COMMENTARY: Christmas Child’s Play Concerns
TOY CATALOG PROMPTS WORRY ABOUT GENDER-SPECIFIC ROLES
By Fran Alexander
Posted: November 14, 2010 at 5:14 a.m.
Print itemE-mailShareFAYETTEVILLE — The glossy thick Christmas ads and catalogs are now falling out of the mailbox, but before you recycle them, check out what these sociological tomes reveal about us. I recently examined a 52-page toy catalog from a global retailer and skimmed another. Both speak volumes about our culture.
My loose methodology in looking at the first catalog was to tally the pages where only boys (19) or only girls (13) or both (7) were pictured, to list the main toys shown for each, and to note the predominate colors used on the toys and in the ads.
The remaining pages of the catalog were full of videos, games, bikes, etc.
The two most interesting things I noticed in this amateur survey of mine were the names of the toys and the activity they provided.
Boys’ pages, which led in both catalogs with the first 20 pages or so, were stocked with “Toy Story’s” cowboy, Space Ranger, and a dinosaur. Bigfoot the Monster is pictured big this year, as well as loud rocker guitars (7) and the usual trucks (5), speedways (4), dragons (4), robots (6), huge guns (8), “Star Wars” battleships (5), various macho vehicles (19), and, strangely, wrestling rings (2). I lost count of toys described as “battle,” “war,” “force,” “action,” “gear,” “assault,” “power,” “striker,” and “fighter” equipment. In this holiday season about birth and love and good cheer, imaginethe joy you’ll bring to your little boys with “Stinky the Garbage Truck” or the “Fire-Breathing Night Fury and the Attack Playset” (dragons) or a “Viking Battle Ax. “They also can be thrilled with the “Bakugan Battle Brawlers” or the “Star Wars Hailfire Droid” and can wield a “Grievous Lightsaber.”
“Iron Man 2 “has a “3-in-1 Repulsor” that I think I could use, but alas, only a helmeted boy with a fist drawn back was demonstrating it so I guess girls need not apply.
Iron Man also had a rocket boost, a war machine, and an arc light. (Sigh.) And I know every mother’s heart will appreciate the “K’NEX Speed Demon Coaster” and the “Monster Jam Grave Digger vs. Maximum Destruction Building Set.” But perhaps it should be the “Air Hogs Sharp Shooter Missile Launching Helicopter” that will really defines the spirit of the season in your home? Or a “Mighty Beanz Slam ’N Smash Play Set”? Choices, choices.
Since gender is often delineated by color, the older boy toys grow up from baby blue to mostly solid red, blue, green, gold, gray, brown, and the ever sinister, black.
Turn the page, however, into the girls’ section (15 pages), and it looks like you’ve fallen into a crock of Pepto Bismol. What’s not pink is gentle aqua, yellow, or lavender. Girls,however, seem to be shown with the most educational toys like “Playskool Alphie” and the “V.Tech V. Reader,” but in this catalog they were also offered seven different doll houses, three treehouses, three kitchen sets, two barns, five craft kits, 21 pets, two horses, six fairies, and a whopping 31 different dolls including one called a “Lalaloopsy.” That ad claims, “each… is unique.”
“Dora the Explorer” is singing and dancing and has her own house these days. I wonder what she’s discovering? Girls cook, rearrange furniture in their “Loving Family” dollhouses, and above all, these “Little Mommy” pretenders take care of “Baby Alive,” or rescue and walk pets. A foreveron-her-plastic toes Barbie has another townhouse and a “Fashion Fairytale Glitterizer Playset,” but most ironic of all (and the smallest featured item) is the “Barbie I Can BePlayset” with its “variety of professions to choose from.”
A couple of the dolls with horses are dressed in darker colors, but are not short on girlie fashion. However, I wouldn’t want to ride a horse in the shorts one is wearing or the dress with tights the other one chose.
There were no doctors, nurses, scientists, astronauts, artists, teachers, leaders, architects, carpenters, etc. in this catalog, and by the end of my survey the overwhelming impression left in my gut is that girls have the babies and make the homes and the boys go into battle and destroy stuff, including life.
This grandma is not buying.
FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONG-STANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE.
Reply Forward
Dick BennettExcellent analysis Fran. You partly explain why our nation makes permanent wa...
1:26 PM (3 hours ago)
Reply |Fran Alexander to Dick
show details 4:14 PM (38 minutes ago)
sure-----and thanks, F
- Show quoted text -
On Nov 15, 2010, at 1:26 PM, Dick Bennett wrote:
Excellent analysis Fran. You partly explain why our nation makes permanent war.
