or even longer!

We’re really sorry but since you’re under 13 years of age we’re going to have to delete your email address and comments from our LEGO database after we’ve sent you this email.

We’re not being mean, there’s a law called the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and it’s been set up to keep you safe when you’re on the Internet. One of COPPA’s rules is that it’s against the law for us to save your emails.

Remember you can still find out all about our cool events and new LEGO products at www.LEGO.com

Thank you again for contacting us.  If you have any further questions, please feel free to reply to this email or call one of our friendly Customer Care Advisors at 1-800-835-4386 (from within the US or Canada) or 1-860-749-0706 (from outside the US or Canada). We are available Monday through Friday from 8AM – 10PM EST and Saturday through Sunday from 10AM to 6PM EST.  Please have your reference number handy if you need to get in touch with us: 030232427A

Shawn
LEGO Direct Consumer Services

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 I am again left with several questions for Lego:

I have two kids, a boy and a girl. Amelia just turned six, Benny is almost four. With it being mid-winter and still getting dark around 5pm, our family needs activities in the evening to keep the children creative and industrious (read: keep them from destroying more of our house). This weekend the project was decorating frames for their school pictures for their dad’s new office.

We dumped out the tub of art supplies, armed each kid with a bottle of glue, and got down to it. Glitter glue, feathers, foam bugs, pom poms, jewels, scraps of paper, and tubes of glitter were in hot demand. Both kids were really into their creations, and it very quickly became obvious we’d have to ration the glitter.  Both kids had access to everything on the table, and the only instructions were to “have at it”. I found the end results to be really interesting.

One child described their frame as, “Camouflaged and woodsy so I can be a dangerous hiding animal.”  Huh.
The other child described their frame as “Pretty and beautiful and nice.”  Aww.

Benny and Amelia

Two frames. One by a boy, one by a girl.

We need to give kids the space to be themselves.

The best part of the night was when my husband came in from shoveling snow, saw the kids frames, and asked how they decided to decorate them. Amelia made the comment about being a dangerous woodland animal. Mr. Pigtail Pals said that he hopes she doesn’t jump out of the frame and bite him, and then tickled her until she collapsed into a heap on the floor. Mr. Pigtail Pals said something about how he liked all of the sparkly and bright color on Benny’s frame. Benny sat there and beamed. Mr. Pigtail Pals asked Benny how he chose all the special decorations, and Benny answered that he wanted it to be “Pretty and beautiful and nice” for his daddy to look at while he was away from us at work. Mr. Pigtail Pals said it would be wonderful to have something “pretty and beautiful and nice” from his Benny Boy.

Kids just need the space to be kids. Free of stereotypes, free of limitations.

 

More on giving kids space:

“Shiloh, Meet My Daughter” click here. (From Princess Free Zone)

“Gender equity: Doing the math” click here.

“10 Reasons Girls & Boys Should Play Together” click here. (From Superhero Princess, The Sanford Harmony Program)

“Robert Munsch and Gender Balance” click here. (From Achilles Effect)

A letter from Callie, age 10, to Lego Company. Dated January 5, 2012:

Dear Lego Company,

Rosalind Elsie Franklin, Lise Meitner, and Grace Murray Hopper. Do you think those great women scientists spent time playing with vintage style dressing rooms when they were girls? Do you think they decided to sit and look at a girl brushing her hair? No. They would be walking in museums, reading, conducting experiments, researching, and doing creative thinking. Legos are a great way to do the latter and I congratulate you on that. Legos are amazing and a great idea. They’re fun, brain building and easy to use. But when you turn them into a stereotypical toy, that’s just destroying the individuality so many people have been working for. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for blacks and whites to be equal. Today people are fighting for the equality of gay people. Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem were fighting for women’s equality. And when I walk into a toy store and an attendant leads me to an aisle plastered with putrid pink I think you just swept all those people fighting for equality out of the way and ignored what they said.

Generalizing is saying any group of people is all one way, or likes one thing. Even if it’s complimentary, saying a group of people is all the same is just not true. Every person is unique and has a spark, different likes and dislikes, and faults of their own. You must respect that.   

