Letters to the Editor
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Parenting by Hasbro.com
Oh. My. Gawd.
Please do check out the Hasbro website for all of your child-rearing needs:
- Don't be alarmed or upset if your boy prefers a gentler form of play, dressing up in costumes or taking care of stuffed animals. All children benefit from this kind of play, and most boys don't get enough of it.
- Recognize that your son is absorbing all sorts of information from TV and movies, including many messages about what is expected from boys and men. The media--and our own expectations--can give boys the wrong idea that there is only one very narrow definition of masculinity.
http://www.hasbro.com/tonka/default.cfm?page=parents_parentingtips
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@Mr. Jones
I don't think you're expected to buy your kids toys they don't want. I had a friend who got her little boy a Barbie, and he bent it at the waist and aimed it at his mom and said, "BANG! BANG!"
But this heavily gendered marketing is SO 20th century. When I was a little girl, I was desperate for one of those electric car tracks that could make cars go up walls and upside-down. They even had girls in the commercial! But you're right - it's more complicated than token actresses. I asked for the toy for Xmas and my mom said cars were for boys. I never had a single toy car or truck.
My daughter loves playing with her baby doll AND her tractor. One of my sons is a total truck-and-train freak. My other son alternates between nurturing his animals and playing war games with them. I buy them toys I think they will like (which shakes out to some pretty girly stuff for my girl, very boy-y stuff for one boy, and gender-neutral-to-girly for the other boy), and I let them play as they please, as long as they don't hurt each other.
Yeah, boys are 'built different', but I don't think we need marketing campaigns - a major voice of authority if you're a kid - to point that out TO OUR CHILDREN. All my kids loooooove to get muddy, sticky, gooey, and sandy. And ALL of them are expected to help keep the house in reasonable order by cleaning up their own messes. Even the ones who stand up to pee. We get enough gender enforcement in life without help from Hasbro. And I am glad for the seven-millionth time that we don't have a TV.
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Hasbro Website
MizB -- Isn't that exactly what we want toy makers to say? Or is it just a good day to hate toy makers generally.
What gives?
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re: What gives?
The irony of the "built for boyhood" slogan in light of those statements on the website. The rest of the website also contradicts itself in hilarious ways. I didn't want to post the entire page in my posting.
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What is so bad if they ARE different
This all seems not an argument that boys and girls aren't the same, but that the girls and their advocates want more. I think at least that much honesty is required. Because if you really want to hang at the lunch table with your all so fem Lady Boys let us know. Or tell us which one, is supposed to be the man in the relationship.
I'm not convinced you want absolute equality. I think what you want is a little more choice in who gets to decide who is more equal than whom.
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Boys do get better toys
The best toys we ever had were some steel hand me down replicas of farm equipment we got from my uncle. My grandfather even built us a barn for them in his woodshop. THe best part was since they were metal they actually worked. You could plow a tiny field with the tractor and the combine blades would turn. Too bad the Tonka trucks now all seem to be made of plastic.
I always thought playing house was the most boring thing in the world. Who would want to play at doing chores? I had to clean my room and do dishes for real and its certianly wasn't fun. Who wants a lame pink playhouse when you can build a fort in the woods? Why on earth would you want to play take care of the baby instead of baseball?
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share the market, now
Right now, my daughter is playing with rubber/plastic knights on horseback. They have surrounded a pink Barbie Princess castle and are apparently laying seige. The knight-playng daughter also has a Tonka truck, and a car carrier truck with a dozen or so hot wheels-type cars on it.
She gets very, very bored with all-Disney-Princes-all-the-time and super-pink-and-fluffy-girly stuff that everyone seems to think she wants.
She's not really an anomoly, but the ads for kids' toys certainly suggest that. And while she isn't exposed to much direct advertising (thank you Tivo!), plenty of kids are. I'm sure someday soon, some kid will tell her she's "weird" for playing with "boy stuff." The pressure to follow the crowd, to conform, seems to be starting even earlier. And while I'm confident the Seige of Chateau de Barbie will continue, she, and plenty of other off-beat kids, might start to self-censor that much sooner.
Thanks, Tonka! for helping the box get just a little smaller for everyone.
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Alienation ?
I think the % of people alienated from this kind of commercial is not significant. My guess is a risk assessment of the impact of offending feminists enough to not buy Tonka trucks was exactly zilch. Aren't y'all buying gender neutral toys anyway ?
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Heh, Madame President...
>I always thought playing house was the most boring thing in the world.<
I _loathed_ dolls when I was a girl. It bored me beyond stupid to pick which plastic shoes went with which glittery outfit that went with which hat/tiara that went with which dream house. The only time I ever enjoyed playing with dolls was when I borrowed a friend's quartet of Barbie knockoffs and had them fighting villians and having adventures. I will love my parents and relatives forever for giving me cool gifts like books and play typewriters and microscopes and Easy-Bake oven mixes. (And I always tease my parents that they should thank me for saving them a ton of money by not being a Barbie fan. :))