May I put it in my Blog? Dick
On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Fran Alexander
COMMENTARY: Christmas Child’s Play Concerns
TOY CATALOG PROMPTS WORRY ABOUT GENDER-SPECIFIC ROLES
By Fran Alexander
Posted: November 14, 2010 at 5:14 a.m.
Print itemE-mailShareFAYETTEVILLE — The glossy thick Christmas ads and catalogs are now falling out of the mailbox, but before you recycle them, check out what these sociological tomes reveal about us. I recently examined a 52-page toy catalog from a global retailer and skimmed another. Both speak volumes about our culture.
My loose methodology in looking at the first catalog was to tally the pages where only boys (19) or only girls (13) or both (7) were pictured, to list the main toys shown for each, and to note the predominate colors used on the toys and in the ads.
The remaining pages of the catalog were full of videos, games, bikes, etc.
The two most interesting things I noticed in this amateur survey of mine were the names of the toys and the activity they provided.
Boys’ pages, which led in both catalogs with the first 20 pages or so, were stocked with “Toy Story’s” cowboy, Space Ranger, and a dinosaur. Bigfoot the Monster is pictured big this year, as well as loud rocker guitars (7) and the usual trucks (5), speedways (4), dragons (4), robots (6), huge guns (8), “Star Wars” battleships (5), various macho vehicles (19), and, strangely, wrestling rings (2). I lost count of toys described as “battle,” “war,” “force,” “action,” “gear,” “assault,” “power,” “striker,” and “fighter” equipment. In this holiday season about birth and love and good cheer, imaginethe joy you’ll bring to your little boys with “Stinky the Garbage Truck” or the “Fire-Breathing Night Fury and the Attack Playset” (dragons) or a “Viking Battle Ax. “They also can be thrilled with the “Bakugan Battle Brawlers” or the “Star Wars Hailfire Droid” and can wield a “Grievous Lightsaber.”
“Iron Man 2 “has a “3-in-1 Repulsor” that I think I could use, but alas, only a helmeted boy with a fist drawn back was demonstrating it so I guess girls need not apply.
Iron Man also had a rocket boost, a war machine, and an arc light. (Sigh.) And I know every mother’s heart will appreciate the “K’NEX Speed Demon Coaster” and the “Monster Jam Grave Digger vs. Maximum Destruction Building Set.” But perhaps it should be the “Air Hogs Sharp Shooter Missile Launching Helicopter” that will really defines the spirit of the season in your home? Or a “Mighty Beanz Slam ’N Smash Play Set”? Choices, choices.
Since gender is often delineated by color, the older boy toys grow up from baby blue to mostly solid red, blue, green, gold, gray, brown, and the ever sinister, black.
Turn the page, however, into the girls’ section (15 pages), and it looks like you’ve fallen into a crock of Pepto Bismol. What’s not pink is gentle aqua, yellow, or lavender. Girls,however, seem to be shown with the most educational toys like “Playskool Alphie” and the “V.Tech V. Reader,” but in this catalog they were also offered seven different doll houses, three treehouses, three kitchen sets, two barns, five craft kits, 21 pets, two horses, six fairies, and a whopping 31 different dolls including one called a “Lalaloopsy.” That ad claims, “each… is unique.”
“Dora the Explorer” is singing and dancing and has her own house these days. I wonder what she’s discovering? Girls cook, rearrange furniture in their “Loving Family” dollhouses, and above all, these “Little Mommy” pretenders take care of “Baby Alive,” or rescue and walk pets. A foreveron-her-plastic toes Barbie has another townhouse and a “Fashion Fairytale Glitterizer Playset,” but most ironic of all (and the smallest featured item) is the “Barbie I Can BePlayset” with its “variety of professions to choose from.”
A couple of the dolls with horses are dressed in darker colors, but are not short on girlie fashion. However, I wouldn’t want to ride a horse in the shorts one is wearing or the dress with tights the other one chose.
There were no doctors, nurses, scientists, astronauts, artists, teachers, leaders, architects, carpenters, etc. in this catalog, and by the end of my survey the overwhelming impression left in my gut is that girls have the babies and make the homes and the boys go into battle and destroy stuff, including life.
This grandma is not buying.
FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONG-STANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE.
--
Dick Bennett
Wars and Warming: Reducing the Footprints
My blog:
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/
jbennet@uark.edu
(479) 442-4600
2582 Jimmie Ave.
Fayetteville, AR 72703
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