Posts Tagged ‘gender stereotypes’

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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+.

Lego wordle from Lego Friends tv commercial. Any of that say STEM to you?

I know we’ve been talking about Lego quite a bit.

What I find so fascinating about this story is how it is the perfect microcosm of all things girlhood these days. Corporate pink-washing, relegating girls to all things pretty and sweet, beauty over brains, using sexism to defend sexism, make-up on 8 year olds in a Lego tv commercial, and the list goes on.

So while this is about Lego, this is about so much more. Lego is just a symptom of ginormous problems staring down our girls. I just hope we are raising them to be tough enough to take it on and squash it.

Lowest Common Denominator

To be fair, the new Lego Friends isn’t all bad. It is just that it isn’t all that good, from a brand parents go to as an amazing brain-boosting toy. This new line leaves many parents wondering how Lego sees their girls’ brains, as the girl’s line is heavy on the cute, light on construction (I don’t count putting flower petals on stems or bows on dogs as building). I do like the science lab and tree house, and even the cafe (a little bit) and vet clinic. Olivia’s big house looks like it would be fun to build. Amelia, my almost-6-year-old would like them, but we would both be left wishing the majority of the sets required more actual construction. And challenging construction at that. There are so few building pieces, it would be hard to take them apart and build your own creation. That is the kind of stuff that breaks my Lego-loving heart.

The other part that breaks my heart is how segregated by gender Lego has become. Amelia received and loved the Lego City Marina for Christmas. For her birthday next week, my mom and dad got her another section of Lego City. I bought her a tub of primary colored bricks and a green and blue building board. But I wonder in a couple of years how my kids will view Lego, with the boy-dominated licensed sets and the all-girl Heartlake City. Lego has drawn a rather thick pink and blue line in the sand. Try as I might, I don’t know how much longer I will be able to keep Lego gender-equal in my home. As it stands, Lego seems to have some pretty sexist messages jumping off their boxes at kids, and I’m not a huge fan of teaching my kids sexist messages. Lyn Mikel Brown says,“The human brain is “fantastically plastic” and the best thing we can do for our children is to give them a full range of opportunities and experiences, especially in the early years. We don’t know at five how little Tierra’s or Tommy’s passions and talents will surface, so why pay good money to limit their options to the pink and blue aisles of toy stores?”

Lego is in the spot they are in not because girls changed, but because Lego changed on girls. To boost sales in the early 2000′s they focused on licensing deals with boys square in their sights. Girls stopped playing with Lego because Leg0 stopped including them. You’ve all seen the 1981 “What it is, is beautiful” ad circulating….1981 was 31 years ago. 31 years is a long time, Lego. Lego’s own marketing told girls that Lego wasn’t for girls. You can kinda see how girls went they way they did on this one.

Lego used the lowest common denominator  in girlhood to design their line. Lego says the end result is after four years of $4 million in global research and this is what girls and moms want. For reals, Lego? I guess they didn’t interview the several thousands of moms (and dads and aunts and uncles and grandmas and caring adults) who voiced their opinion on the Lego Facebook page, several thousand more from the Pigtail Pals Facebook page (and other rad groups like Powered By Girl, SPARK, New Moon Girls, Princess Free Zone, Reel Girl; and the formidable girl culture expert, one Peggy Orenstein). A change.org petition calling for Lego to try harder for our girls has a couple thousand signatures.  Lego says their research revealed girls play in the first person, are interested in beauty, and want to get to their role playing more quickly than boys. This fascinates me, as I have spent the past two weeks watching my female child play HOURS of Lego and not once tell herself to hurry it up so her Lego self can get her plastic hair done at the beauty salon.

Amy Jussel of Shaping Youth asks, “How (and why) are we missing profound opportunities to leverage neuroscience breakthroughs for positive change, wellness and play? How can we finally be tossing aside ‘hardwired corpus calossum theories’ on differences in boys/girls, acknowledging brain plasticity and realizing this play pattern/edu deficit stuff is NOT ‘set in stone’ and yet simultaneously standby to see Lego spend $40 million in mega-marketing bucks to proceed to SET it in stone.” Read the entire amazing post HERE.

