Just so you know, this is another post that comes to you via the Galactic Suburbia Podcast.
A six year old girl recently pointed out that Hasbro's board game, "Guess Who" has only 5 girls (as opposed to 19 boys), which allowed her brother to win (really) easily when she picked a girl for him to guess. A more detailed story and Hasbro's response, here and here.
This is not, of course, the first time that kids have noticed the engendering of board games / children's toys.
There was that other story in November where a teenager, McKenna Pope, petitioned for a gender neutral Easy Bake oven so that her brother would be able to buy one (since he didn't want pink, he wanted a "dinosaur Easy Bake oven"). Hasbro, in this case, actually responded by promising a gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven starting this year (read, non-pink and hopefully not marketed as "Cooking & Baking Games For Girls" as it currently is).
Pope's petition is here and the video that went with it. The story about Hasbro's new marketing plan is here.
And then, of course, you've probably seen this video from a couple of years ago where the little girl has a fit about all the girls toys being pink.
Each of these people's responses come from a slightly different place (not wanting to lose so easily, wanting one's sibling to bake because "men also cook", and feeling the pressure to keep buying pink).
But, if you've been called out more than once, and you were a toy company, wouldn't you be running a check on all your toys, in general to see which ones might be disproportionately gendered? (Or marketed specifically to one gender)?
This color coding wasn't a part of my childhood as intensely as it is going to be a part of my child's. Mostly because I grew up in a time before the Indian Economy was liberalized and foreign toys (meaning English / American / Australian toys, or videos, or cartoons, or books) were far and few in between. Only the rich kids with uncles in Belgium had things like complete Castle Grayskull sets. We coveted these, to be sure; but, they weren't a part of our everyday play.
As middle class kids, our toys were plastic, with features and clothes hideously painted on. Or they were wooden. Or... ooh, ooh board games - Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, that sort of thing. Or we made our own games (like enacting "Giant Robot" and "Peter Pan", after watching a copy of the show that some foreign returned relative brought us).
But wait... you think that got rid of the whole genre discrimination thing? Ha!
Remember the tiny kitchen sets in stainless steel? Mostly girls played with those. If you are a desi boy my age, chances are you didn't play with that set. You probably played with cars, or cricket gear.
If you'd tried the kitchen set, in most homes, you'd be the object of so much ridicule.
Hell, even when Barbie was finally in the market (what was that, the early 90s?), the Ken toy came without style-able hair and changeable clothes. (I know my brother was pretty bugged at this.)
The saving grace, if any, was outdoor play (five-stones, running and catching, stick in the mud, eye-spy) where you ran, and pushed and shoved and fell irrespective of gender.
Right now, thanks to the strange and exciting phenomenon of globalisation and what you have, unless you question everything, is the persistence of the idea that play is inherently gendered - and helpfully color-coded.
Sure, you can't stop a girl from wanting / seeking out and playing with pink toys (and to fight that messaging every step of the way seems impossible), but what we need to watch out for are the assumptions that drive this kind of play.
Who says you can't be a blonde Essex girl and have an IQ greater than Einstein?
A six year old girl recently pointed out that Hasbro's board game, "Guess Who" has only 5 girls (as opposed to 19 boys), which allowed her brother to win (really) easily when she picked a girl for him to guess. A more detailed story and Hasbro's response, here and here.
This is not, of course, the first time that kids have noticed the engendering of board games / children's toys.
There was that other story in November where a teenager, McKenna Pope, petitioned for a gender neutral Easy Bake oven so that her brother would be able to buy one (since he didn't want pink, he wanted a "dinosaur Easy Bake oven"). Hasbro, in this case, actually responded by promising a gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven starting this year (read, non-pink and hopefully not marketed as "Cooking & Baking Games For Girls" as it currently is).
Pope's petition is here and the video that went with it. The story about Hasbro's new marketing plan is here.
And then, of course, you've probably seen this video from a couple of years ago where the little girl has a fit about all the girls toys being pink.
Each of these people's responses come from a slightly different place (not wanting to lose so easily, wanting one's sibling to bake because "men also cook", and feeling the pressure to keep buying pink).
But, if you've been called out more than once, and you were a toy company, wouldn't you be running a check on all your toys, in general to see which ones might be disproportionately gendered? (Or marketed specifically to one gender)?
This color coding wasn't a part of my childhood as intensely as it is going to be a part of my child's. Mostly because I grew up in a time before the Indian Economy was liberalized and foreign toys (meaning English / American / Australian toys, or videos, or cartoons, or books) were far and few in between. Only the rich kids with uncles in Belgium had things like complete Castle Grayskull sets. We coveted these, to be sure; but, they weren't a part of our everyday play.
As middle class kids, our toys were plastic, with features and clothes hideously painted on. Or they were wooden. Or... ooh, ooh board games - Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, that sort of thing. Or we made our own games (like enacting "Giant Robot" and "Peter Pan", after watching a copy of the show that some foreign returned relative brought us).
But wait... you think that got rid of the whole genre discrimination thing? Ha!
Remember the tiny kitchen sets in stainless steel? Mostly girls played with those. If you are a desi boy my age, chances are you didn't play with that set. You probably played with cars, or cricket gear.
If you'd tried the kitchen set, in most homes, you'd be the object of so much ridicule.
Hell, even when Barbie was finally in the market (what was that, the early 90s?), the Ken toy came without style-able hair and changeable clothes. (I know my brother was pretty bugged at this.)
The saving grace, if any, was outdoor play (five-stones, running and catching, stick in the mud, eye-spy) where you ran, and pushed and shoved and fell irrespective of gender.
Right now, thanks to the strange and exciting phenomenon of globalisation and what you have, unless you question everything, is the persistence of the idea that play is inherently gendered - and helpfully color-coded.
Sure, you can't stop a girl from wanting / seeking out and playing with pink toys (and to fight that messaging every step of the way seems impossible), but what we need to watch out for are the assumptions that drive this kind of play.
Who says you can't be a blonde Essex girl and have an IQ greater than Einstein?
1 comment:
Ah, good thing I sent a pair of blue sneakers! (although I think I did also send you something pink...!)
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