There are plenty of smart and creative girls out there eager to play with Legos. Do you want that to be ruined, by giving them only a beauty salon to create? Please don’t. But I’m not proclaiming you should stop making those products, because they make generalizations about girls. But why just give us one option? There are plenty of girls ready to play with your ‘girl’s’ Legos. Plenty eager to pretend to comb hair and such. But then the girls who want superhero toys or adventure toys or dinosaurs or space toys or Harry Potter toys or Egyptian toys are forced to go to the boy’s aisle. They shouldn’t have to do that. Are you saying toys they want are for boys only? It’s not right to make a girl feel like she’s not acting like a girl should or is different. Are boys the only people who can do constructive things? No! But forcing a girl to go to the boy’s aisle, making her feel like she shouldn’t use Legos that aren’t pink and girly is just plain stupid. Why don’t you even have a boy’s category on your website? Are you saying boys can play with everything they want, unlike girls who have pink beauty salons? You have a girl science lab Lego set, yet it’s still pink and calls the things included “accessories”. The other themes, such as Ninjago call them staffs, or weapons. So even girl science lab appliances are called the same girly thing as jewelry. Why do that? To make money? That really makes me feel so much better about the world I live in.

And there’s another thing that makes me more secure about today’s lifestyle. If the girl  does go to the boy’s aisle what meets her eyes is the sight of war. Legos you can use that create a war scene, or spies shooting at each other or a spaceship with guns to shoot aliens. Does this seem right? Do we need more war in our bloodstained world? It gives kids the idea that war is funny or nothing to be worried about. Movies surround us with people fighting each other with powers and guns. Little boys like my cousin see people getting blown up, but then just singed or bouncing. Getting hit with lasers and just looking wounded but then reviving quickly or pretending to be dead than sneaking up on the bad guy because they missed. This isn’t real life. Many people have died in war, families torn apart, torturings of innocent people and betrayal driven by fear. This is war. Children need to understand that.

You say, ‘I’m just making a living. The kids like it, it’s not your fault the world isn’t perfect and they don’t understand it. Or that some girls feel like they’re weird or that they should be making beauty salons instead of whatever they feel like.’ But it is in a way. You’re just a piece of the fault. You are a part of that thought growing in a kid’s mind about how they should be and what to think. Make it be the right idea. Please. Make a kid’s world a little less narrow-minded and stereotypical. Make some of it right.

Callie W., age 10

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Lego’s response, about two weeks following Callie’s Letter:

Dear Callie,

Thank you for writing to us with your concerns about the design of our LEGO (R) Friends product line.

We listened very carefully to what girls around the world told us in four years of concept development for LEGO Friends: and we’ve used their input to create a theme that invites girl who appreciate these qualities to the LEGO building experience.

Many girls told us they had trouble identifying with the LEGO minifigure’s unrealistic appearance. As role play is central to the LEGO Friends experience we designed a figure with a more realistic appearance. While we understand that this theme is out of the norm for LEGO as, like you said, we are a gender neutral company. We feel it’s a step in the right direction to get girls more involved with LEGO products. Sadly, over the year, many of our girl fans have diminished and moved onto toys that appeal to them. For this reason, we decided to conduct studies with children in this age group. We found that little girls really enjoyed having male and female minifigures in their sets, while the little boys would take the girl minifigure out before playing. Boys tend to like to create “good guy versus bay guy” types of scenes, while girls enjoy role play, such as going shopping with their minifigures.

If you would like, Callie, you can take a look at our recent official press release in regards to our new Friends line. It may be something that you’re interested in. If you visit Aboutus.LEGO.com and click on Press Room and then Corporate News, you will be able to view our recent press release. I hope that this is of interest to you.

We appreciate you taking the time to share you thoughts and concerns with us. Listening to what our fans have to say helps us improve our current and future products, so I’ve passed your comments on to our design team.

Thank you again for contacting us………

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Lego – Girls left your company because you stopped making gender neutral toys, and focused on boys and movies licenses. You pushed girls out. Girls didn’t lost an interest in building, they lost in interest in a boy-centric company. You gendered your toy, not little girls.