You know how I always say, “I’m not anti-pink. I’m not anti-princess. I am anti-limitation. When we limit our children, we limit our children.”? Well, that pithy Amy Jussel says it this way and I like it:

I AM against stacking the deck of ‘learned behavior’ with pervasively marketed signals of stereotyped imagery embedding into the brain with stiflingly narrowcast assembly-line rote mimickry. I far prefer pure, imaginative, problem-solving free form fun.

I encourage you to watch the Lego Friends tv commercials, with the make-up clad third graders in the opener making a heart with their hands (awww, somewhere Taylor Swift just did one back) and the music sparkles and we are introduced to Heartlake City, the pinky-purple enclave where the Lego Friends live. With hearts on sky scrapers not a male in sight. Weird.

Watch as the saccharine-sweet narrator talks about the Friends partying at the cafe with the girls (only after they’ve been styled at the salon) because they need to chill after decorating their houses. It is important to note the commercial doesn’t show the girls finishing up a surgery at the clinic and then heading over to the science lab to help Lego Friend Olivia with her latest experiment. Lego shows the girls get coiffed at the salon and then go party.  I think Lego needs to Redefine Girly just a tish.

I think the commercial speaks loudly as to how Lego sees girls, what Lego thinks girls are interested in, and how highly Lego holds girls’ capacity for spacial reasoning and construction play. Will this attract our girly-girls out there who think Lego is only for boys, or will only play with pink and pretty things? Maybe. I am yet unconvinced the ends justify the means. Being a girly-girl doesn’t make one incapable of building and planning and designing and reasoning, but Lego doesn’t seem to see it that way. Lego has a very clear idea of what “girly” means to them.

I am left wondering, in the age of childhood obesity, why Lego could not have created a juice bar/farmer’s stand with fresh produce and flowers? The all-female residents of Heartlake City are shown in the commercials rolling down to the cafe for burgers, shakes, and cupcakes. Instead of a cupcake baker, couldn’t Lego Friend Andrea be an organic farmer and we could build her a barn and big Chevy farm truck? And she could have a little laptop where she tracks weather systems and soil conditions and Skypes with other organic farmers around the world? No? Too much?   

I also wonder, why can’t a single one of the girls work in downtown Heartlake in one of those skyscrapers? Maybe as, oh I don’t know…an engineer or architect? Is that just crazy talk? Why are they in the burbs decorating houses and cupcakes? Did I miss the Lego Friends Time Machine that zapped us back to 1952? Were you to lay a track of the Lego Friends commercial over one for Barbie Charm School or Lelli Kelly sparkle toe shoes or anything Disney Princess, they all sound exactly the same. Somehow Lego and other marketers decided the way to attract XX-chromosome customers you need a syrupy-sweet female voice with blue birds singing in the background to sell girls on the notion their role in this world is to be pretty and sweet. Way to STEM it up, Lego.

As Daniel Sinker says in his post, “Legos are still held up as a gateway to engineering and science, and despite my misgivings about the current state of their kits, I still believe they are. But if they’ve become toys marketed to a single gender, then we’re just reproducing the already awful gender imbalance in STEM education and employment.”

If girls are playing in the first person, as Lego says their research found, why is Lego not making people that are amazing role models for girls? Why is Lego not taking this opportunity to promote STEM to girls? In addition to a cafe owner, where is the calculus teacher or surgeon or CEO or scientific explorer or rescue worker or geologist or…..anything but what they gave us that sells girls short. Mireya Mayor is a famous National Geographic wildlife explorer, author, and a total girly-girl, even when treking across the world discovering new animal species. Lego, the king of licensing, couldn’t send her an email? I’d buy Mireya Mayor or Bindi Irwin Lego by the bucket. I like the vet (short skirt-wearing vet, this was questioned by a vet on our Facebook page) and the invention lab, but instead Lego morphed Polly Pockets and Barbie into brick form. Lego had such an amazing opportunity here to break away from the pack at the quarter pole and be a champion for girls. They didn’t take it. It is still out there, Mega Bloks, in case your listening.

