All things pink and flowery, all things blue and buildable

[BrotherMan]

Star Trex Fambly Stickers

[Ensign Steve]

[livius drusus]

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don't want largely female audiences

DINI: "They're all for boys 'we do not want the girls', I mean, I've heard executives say this, you know, not [where I am] but at other places, saying like, 'We do not want girls watching this show."

SMITH: "WHY? That's 51% of the population."

DINI: "They. Do. Not. Buy. Toys. The girls buy different toys. The girls may watch the show—"

SMITH: "So you can sell them T-shirts if they don't—A: I disagree, I think girls buy toys as well, I mean not as many as f***ing boys do, but, B: sell them something else, man! Don't be lazy and be like, 'well I can't sell a girl a toy.' Sell 'em a T-shirt, man, sell them f***ing umbrella with the f***ing character on it, something like that. But if it's not a toy, there's something else you could sell 'em! Like, just because you can't figure out your job, don't kill chances of, like, something that's gonna reach an audi—that's just so self-defeating, when people go, like… these are the same fuckers who go, like, 'Oh, girls don't read comics, girls aren't into comics.' It's all self-fulfilling prophecies. They just make it that way, by going like, 'I can't sell 'em a toy, what's the point?'

[BrotherMan]

I just listened to the podcast and wanted to posten it, but that part is somewhere in the middle. It was p angering to listen to because of the annoyance and defeat in his voice as he was talking about it.

[wei yau]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

Star Trex Fambly Stickers

So, does anyone here have a problem with how Uhura and Sulu are depicted?

[Ari]

Looking at the white for blonde hair my guess is this has more to do with screen printing limitations as each color costs money.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by lisarea

The last time I was talking to Kiddo when he was upset that time, I told him he was growing up to be smart and brave like his mom, and that was the one thing that really seemed to make him feel better.

Little boys want to grow up to be cool like their moms.

I still don't even know what that was about, and he has never mentioned it. I don't know that timberbashing to get a kitteh is being brave so much as a being a sucker.

[Janet]

I thought about putting this in the misandry thread because of the whining, but it really fits better here. Marks & Spencer are getting rid of gender divided toy sections, and some people seem to be horrified. I've seen a terrifying vision of the future, and it looks like a boy driving a pink toy car.

[JoeP]

We’ve been on this road to ruin ever since voting stopped being a ‘Boys’ Stuff’ activity and now look where we are: a situation in which a little girl might think it’s okay to play with a plastic dinosaur.

[JoeP]

Something doesn't seem symmetric about this whole concept of boys' toys and girls' toys.

A girl playing with dinosaurs and cars and building things is non-traditional but does not seem to me to say much about the girl's gender identity.

A boy dressing up as a princess is pretty clearly gender-specific. What about a boy dressing up a prince? Or a king? Why doesn't that happen much? As opposed to Spiderman.

A boy playing with a doll's house ought to be seen as gender neutral. But I imagine it often isn't. A boy playing with makeup would be seen as feminine gendered because the same is true of adults. Except theatrical makeup - facepaint - and war paint.

The only male-gender-specific kids toys I can think of are specific characters (like Spiderman) or roles that society as a whole has failed to make gender-equal yet (doctors, not nurses, firemen, etc).

So it seems to me most "boys' toys" are just "toys". But a fair proportion of "girls' toys" are actually gender-specific.

Am I missing obvious examples? Non-obvious cultural biases?

[lisarea]

I think it has to do partly with the neutral male assumption--that is, that the default human is male, and female humans are some weird distaff mutation or something--and also because things coded as male as considered aspirational, whereas those coded female are considered sort of silly and superfluous. So you'll always have wider acceptance of girls who want to play with building toys or cars or whatever, whereas support is pretty thin and active discouragement much more common for boys who want to play with domestic or cosmetic type toys. Girls do get gender policed all the time, but there's not nearly as strong a stigma to things coded masculine.

It's also why so many of the most hurtful things you can say to a boy come down to saying or strongly implying that he's a girl.