Lego – Little girls don’t go shopping with their friends. They are little girls with wild imaginations and a sense of adventure. You gave them beauty shops and cupcake bakeries. Science laboratories do not come with accessories, they come with science equipment and tools.

Lego – You are correct, Friends is out of the norm for Lego. Why do girls need out of the norm Lego? Why do girls need a different version?

Several people sent me this post over the weekend, and it has bugged me for days. The post talks about how this particular mother of a little girl is tired of feeling like she has to defend her daughter’s love of all things hyper-girly: pink, feathery, sparkly, princessy. I’m confused who she is forced to defend her child to, as most of our society right now seems to celebrate the uber-girly in girls with our Diva Shopaholic Princess Culture ruling girlhood. And womanhood, for that matter. More women can name the three Kardashian sisters before they can name three women in Congress. While at the Natural History Museum in DC this weekend, my daughter received dozens of compliments from strangers on her red sparkle shoes and zero compliments her awesome tee featuring seven different kinds of whales. Isn’t it ironic.

I can understand any parent who becomes irked when they feel their child’s interests are mocked or belittled. I can understand any parent becoming defensive of their child when that child’s personality is said to be undesirable. As parents, that is our job, to love our children well.

The thing is, no one is saying that being a girly-girl is undesirable, which is what that post alludes to. The mom who wrote it seems to misunderstand the “current conversation about girlhood” to be about the experts being anti-girly. We’re not. Almost all of the experts in the field are women, so we were at one time, girls. A great majority of us are raising our own little girls or have grown daughters, some with little girls of their own. We do this because we love girls and all things girlhood. Some of these little girls like princesses and pink and chess and Star Wars. Others like building and superheroes and guitars. Still more like science and sparkles and dolphins. And you know what? They are ALL girls. There isn’t any one way to be a girl.

It seems as if our girls today aren’t hyper-girly, they get labeled ‘tom-boy’. I take issue with that. It suggests to a girl that her interest in construction or Star Wars or sports or mud puddles or bugs or the ocean or chemistry or electric guitars is boyish, and she isn’t a “real girl”. How insulting is that? Why do the princess girls get to monopolize girlhood and define what it means? My daughter is no less a girl than yours, despite her complete lack of interest in princesses and tween pop-stars and kitten heels.

Why am I seeing so many posts lately from moms of the princess girls turning on moms of the ‘tom-boys’, and vice versa?  Sisterhood, Ladies. We need to stick together on this one, for our girls. Let’s not turn this into a continuation of the Mommy Wars. How about we not box each other in. How about we accept each other’s daughters as our own, and work together to give them the healthiest childhood we can.

What those of us who are working so hard to elevate this conversation of girlhood want is for two things to take place:
1) We widen our definition of “girly” so that it includes ALL types of girls, and not just the tiara, tutu wearing kind.
2) We give our girls more choices early into their childhood so that they can craft for themselves who they are and what they like.

(Psst – we want the same things for our sons, but today we’re talking about girls.)

I want more than the color pink to be an option when looking for products for my daughter. I’m fine if it is one option, but not the only option. My daughter loves blue. She is a girl.

I want character choices for girls to extend beyond princess or ballerina. Mix in a doctor, scientist, engineer, and a businesswoman.. My daughter wants to be an oceanographer. She is a girl. 

I want girls to be marketed more than cupcakes and kittens and butterflies. I like all three of those things. So does my daughter. We also like rocket ships and airplanes and trains and ships. We are girls.

I want a break from the fashion and looks-obsessed messages that saturate girlhood. I think we all could use a break from the too sexy, too soon marketing and products.

I am happy your daughter likes princesses. If you can say honestly that you’ve offered her an entire world of color and toys and from all of those choices, she chose princesses, pink, and sparkles…well then bless her little heart. We are seeing her true self shine through, and now it is the job of your family to offer her new experiences and stories and ideas inside of her self-appointed interests and likes.  If you allowed her to be doused and dripping with pink and nothing but pink from birth and have given her nothing but a diet of princesses and fashion dolls, I gotta be honest, that isn’t great.