Somebody please have the guts to show our girls how strong and smart and incredible and powerful they can be. I do it with my shirts and I sell them by the thousands. Let’s put that into a little plastic toy form. I’ve got ideas, who wants to listen? Mattel, wanna talk? Manhattan Toy Company? Is there ANYONE out there who has not drank the pink Kool-Aid?? I think I’m going to make myself cry.

Let’s move on…..

NBC’s TODAY Show Uses Sexism and Stereotypes to Promote Sexism and Stereotypes

On Tuesday morning many of us watched incredulously (jump to 5:01 in the video) as Matt Lauer interviewed Star Jones, Donny Deutsch, and Dr. Nancy Snyderman. One of the topics discussed was Lego Friends, and the two minute discussion was a master’s class in using ingrained cultural sexism to defend sexism. The interview left many of us furious and offended. As was brilliantly said on the Pigtail Facebook page: “Having people with such a reach not GET IT is overwhelming.”

Margot Magowan of Reel Girl transcribed the segment:

Matt Lauer:

Star Jones: And they give you little electric mixers and brushes and combs and purses.

Donnie Deutsch: Perfect, perfect.

Matt Lauer: You’re sounding down on this.

Jones: When you’re a little girl, you want to build bridges also. You want to put them on top of each other. You don’t want–

Lauer: So go out and buy the architectural Lego.

(Nancy Snyderman laughs.)

Jones: Which is exactly the way my three year old goddaughter does. She has the architectural one. The big yellow ones.

Nancy Snyderman: These are perfectly okay. The reality is there is a gender difference. Girls like playing with girl’s things, and you’re still constructing things. If the cupcake girl can still do calculus, I have no issue.

Then there’s this part, Italics mine because there was so much interupting at this point it is hard to follow:

Deutsch: You’re teaching them to build! (Not really, the sets require precious little challenging building.)

Snyderman: It gets girls into architecture and math and design, I’m all for it!

Jones: Give them some alternatives for goodness sake. (Visibly frustrated.)

Lauer: There’s no law that says they can’t go to the store and buy the Frank Lloyd Wright line. (No law, but a hell of a lot of marketing.)

Jones: They (don’t) put the Legos in the girls sections. (Star was interupted here and not able to finish her sentence.)

Deutsch: Little Girls do like princesses and things like that. I like princesses. (Categorical stereotype presented as fact. My little girl does not like princess. I know many others like her.)

Snyderman: And will parents buy this for boys? (Laughs loudly)

Deutsch: No they won’t. (Laughs loudly, with an “Oh my God, that’d be so gay” look on his face.)

Lauer: That’s probably not going to happen. (Gives Nancy a “Are you crazy” side glance because everyone knows boys don’t touch girls’ things.)

(Matt, Donny, and Nancy all laugh loudly as Star sits slumped and defeated in her chair.)

Well then. If that isn’t offensive, I don’t know what is. First, for a segment on marketing, no one but Star Jones seemed to understand marketing. How a product is packaged, and who is shown playing with it, matters. Where the product is placed in the store, specifically the pink and blue toy aisles, matters. The images and messages and color coding our kids see over and over and over again, matters. This is called marketing, and marketers know all of this matters. That is why they spend so much money doing it. Keep in mind, Donny Deutsch is an ad guy. A famous one. And he uses a cupcake and princess analogy presented as fact, when what he is doing is missing the point that girls are programmed and conditioned to like those things because so often, they have no other choices. They like what they have to choose from. It is like Henry Ford saying, “You can have any color you want so long as it is black.” Girls who are given a wider range to choose from demonstrate a variety of interests. If from that wide range they choose cupcakes and tutus, bless their little hearts. But sweet baby jeebus give them choices. Choices! 2012 could be the year of choices!!

Second, the bigger issue is the laughter over the idea of boys playing with this Lego Friends line. And not just a chuckle. Three of the four “professional” panelists had cracked themselves up over the idea of a boy playing with a toy so feminine. Clearly the panelists feel there is a definite distinction over what girls and boys should be playing with, and the idea of a boy being interested in Heartlake City is hilarious.