[Ari]

Yep! While there are certainly things oriented towards boys, the categories really should be "girls toys" and "not girls toys." The same can be seen spreading out into the rest of the store with pink toolboxes, etc.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I think it has to do partly with the neutral male assumption--that is, that the default human is male, and female humans are some weird distaff mutation or something--and also because things coded as male as considered aspirational, whereas those coded female are considered sort of silly and superfluous. So you'll always have wider acceptance of girls who want to play with building toys or cars or whatever, whereas support is pretty thin and active discouragement much more common for boys who want to play with domestic or cosmetic type toys. Girls do get gender policed all the time, but there's not nearly as strong a stigma to things coded masculine.

It's also why so many of the most hurtful things you can say to a boy come down to saying or strongly implying that he's a girl.

"weird distaff mutation" - Google Search

Without the quotes, is only the third hit.

[Janet]

The Let Toys be Toys campaign has inspired a spinoff, or copycat, or whatever. Let Books be Books is aiming to get rid of gendered design and marketing of books. It's an interesting idea. I'd love to see if it spread, but seeing as Let Toys be Toys hasn't even caught on here I doubt it will effect what we see from publishers in this country, at least for quite a while.

[LadyShea]

I reread the thread some, so went looking for Family Decals I might enjoy. I wish I had a baby so I could get this set...for the baby which cracks me up

Here's a good one

Crazy Cat Lady

[Sock Puppet]

Was going to poast this in the Cloaca thrad, but it's more on topic here.

I recently discovered that Li'l Puppet now has a rep in her class as being a "tomboy." Now, that's a dumbassed term anyway and who the hell wants to preserve its definitional purity, but still -- seriously? This is the girl who has zero interest in sports, cries when her tangled hair gets pulled too hard by the brush, and has the largest collection of Beanie Boos in North America (I assume). So why is she a tomboy? Near as I can tell, it's because she doesn't take any shit from the boys and trades insults with them.

That's it. Don't shrink into a puddle of tears when boys talk mean, and you're a tomboy. Fucking Christ. Mind you, she doesn't mind the designation at all. She wears the label like a badge, I suspect because she likes having an established niche in her new-ish school.

Oh, and she likes Minecraft now, is that supposed to be a dudes-only thing?

[slimshady2357]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

Oh, and she likes Minecraft now, is that supposed to be a dudes-only thing?

I don't think so, both our girls were into Minecraft a few years ago and neither seemed to think it was a 'boys' game in any way.

[Kael]

My daughter has played minecraft since she was about 3, and loves the hell out of it. She has built the coolest rambling sculptures and impromptu torch trails I have ever seen. I'll see if I can find one of her old saves and take some screenshots, but I know several of them got deleted. She really likes Terraria too, but is sad because she can't turn off the monsters and just build. Don't misunderstand, she loves fighting the monsters in both games, that's when she's the most excited, beating some skeleton or zombie down. But she's just not that good yet and is easily frustrated when it gets too hard. I try to help by giving her better armor and weapons from my games, but sometimes I come back later and she's lost her Phaseblade or whatever and seems to have no idea what she did with it. And sometimes she just wants to build, you know?

[LadyShea]

This is like a Kickstarter for Lego, except no money is donated. You do need a Lego ID which easy, so support the ones you like!

Legend of Korra
https://ideas.lego.com/projects/29158

[LadyShea]

Posting this link here too as well as the gender thread Lego female scientists: LegoAcademics Twitter account makes fun of university life.

[Ensign Steve]

Good read. Made me think of Kiddo.

A Guy Game

[LadyShea]

I love that story.

[Hermit]

[JoeP]

Is there one with "I won't date feminists"?

[Janet]

The Let Books be Books campaign has scored a win. Ladybird, a British publisher I'd never heard of before, will stop gender labeling books. But the article makes a much more interesting point than that, which is how problematic many fairy tales are. The Princess and the Frog has pretty much been ruined for me forever by her interpretation. But it wasn't a favorite anyway.