Here’s the part where the not-greatness comes in: The current marketplace has a very narrow and limited definition of what it means to be female. This is true whether you are three or thirty three. Most of this is focused on beauty, vapidness, and obtaining things and men. Whether it is little plastic Disney Princess kitten heels, My Little Ponies with those “Come hither” twinkly eyes also found on Bratz and Moxie Girls, Barbies dressed is suggetive clothing, Disney Princesses with their spacey smiles and delicately poised hands, the sexist marketing of Lego Friends, or clothing and shoes that constrict play movement…..ALL of those products send girls one message: How you look is more important than who you are or what you do.

That message is a form of sexualization. The post I first mentioned mocks this point, but the dangers of early sexualization are real, they are serious, and it is something parents could definitely cry themselves to sleep over. Poor body image, disordered eating and Eating Disorders, early sexual experiences, low school performance, dropping of activities and sports in high school, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, interference with a healthy development of sexuality, self-objectification….need I go on? Those things are happening to our girls in staggering numbers, and I don’t think any of it is something to be flippant about. Your daughter has the right to adore princesses and feather boas and sparkly wands. The Princess Culture being marketed to girls ends abruptly somewhere in early elementary, and immediately graduates young girls into teenage-dom when they are not developmentally ready for it. The focus now shifts to being pretty and looking sexy. Not feeling sexy, just looking it. Big problems result.

Hopefully you’ve given your daughter a greater variety of compliments beyond what a pretty princess she is, and you’ve encouraged her to widen her princess role play to include a princess who is generous, smart, brave, and a good leader of her people.

The experts aren’t asking for girls to abandon all things princess, pink, and sparkly. This isn’t about gender neutrality or doing away with gender. It is about not having our children defined by their gender. 

We are asking parents to be prepared and to be creative. We are asking parents to offer a great range of toys and colors and themes for learning for their children. We are asking parents to think beyond the messages marketed, and give their children a well-rounded childhood. As parents, it is our job to offer the world to our children, teach them how to devour it with their curiosity, and then give them the space to digest in the form of play and make believe. There is no boy side or girl side to early childhood, there is just childhood, right down the middle.

So maybe my daughter is running outside with the boys in her mud-caked Hello Kitty rain boots and beloved T-Rex tank top playing ninjas or hunting frogs. I’m sure they’d love for your tulle-wearing, wand-carrying, tiara-crowned gal to join them, if nothing more than for the added noise and ability to put a spell on a frog should they ever catch one. Maybe your princess girl will get a little bit dirty. Maybe she’ll get filthy. Maybe she’ll show everyone up and be the best ninja frog catcher of the group. I’m hoping while the kids go crazy outside, the mothers are smiling at their joy, instead of judging themselves, each other, and each other’s children. I’m willing to bet the kids will have a marvelous time together. I’m sure we’re all hoping the rascals don’t track all of that mud into the house.

There is more than one way to be a girl. Let’s not fight over what “girly” means.

Let’s fight for our girls to make sure that definition includes the entire world for them, and then gently hold their hand as they make their way through it and define for themselves who they will be.

A Guest Post by: Lori Day

Sarah and Poppy Burge, infamous beauty-obsessed mother/daugther duo.

Was this a fluky experience? I think so. The lunch area being comprised of all moms and daughters was unusual. The fact that all eight girls were wearing all pink was unusual—I mean, girls wear a lot of pink these days and it definitely is “the uniform,” but there are usually some girls wearing purple at the very least, or even some other colors. (Although, if you’ve never noticed this degree of little-girl pink- ubiquity, start paying attention in public places like malls, airports and food co-ops!)

The fact that two of the eight girls were wearing Disney costumes out to Costco and it was not Halloween or a dress-up birthday party seemed a tad above the usual ratio.

Taken all together, the amount of pink in the form of tulle, satin, glitter, make-up, kitten heels, and little girl bling was highly concentrated in space and time. But you know what? That’s what made me realize that culturally, we now have somewhat of an alliance between princess culture and mommy culture. Executive summary: For a lot of our daughters, the real world of girls and the Disney World marketed to girls have become the same thing.

