Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (as usual) had a great response to it. Encapulated by "painting your kid's face as a cat won't turn him into a cat."

You can bet that if the ad had featured an adorable little girl pretending to shave her face with her father, no one would have batted an eye. Performing a feminine gender is seen as weak and/or pathological in our society, and performing a masculine one is powerful and expected.

Fox psychiatrist Keith Ablow: Yeah, well it may be fun and games now Jenna but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid...

the Daily Show's Jon Stewart: You do know that nail polish comes off, right? You're all acting like she gave her son an "I Love Cock" tattoo.

I have my suspicions this whole 'furor' was cooked up not so much due to a slow news day as a need for a distraction. The US is basically at war in three countries (minus the semantics) and the world economy is still in a pitiful state while various governments try to close deficits with the figurative blood of the people least responsible for them and other governments spill the very real blood of protesters against the despotic regimes that were usually installed by the first bunch of governments. That is of course a simplistic overview, I tried to contain it all in one sentence and still did not manage to talk about Japan's various disasters, climate change or oil prices, but that is a lot of bad news that requires serious analysis and in depth reporting. Sometimes it seems like the media likes to take it easy and have something their talking heads can throw out off the cuff remarks over, and this is certainly an opportunity. And sometimes it seems a bit more than simple laziness. For some networks, this story beats talking about the latest attempt by governors of a certain political disposition to completely circumvent the judicial and democratic process. Talking about that might upset their viewers in the wrong way; better to upset them in the right way by getting them riled up over nail polish.

It quite baffles me that this could be blown into something so frightening, though. Some commentators, and these are not 'crackpots' in youtube comments but people who hold down a well paid job and are asked to give their thoughts to an international audience, said it was outright child abuse and would cause severe psychological damage. Now my parents are quite conservative and I was raised in a very Catholic household, but back in the days before round the clock cable news to keep us on the edge of our rationality, they did not bat an eye if I played the usual childhood game of dress up and put on some heels and a pretty scarf. I am pretty sure at one point I painted my nails with a female cousin. Low and behold, I did not turn out gay! Maybe I'm immune, but even my parents were not in the least bit concerned, and I cannot imagine many people from that era being so (admittedly with not a huge amount of experience). When I see such shrill and fearful reactions to something so innocent, I wonder if we are moving backwards in some senses. Are we really morphing into a society that thinks painting your son's fingernails will break his brain, or are these commentators simply adopting such over the top rhetoric simply to distract and draw attention to themselves? And can the latter end up leading to the former, due to people absorbing these messages at face value, regardless of intent?

I think the pink nail polish itself is harmless. But the media furor? If the kid catches wind of it, I'm wondering how much harm that will do.

I run a website for nontraditional parents, and like you: I received many emails from readers asking me to discuss the ad on the site. Like you, I saw it more as a commentary on media than anything else -- it was a slow news day, and columnist wrote a baiting, contrarian op-ed piece designed to whip everyone into a quick, meaningless froth over a non-issue.

In my write-up, I reminded my readers that the Fox News columnist was very much trying to get them worked up -- and not to take the bait. I was disappointed to see how many of my readers still got VERY ANGRY and worked up over the issue, proof that the columnist did his job (inciting readers to discussion) very well.

I'm suprised that they would go ape on this ad but not on the new dentine ad where the older sister is crossdressing her younger brother?

The furor is absurd.

That being said, this seems like a strange ad to me. I'm not offended by it, I just am a bit confused as to who their target audience is.

Mostly for me it's the implication in the ad (perhaps not intentional) that this is a routine activity. If the ad had seemed to imply that this is a "dressup" game, even if the boy had been wearing a dress, full makeup, and high heels, it would have seemed more approachable to me, more in line with my own experience of the interaction between mothers and sons.

As an example, from the other direction, (from Kristina's comment, above) if an ad shows a daughter "shaving" with her Dad, I think the assumption on the part of most viewers would be this is a "play" activity, that is, something occasional. But if the ad said something like "Lucky for me, I ended up with a daughter whose favorite shaving cream is mentholated. Shaving is much more fun when it leaves your skill feeling cool and fresh", wouldn't it seem a bit odd?

On the other hand, no, it wouldn't seem odd, because I think most readers of that ad copy, myself included, would assume it was a bit tongue-in-cheek. They would not assume that the daughter shaves EVERY morning with her father.

So why does the almost equivalent ad copy on this ad have me picturing the boy going to school every day with pink toenails under his socks? I suppose that's possible, but unlikely. It's much more likely that this is a "play" activity (e.g. something that happens occasionally, for special, between the mom and the son, as some together time) just the same as the shaving would have been.

Therefore, my finding the ad odd says a lot more about me than it does about Jenna and her son.

tl;dr, sorry, lots of rambling thoughts on the subject.

