Comments on: This Year’s Edition of Gender Stereotyped Gift Guides

By: JulieAnn

JulieAnn — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 18:41:00 +0000

It starts when they’re young. It’s not surprising to see the Amazon pages with “typical” gifts for men and women when we start them in pink and blue camps as kids.
#GiftingGender

By: Maybe We Should Call It Blatantsexism-mas | No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?

Sun, 27 May 2012 16:01:47 +0000

[…] to Sociological Images, today we have a special holiday edition of Pictoral Evidence of Gender-Enforcement Against […]

By: T. Ryan Arnold

T. Ryan Arnold — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:46:00 +0000

i agree. I have always thought of think geek as one of the more gender neutral stores. especially considering that my office is filled with male and female “geeks” both of whom seem to have desks covered with their crap.

By: T. Ryan Arnold

T. Ryan Arnold — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:45:00 +0000

I personally don’t like wine, unless it’s with a fancy steak or something.

By: T. Ryan Arnold

T. Ryan Arnold — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:44:00 +0000

So neither my wife nor I have an iPad, but it’s safe to say that either one of use would consider one to be a fine gift. I’d say our enthusiasm for an ipad would be equal and as such I don’t think it’s a gendered gift despite the fact that gadgets in general tend to be gendered as “male” gifts. Having said that, I notice the iCade is listed as “for him”. As an avid retro gamer I’d love to get an iCade, almost more than an ipad to be honest…but I digress, anyway, I wonder how many ladies out there want an iCade. I’ve been to several retro gaming conventions and I have to say they individuals attending these are predominantly male despite the fact that when I was a kid it seemed like the arcades were populated with just as many female pac-fanatics. It’s hard for me to not consider the iCade a good gift for many of my male ipad owning friends and equally terrible gift for many of my female ipad owning friends. Am I way off base? Any ladies out there have an iCade on their christmas list? In general I think that most gendered gift guides make arbitrary distinctions, seriously why can’t a woman get a sweet six in one utili=key…but in the case of the iCade I think they may be onto something suggesting that it’s a safer bet for a man than a woman.

By: NWOslave

NWOslave — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:25:00 +0000

You could always get your little girl a “boy’s are stupid throw rocks at them” t-shirt. That’d break that nasty gender stereotype!

By: NWOslave

NWOslave — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:20:00 +0000

Working a double shift would encompass a minimum of 19 hours. Since women say domestic labor is a full time job we’ll call that another 9 hours. We’ll tack on say another 4 hours for travel bringing us to 32 hours. Are you telling me the average woman works 32 hours a day? Toss in sleep and personal care for another 10 hours and that’d be 42 hours a day. Not that I doubt the gospel truth of your word alone but, care to revise your oppression?

By: Al

Al — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 02:16:00 +0000

yeah, my dad talks about when he used to buy 3 comics for a nickel. though even then, they weren’t new ones. but his favorite comic is preacher, so he still likes the new stuff. he was really into video games until the wii and first person shooters took over. he doesn’t want to get out of his chair, and i think the shooters make him dizzy (they make me dizzy.) my dad is basically a 70 year old adolescent geek. he likes horror more than sci fi though.

By: Leigha

Leigha — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:34:00 +0000

My grandpa is about the same age as your dad, and while I don’t think he’s read any comic books recently, he read them a lot as a kid and used to collect them. The ’50s was a big era for comic books, and I’d guess a lot of men that age like them for nostalgia reasons (if they ever stopped reading them in the first place). The only reason my grandpa doesn’t, I think, is because they’re “not as good” now.

By: Leigha

Leigha — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:30:00 +0000

Nope. They DO, however, have a woman’s “No, I will not do your math” shirt, with the caption being, “You know what we’re too pretty for? Putting up with anti-intellectualism.”

By: Al

Al — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:56:00 +0000

i’ve never been able to use a gendered gift guide to buy anything for anyone i know. i mean, my mom will wear jewelry, but she’d rather have a book about politics. my dad likes comic books (i guess that’s becoming more common of a dad thing, but my dad is 70!)

i also always make father’s day cards for my dad, because he doesn’t golf, bbq, fix things around the house, or appreciate sports of any kind for any reason.

i also think if you don’t know someone well enough to buy them a gift based on more than their relationship to you (girlfriend, brother, mother…) or their gender, maybe you should just buy them a gift certificate to amazon.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 07:15:00 +0000

Catalogs seem especially egregious, and the holiday times probably further emphasize the divides, what with the pressures to find appropriate gifts, sometimes for people you don’t know very well, like kids of friends or distant relatives.

I’m a little hopeful we might see this trend start to fade a little bit. Hasbro now has the “Brony” phenomenon to deal with, and at least one British retailer is changing things up: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/12/14/hamleys-toy-store-removes-sexist-signs-after-gender-stereotype-criticism-115875-23634658/ .

Also, her is a little girl raging against the system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-CU040Hqbas :)

By: Aeon Blue

Aeon Blue — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 03:32:00 +0000

And in this fantasy land, where your husband does all of the cooking, cleaning, shopping for the family, raises your children and works a double shift while you are overpaid handsomely, you will be so deluded with privilege that you’ll convince yourself the honey-do list is in some way actually bothersome because it encroaches upon your leisure time – a concept completely alien to your overworked husband.

By: Kylie Lowe

Kylie Lowe — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 07:44:00 +0000

I think gender stereotypes and marketing schemes targeted at men or women rather than men and women can be fine for most people. The trouble comes when this type of marketing places individuals in very strict, tight ideas of what being masculine/male or feminine/female means. The truth is that a significant portion of individuals don’t fit into stereotypical molds. I’m sure you can think of a number of anecdotal examples of this phenomenon.

While these ideas may make fine marketing strategies, they can be oppressive and confining in nature for the people that don’t fit in. (It seems to me that the more inclusive something is the broader range of consumers it will attract.)

I don’t think the goal here is to make men and women completely the same. Humans are all unique from one another; we are not the same. We don’t have the same preferences, dreams, bodies, etc. Being male or female biologically or black or white or gay or straight (can you imagine the uproar if there were “black” and “white” sections for gifts?) has little to do with it.

My perception of the goal is as follows: to provide open spaces for people to define their own individual differences rather than having those differences defined for them by marketing.

What it comes down to is this: We are coming into a world where there are men who wear dresses and women who want the boxed set of Band of Brothers for Christmas… and it’s time that marketers took advantage of that! :)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 02:42:00 +0000

Well, if your husband stuffs a brand new tool box under the tree filled with tools be sure to thank him profusely and get started fixing that leaky toilet. After you’re finished with that, he’s got an envelope with a honey-do list to complete.

You of course can give him a sexy teddy, which he’ll wear every night. After you’re done fixing all the projects he’s given you, you’ll have to please him whenever he’s in the mood. If you don’t satisfy him, he’ll tell all his friends what a failure you are in the sack.