Yesterday’s post about the invisible girl with the book came about from a question Melissa Wardy asked during a discussion on the Pigtail Pals’ Facebook page about why parents stopped questioning all of the tremendous changes in what is marketed to girls over the last ten years and how it is marketed:  

I believe that many parents have stopped questioning because they, too, are desensitized by our 24/7 media-saturated culture in which the value of females lies less in what they do than in how they look while doing it. Perhaps in these hard economic times, the fantasy that your child is the fairest in the land—or could be with the right focus on her appearance—seems normal, and even beneficial, in the eyes of those parents who do not spend much time intellectually contemplating the commodification of female beauty.

Perhaps parents also stopped questioning because there can be tremendous enjoyment and camaraderie in shared beauty play for females, young and old. Moms usually have the best of intentions. They are supporting each other, acknowledging each other’s children, expressing femininity, and having a great time together being girly. On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with this, and it has always been this way to some degree…just not to this degree.

My concern is with the amount of focus our society now places on female appearance, the enormous multi-billion dollar industry that has grown up around it, and the necessary insecurities these corporations must instill in females, from a very young age, in order to turn them into lifetime consumers. Personally, I advocate for a deeper consideration of these issues by all parents, but I also recognize that a whole lot of parents really like things the way they are, and believe that good parenting will take care of it all, despite the research that has emerged on the tremendous number of hours of powerful marketing and media messages kids consume every single day.

I think it’s like rolling dice. Remember when it was legal to advertise smoking? Strong parents sometimes managed to raise children who did not smoke. But the millions of dollars spent on the seductive advertising campaigns for cigarettes was a Siren call to many kids who did all, eventually, leave the close supervision of their parents and wander out into the big world where they consumed this advertising, and joined a peer group of kids who thought smoking was cool. What was needed was strong parenting and laws that forced the tobacco companies to recognize the harm to children (and adults) inherent in their marketing and profiteering.

So I think it all depends on how one views the world. If you are the kind of parent of who is inclined to look below the shiny surface of pop culture to understand the unhealthy role being played by money and corporations in the lives of girls and women, and are prepared to raise your daughter in ways that might occasionally make you look either out of touch or antagonistic to mainstream girl culture, then you will naturally question, question, question. If not, not.

While I hope more and more parents will go back to questioning, I equally hope that the vigilance and activism of advocacy groups like Pigtail Pals – Redefine Girly  and so many others (see the blog roll on my website for other recommended individuals and groups to follow who are working on making the world a better place for all children) will eventually change the ground rules for the marketers as did happen decades ago regarding the cigarette companies. Social change takes a long time and a lot of hard work by a lot of individuals, but it can happen, and I am proud to be a small part of this massive grassroots effort. What is at stake is nothing less than our girls’ future, and that is not something to gamble.

Poppy Burge, 7yo, received several vouchers for cosmetic surgeries for her 7th birthday.

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Lori Day

Image from clker.com, Rolera LLC

A Guest Post by Lori Day:

I never want to be accused of considering Costco a microcosm of the real world because I’d like to have less despair than that, but maybe there is something to be gained by cautiously extrapolating from that surreal environment to something essentially true about the culture we live in.

One day, in order to take a break from the crowds of people forming around the free food samples and the incredibly long lines snaking through the electronics aisle, I decided to indulge in a slice of cheese pizza and a diet Coke at the snack area. I sat at a table at the back, and soon noticed that there were three tables occupied by mothers with two or three daughters each. There were no dads and no sons on this particular day.

 When you eat lunch alone, it’s amazing what you see and hear and notice about your fellow human beings who do not know you are quietly people-watching them.  The first thing I observed was the way the girls were looking at each other. The mothers had not yet acknowledged each other, but the daughters were making friendly cross-table eye contact. Soon, the mothers noticed that the girls were around the same age and were interested in each other, and everyone exchanged pleasantries and it was really nice, and very different than the usual vibe of competitive drag racing with shopping carts that we had all just survived. I find even basic human decency moving when I encounter it at Costco.

I got up to get some extra napkins, and when I returned all of the mothers and daughters were engaged with each other. You know what? That was really cool. I was totally smiling. Then I suddenly noticed something that for no explicable reason (other than complete desensitization) I had previously failed to notice…that all eight girls of these three mothers were dressed head-to-toe in pink. I don’t mean that some of them had on jeans and a pink sweatshirt. Or a pink top and off-white skirt. I mean what I said—literally every girl wore no item of clothing that was not light pink, medium pink, dark pink, fuchsia or magenta, in some combination, with zero items of clothing in any other shade or hue. (Not on a hit-and-run anti-pink rant here, just articulating the phenomenal amount of that color that was present.)