I think the conflation of gender expression and sexuality is bound to do more damage to impressionable minds than treating gender expression as gender expression. Pretty much no one is saying "OMG! You shouldn't paint your little boy's toenails pink because he might grow up to be a man who likes painting his toenails!" They're tacking on a ludicrous amount of baggage to this simple act - painting your nails is necessarily an activity only women/girls should engage in, so if a boy does it he's performing a "feminine" activity, and men who perform "feminine" activities are gay. No one (amongst these conservative commentators) seems to see the huge leap between the second and third statements (even if we take the first two to be true and immutable law). When a father sees his son put on a dress, his mind immediately jumps to "my son is gay" rather than "my son is a crossdresser" which is a rather weird conflation to me.

Did anyone see that episode of "Primetime: What Would You Do?" (the one hosted by John Quiñones) with the father shopping with his son in a toy store, and the son is wearing a princess dress and looking at girls' toys? It was overwhelmingly women who came to the father's defense and said the little boy should be able to pick whatever toys/activities he wants. For some reason we expect women to try to "feminize" men - we think of mothers "dressing up" their children, and use "momma's boy" as a pejorative. We make idiotic comments in all sorts of media about how growing up without a "father figure" will damage a little boy (despite that some unbelievably high percentage of households in the US are single-parent, and the majority of those single-mother, and society has yet to crumble.. or, wait, maybe that's what to blame for "metrosexual" culture!).

Instead of imagining a father and daughter, imagine a father and son in this same ad. I think people would immediately assume that the father in such a situation MUST be gay, and worse, is "teaching" his son to be gay! Because two men performing (and enjoying) a feminine activity means something must be WRONG. (By contrast, that allergy ad with the mother and daughter golfing = badass.) A man/boy performing a feminine activity must be balanced by the implication that the boy is not enjoying the activity (think of grumpy boys playing barbie in ads) or at the least didn't choose it and doesn't know better (the dentyne ad). Because no sane boy would choose to do a feminine activity because they enjoy it, so the fact that this little boy chooses pink and seems to enjoy getting a pedicure suggest that there's something wrong with him, and the mother is either indulging him (bad) or pushing him to these "weird" preferences to begin with (worse).

"criticized the ad for supporting a liberal agenda aimed at mainstreaming gender-bending behavior and causing this particular child to be confused about his gender or sexual orientation."

Would anyone care to enlighten me on the phenomenon of "gender"/"sexual" confusion. I hear that term thrown around in anti-gay circles from reasons to keep gay/lesbian couples from adopting/raising children to incidents like this where boys or girls aren't conforming to prescribed gender-roles.

I've never met a person that was sexually or gender confused before or even believe that such a thing exists. Where are all these confused kids and eventual confused adults?

I agree this is most likely a creation of the media rather than genuine outrage on the part of the public in general. However, this discussion really does make me want to try a little thought experiment, perhaps in the classroom:

Take four pictures of parent-assisted gender transgressions and discuss what response each one evokes. They'd be a mother putting nail polish on her son, a mother pretending to shave her daughter's face, a father putting nail polish on his son, and a father pretending to shave his daughter's face.

I suspect the one that would get the strongest negative reaction would be the father with the nail polish, but I'd be very interested in seeing the responses.

I think it's funny that all the critics assume the kid in the ad is a boy. How strange is that?

Wendy Williams, who is I believe somewhat of a gay icon, was "outraged" about this today on her show. Disappointing.

This is fantastic for j Crew who is attempting to step further away from being another GAP and gearing it's messaging to the more sophisticated "indie" crowd. They've been launching high end - subtle shops and clothing lines that go perfectly with this kind of post-modern parenting.

I think the fact that Fox news is hating on them only helps sell more shoes and wedding accessories.

Most of the people who are outraged will be dead or silently wasting away without medical care in a few years thanks to their own misguided government choices.

All us, happy, well adjusted boys & girls will inherit the earth. At least we can paint our toenails freely on our makeshift rafts while the sea level rises.

I wish it was all media hype, but unfortunately, there's a large segment of our population that would be appalled at this ad with or without the help of deplorable talking heads telling them they should.

My mother is one of them. She was rather distraught at the sight of my 2 year old son wearing hair clips to keep his long hair out of his eyes. His favorite color for the first 5 years of life was also pink.

This scares the hell out of some people... LOTS of people.

I wish it was media hype. I really do. I wish Glenn Beck had no audience also, but that is not the world we live in.

Also... slow news day? There is so much worth reporting happening in the world today!!!! I hate the media!!! Argh!

It seems that the blogpost author's outrage over the media's outrage are two sides of the same coin.

Of course Fox News and the media in general are interested in pumping ratings over insignificant nonsense and/or tack another non-story as an argument in their culture war narrative.

Nevertheless, the item is in fact, legitimately dysfunctional, and the blogger should have seen that and even partaken in the criticism.

First, this is a "story" in a catalogue that is designed to elicit feelings of intimacy and family warmth in order to sell nailpolish. Second, had that boy been a girl, the blogger would have (rightly) denounced the pegging of a child in a looks-focused, consumerist, even sexualized role. The fact that it is a boy is actually marginal and this should be pointed out.

Had the "story" been centered on a mother who enjoys traditionally female activities with her son such as dancing or baking, in order to sell ballet shoes or oven mitts, it would have been a somewhat healthy (if completely venal) challenge of the gendered roles children are thrown into. I would venture a guess that even Fox news would not have picked it up.