The Sanford Harmony Program  said it best on the Pigtail Facebook page: “This was a tremendous missed opportunity for bringing boys and girls TOGETHER. If children are given more chances to establish some common ground, and work and play with one another, they will be more inclined to engage more often – learning from and about each other along the way. The messages and images polarizing our girls and boys contribute tremendously to the notion that boys and girls grow-up in “separate worlds.” In these single-gender peer groups, kids are honing their communication and problem solving skills in isolation of one another and socializing each other in different ways. The world is co-ed – let’s do something to help bring our kids together.” 

Vintage Lego ad, when Lego knew who they were and what they meant to kids.

 Side by Side Gender Apartheid: A Visual Reference

I headed to YouTube to catch some Lego tv commercials, and see if maybe this all wasn’t just in my head. So I watched two Lego Friends commercials, and then created a wordle from the words in the used by the narrator in the commercial, and the colors most represented by the brick colors in the sets. I then did the same for a Lego Dino and Lego City commercial.

You be the judge.

Apartheid (n): From the Afrikaans word for “apartness”, a system of segregation.

Words captured from Lego commercials, Lego Friends on left, Lego Dino and Lego City on right. (blog.pigtailpals.com)

Imagine a toy store where the aisles are seperated by color. The toys in the different-colored aisles contrast sharply from each other, and send strong messages to the children viewing them about what is and is not accepted and expected from children of the other color. They also send strong messages about which colored child should be in which aisle, and where their interests lay. For the most part, the children accept the color lines and stick to their aisle. Grown ups seem to have no problem with it.

The Black Aisle for African American kids. The White Aisle for Caucasion kids.
Oh, is that offensive? We wouldn’t dream of segregating toys like that, you’re right.
I meant the Purple Aisle for Christians, The Blue Aisle for Jews, and the far Red Aisle for Muslims.
No, wrong again? Still offensive? We don’t seperate children by race or religion. We wouldn’t teach, and certainly not market nor build profits off intolerance, stereotypes, and limitation like that, got it.

Now imagine I’m talking about Pink and Blue.
Still. Offensive.

When we limit our children, we limit our children.

December 20, 2011

Dear Lego,

This is a big Christmas for my family. With our children being almost six years old and three years old, we have graduated into the world of “big kid” toys. This was the first year our children were going to get real Legos from Santa. Not Mega Blocks, we’re giving our big tub of those to the little girls across the street. Not Duplos, because we’re big kids now. Legos. Real, bona fide, build-em-up but don’t-step-on-them-in-the-middle-of-the-night Legos. We were going to take the kids to Legoland in Chicago. I was so excited.

And then you broke my heart just a little bit. You sold out. You sold my daughter out. You shortchanged my son and now contribute to the skewed and narrow way girls are portrayed in media and toys. You became like every other toy maker and drank the pink Kool Aid. You stated some research  about girls needing girly Legos to build and create. Something about needing to project themselves onto their toys. Most little girls I know want to be doctors, teachers, vets, scientists, explorers, and moms when they grow up. I suppose I was a little foolish to think you’d make the Ladyfig Space Station, Ladyfig Emergency Room, Ladyfig Trek Explorer Caravan, and the special edition Ladyfig Doctors Without Borders Field Hospital and UN ambulance.  But your busty Ladyfigs in their short skirts and the gender-coded pink, turquoise, and purple bricks come as a pop star, a socialite (seriously?), and a beautician. Because nothing tells our girls to dream big like a Ladyfig in a hot tub with a fruity cocktail.

Your research showed girls like to project themselves onto the toys they are playing with, so instead of giving them Dr. Sally Ride or Hilary Clinton or Dian Fossey or Septima Clark or Margaret Mead or Amelia Earhart or Dr. Hattie Alexander, you gave them Kim Kardashian.

How is my almost six year supposed to project herself onto a socialite or pop star, when the women in our family and friends she knows closely are university deans, international humanitarian workers, teachers, nurses, business owners, and writers? I suppose I could get her Olivia’s Workshop for her January birthday, as the power tools and microscope and equations on the blackboard are more congruent with how I am raising her than the beautician sitting poolside with a Orange Mojito in her giant Ladyfig hand.