Then, I realized what the mothers and daughters were all talking about…who was pretty, who looked “just like a princess,” who had the most beautiful hair, whose fingernail polish was the most gorgeous shade of pink, whose pink hair accessories were the loveliest, whose sparkly pink shoes were fanciest and like you’d wear to a ball, etc.

Honestly, this went on for longer than one could possibly imagine.  I had long since finished my meal and remained sitting there, sipping my soda, transfixed. Mothers were almost competing to out-compliment the beauty of each other’s girls. This is sweet and caring, isn’t it? Yes, for sure, but it is something else as well, and it became something else very quickly.

The youngest of all the girls, perhaps three or four, stood up. She was wearing a pink tulle skirt, like a tutu, but longer and able to flow and twirl. She smiled coyly at one of the other mothers, twirled around a few times holding the hem of her skirt, and then posed. I thought she was going to courtesy, but instead she put her hand n her hip and pushed her pelvis forward…waiting. Her own mother beamed as one of the other mothers exclaimed, “My, aren’t you the belle of the ball?”

Soon, all of the girls—that is, except one—got up and casually wandered between the tables, visiting each other, showing off their pink dresses and the Disney costumes a couple of them had worn that day, since Disney costumes are now just regular attire. They were sashaying, flipping their hair, pretending they were models, striking poses, giggling, and drinking in all of the mirth and effusive praise of the mothers, who were utterly delighted by the whole show. Costco’s warehouse lunch area had been transformed into a cement-floored catwalk for an impromptu Toddlers & Tiaras audition. The girls were having a wonderful time.

Except one. This girl was around seven or eight, and of a quieter, more introverted disposition. She had a book and was reading. I could not see the title, but it was fairly thick, and the girl seemed like she was very absorbed in it and probably a pretty good reader. She glanced up repeatedly from her book to watch the other girls—some older, some younger, one her sister—strutting, preening, and lapping up every “How beautiful!” Slowly, she pushed her book to the edge of the table where she was sitting and looked around. No one noticed. She whispered something to her mother, and her mother whispered something back.

Eventually, the girl slid the book back across her table, away from where the other girls were roaming the aisles between the tables. Now here’s where I wished I had a video camera. I will not have the words to describe this girl’s face. Crestfallen? Glum? Hurt? None of these work. Maybe…invisible. She looked like she felt invisible. She looked down at her clothes and up at the clothes of the other girls and back down at her own again. They were pink but not frilly. I realized they were what I would call play clothes, not dress-up clothes. She kept looking at the other girls getting all the attention with their swirling and twirling, knowing her own clothes would not do that.

She was ignored by all of the other girls and other mothers except her own. Apparently, her lack of proper attention to her own femininity was a tragedy for everyone else — innocent bystanders were being robbed in broad daylight of their God-given right to observe her in pink tulle, primping and sashaying in some big-box fashion show of this decade’s new essential girlwear.

I wanted to hug that girl, who is so much like my own daughter, and like I was as a child, and say, “Wow, that’s quite a book you’ve got there! What are you reading?”

Just at that moment the girl’s father came over, along with a boy who was clearly her brother. The boy had a Harry Potter book under his arm—that much was obvious. The father said to his wife, “I got a good spot out front. Are you ready to go?” The mother nodded and started to clean up the paper plates and soda cups on the table. The girl with the book got up and walked towards her dad. One of the other mothers said to her brother, “Wow, you’re a smart boy reading Harry Potter!”

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A big thank you to Lori Day for sharing her insightful experience with the Redefine Girly blog.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

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Lori Day

Lori Day is an educational psychologist and consultant with Lori Day Consulting in Concord, MA, having worked previously in the field of education for over 25 years in public schools, private schools, and at the college level. She writes and blogs about parenting, education, children, gender, media, and pop culture. You can connect with Lori on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.