The blogger rose in defense of this story and completely missed the mark on the actual reinforcing of consumerist and beauty-obsessed gender roles. Indeed, the message conveyed here is that it's "quality time" to buy cosmetic products and spend time applying them to your child. The fact that that child is of the unusual gender for such activity is just a twist that the catalogue introduced in order to spice up their advertising and is probably a very cynical and calculated effort hatched up in some board room to improve sales. The controversy might even have been part of the plan.

An interesting take on the media furor would have been that much of it is probably based on the perceived queer sexualization of children, the "whoring" out of a boy. Fox news presumably does not have a problem with children beauty pageants and mothers applying makeup to their pre-pubescent girls. Hence a double standard.

But the blogger is guilty of the very same double standard in failing to see the "story" as an instance of pushing consumerist and looks-based values on children (and more importantly, on adults) simply because the child is a boy.

I teach prek and kindy students in Korea. The little boys will do pretend "pedicures" all the time (usually with water.) Sometimes they will come in with real pedicures - they saw Mommy doing their nails and they wanted nail polish too.

No one bats an eyelash.

Kids like sparkly, bright colors. When adults impose so much meaning and sound and fury on one eensy pedicure, that's what really causes the complex - not the nail varnish.

With that said, nothing occurs in a vaccuum, but if a kid IS wanting a manicure for gendered reasons, I'd still say "why the hell not?" Gender is not a binary, it's a continuum.

There's also a very subtle class dimension here. J. Crew markets towards an upper middle to upper class white clientele whose liberalism/open-minded sexual attitudes/progressiveness is a central part of their habitus (See Bernstein's Temporarily Yours and/or Field's Risky Lessons for two examples off the top of my head), whereas Fox News, especially post Sarah Palin/Glen Beck sells a populism based upon the myth of a lost cultural homogeneity to primarily lower middle to working class people steeped in traditional gender ideology and indeed, who may even see "gender bending" such as this an attempt at distinction, to once again crib from Bourdieu.

My thought: this a very effective ad and reminds me of the old adage, there is no such thing as bad publicity. While the heavy media coverage may not be as important as some of the critical issues facing the planet it does compel one to think about our own mores and values.

I think the folks at J. Crew thought very long and hard about this image, intentionally designed to "tweak us" and challenge crusty old ideals of gender, parenting and sexual identity. It's a slick update of the J. Crew brand. With some copy and a colorful eye-opening image they are clearly pandering to a more progressive consumer mindset, parents who may be more liberal, same-sex couples; parents with a child who may be gay - I think it tries to "normalize" behavior some may consider odd or abnormal.

I'm a 42 YO straight guy, my older sister used to sometimes put my brother or me in girl's clothes; I certainly came out OK, stuff like "dress-up" or playing "Doctor" are perfectly normal for kids. My friend "M" has a young son (older of 2 sibs) who has been skipping around the house, dancing, singing and acting in a clearly more "feminine" way since as soon as he could walk; gets into mom's makeup etc. M and her husband feel he is clearly gay and love him to death of course. I think many people who see this ad have known a child like M's - and it's important that we can have a child in an ad that let's him be who he is. This isn't the world our parents grew up in and I think J. Crew is embracing that to update their "WASP-ish country-clubbish" image - and it's nothing like those skeezy Calvin Klein kiddie-porn ads either.

Isn't it interesting how supermarket tabloid covers constantly talk about "Brangelina's" Tom Boy daughter who only wears "boys" clothes, prefers "boy" haircuts? I mean, who cares? Provided the child respects others, studies, brushes their teeth etc. Perhaps J. Crew felt the people in this country who DO take offense at the ad NEED to see young Beckett painting his toenails pink; Beckett may well turn out to be an NFL linebacker or he may be a ballerina - but the ad shows he's loved. It's "Modern Family" in a print ad. It's America. Regardless, the fact that we're blogging about it and sharing it is exactly the intent of the ad - to provoke discussion and spread the J. Crew brand across different media platforms and channels.

A commercial or an ad is a lie. It's designed to manipulate your thinking/behavior about a product, brand or service. Are you thinking about J. Crew's spring fashions when you see the ad? Are the board of directors of J. Crew as "liberal" as the ad suggests? Probably not - but it's smart business to make us think they are. In this age of obnoxious ad clutter - it's tough to get your message out and be noticed. Respect to all - great dialog.

"It's an attack on masculinity," says Dr Ablow ... who, BTW is wearing a PINK NECKTIE.

I worked at a progressive co-op daycare for 4 years. In that time, we painted the toenails of both boys and girls with non-toxic nail polish. It was something both genders wanted to be involved in (much like face painting-which was also done at least weekly). While a few dads seemed less than thrilled, the overall opinion was that it did no harm. Some of these kids I still see with their parents at the grocery or at the library and they all seem fine.

I'm going down to J. Crew to buy a sweater. I like their stuff, and now this gives me an excuse to buy some more of it. Vote with your feet--and wallets! Good for them!