I think it is very important for little girls to build, compute, and problem solve. To actually construct things, mind you, not just move their Ladyfig vet around the vet clinic that doesn’t require much building. For spatial aptitude and mathematical skills, Legos are superb. But when I look at your “girl” sets, I see that you don’t expect much from girls. Maybe pink bricks will draw in girls who wouldn’t normally build/play with Legos, but they are still getting the short straw once they arrive to Lego in comparison to what you offer boys.

About boys, for a minute. They are raised from birth to be little masters of the universe. Girls are, by and large, told to be sweet and pretty. Your advertisements don’t show girls playing with Legos. The Legos for girls you will soon offer reinforce these gender stereotypes that boys are picking up from our culture about what to expect from girls, and what girls are capable of. I know the selection of Legos is huge, and I know that I have other Lego set options to purchase for my home. As the mother to a son and a daughter, the stereotypes found within the Lego world for girls bother me greatly. I can still hear the whooosh sound that the tub of Legos I had growing up made with my brothers and I would dump it out all over a bedroom floor and sit for hours and build. I wanted this for my children.

I was so excited to bring Legos into our home. Now, my feeling at most can be described as “meh”. Maybe we’ll give Lego a second chance. Or maybe I’ll just get the kids Bristle Blocks instead. I don’t think those come with boobs and mini-skirts.

Sincerely,
Melissa Wardy

Melissa Wardy, age 7 in 1984, with her Legos.

My buddy Katie, known around the world as the Star Wars Girl.

Last year I was introduced to one of the coolest girls I know. Her name is Katie. Dozens of people sent me her story, saying I had to reach out to her. I read the story and instantly wanted to offer little Katie support so I reached out to her mom and said I’d like to send Katie some Pigtail Pals stuff for her and her sisters. Many emails and phones calls since that time, I now consider the family to be good friends, and Katie is still one of the coolest kids around.

You might know Katie….you know, The Star Wars Girl? Her story went viral about a year ago, and people all over fell in love with the darling little girl with a love of Star Wars. Katie was in first grade and being bullied by her boy classmates for, of all things, having a Star Wars water bottle. She was told girls can’t like Star Wars. She told her mom, through tears, she would just take a pink one instead to avoid being harassed. Her mom told her to follow her heart, and that it was okay to be different. Katie’s mom, Carrie, wrote a blog post about the situation and in days thousands and thousands of comments offering Katie support came pouring in.

Join us on December 16, 2011 for Wear Star Wars, Share Star Wars. Last year the Internet held a day of support for a little girl who was brave enough to be different. Pigtail Pals celebrates all girls, and we’d love to have you and your kiddos participate!

Celebrate this day of anti-bullying by wearing something Star Wars or science/science fiction-related. Show your support of girls who love science, adventure, and are brave enough to be different from the tide of pink and pretty surrounding them.

Katie’s family has also suggested  donating a Star Wars or science fiction toy to a child in need this holiday season. PLEASE put a post-it note on the new, unwrapped toy specifying that it can go to a girl or a boy; otherwise, these traditional “boy toys” will be given only to boys. You can bring the toy to a hospital, a shelter, or drop it off with any organization collecting toys.

I’m off to go find an Ewok t-shirt so that I can support my buddy Katie, and girls everywhere just like her.

I love my job and the conversations that I get to have with parents every day and the emails or Facebook comments I receive thanking me for changing the way they see their girls and the marketplace. That’s what media literacy is all about — getting people to see the previously unseen. Once your eyes are open to it, you can’t unsee it.

We don’t need to agree with each other all of the time, and I think it is better when we don’t, because our discussions make everybody stretch and think a little bit harder. I learn from you guys every day, and I hope that you are learning from me. A group this large….there is no way all of us will see one thing the same way all of the time.  And that’s okay, as long as we treat each other with respect.

Of course, there are those that aren’t learning or seeing the Big Picture, and maybe never will. And that’s when we play Media Literacy Bingo! I realize that a lot of times, my blog or Facebook posts are preaching to the choir. We are a smart group already in tune to the dangers of childhood sexualization, objectification and sexualization in the media, and the limitations of gender stereotypes in childhood.

We are the front line of an army working for social justice for our children. Right now it is an uphill batte, but a fight worth taking to the streets. Am I overreacting? The vast majority of our daughters do not like their bodies, depression and Eating Disorders are sky rocketing, sexualized women’s bodies can be seen everywhere (including G-rated kids media and toys) in our culture, our sons have their own host of issues, 1/5 of kids are having sex before fourteen years of age, and 1 in 4 teens will suffer from dating violence (and maybe fall into the 1 in 6 women who will survive rape or attempted rape).

Crying yet? Ready to fight? I sure am. As Megan Mascorro-Jackson said so eloquently: Large injustices are allowed because small injustices have become commonplace.

Though it was suggested to me yesterday by some commenters, I’m not sure I can cure malaria, fix job inequality, or single-handedly stop sex traffiking…although those are all important issues. I think I can do what I do best, and that is awaken a consciousness among parents, continue to be a resource to those that need it, and walk the walk by putting better products on the marketplace.

This I know for sure: When we know better, we can do better.

Now – let’s play some Media Literacy Bingo!!

Everyone please take a card, and let’s play with just the comments I received yesterday…..I want you to see this, not to make fun of people, but to see the kind of push back we get when we talk about these issues so that when you are discussing them with friends and family, you don’t take things personally or get discouraged. I have received comments identical to the ones below on a dozen other posts. They are repetitive on this blog and others that tackle these issues. I want you to see it as a pattern of comments made to those of us that ask people to see things differently, to see the Big Picture of what is happening to childhood and to women in the media.  

1. “If you want your daughter to be a stuck up, lazy, unfashionable, feminist, you’re on the right track sweetie.”

2. “I think you need to find something to do Melissa. I’m glad I dont sit around trying to run the world and tell people what they should and shouln’t do.”

3. “What you are apparently disturbed by is called fetishism, or sexualization of something not normally associated with sex…That’s your dirty mind, not mine.”

4. “I think you’re looking a bit too hard for something to offend you.”

5. “Women are facing any number of difficult struggles for equality that get marginalized because folks like you get their dander up over minutia such as this.”

6. “I stand by the terming of this as “minutia,” not worthy of the attention of an intelligent, educated woman. Tempest in a teapot.”

7. “Sorry Melissa, but I’m more offended by your offense to this ad than anything else.” 

8. “My advice, either crawl back under your 1950′s circa rock or try and deal with the changing times and media.”

9. “Melissa has every right to express her outrage. And to damage the efficacy of the women’s rights movement and  decrease attention for the REAL issues, such as income and job inequality.”

10. “You’re the one with the dirty mind and the free times.”

11. “Women like you make all of us look bad at some point.”

12. “Dear Melissa, I’m sorry that you are a bored housewife who can’t take a little fun.”

13. “Please start reading into our current issues of America like the Wall Street protests, the national debt, the potential candidates for president, or even the funding needed for a malaria vaccine.”

14. “To call it sexulized or even mildly pornographic is taking things to an extreme of feminazi’ism that is just rediculous.”

15. “Find something real to be upset about.”

16. “You’re what we call a “pre-angry”. Always prepared to get into a fight about any little thing.

17. “You need a hobby.”

18. Can you fill in the blank for a Free Space from something said you?

Anybody get a Bingo?

A huge thank you to Lisa Ray of Parents for Ethical Marketing for creating and sharing with us this Bingo card.

Pigtail Pals has been working since May of 2009 to change the way people think about girls. We have put more positive images and apparel on the market for girls. We have written hundreds of blog posts educating parents about gender stereotypes in children’s products and media, early sexualization in childhood, and body image in young girls. But are we making a dent?

I just found this magazine page (Parents) from June 2007. My mom sent it to me, with a sticky note, saying “You need to do your tshirt idea, look how bad these dolls are!”

What is your version of girlhood? I know mine.

This image was from 2007. Things have gotten worse since then. I’ll spare you the gory statistics for another post with regard to the harms of sexualization, the epidemic of poor body image in girls, and the dollars these marketers are earning off of our girls.

Right now, I want to hear from you….What issues are you concerned about or confused about or need more info on when it comes to raising a confident, healthy daughter? We have several thousand new readers to the blog, so I want to be giving you the best information, and information you need. We need to work together to save girlhood.

Let me hear what  you need.