Consider this a catch-all post showing the many ways in which marketers use the excuse of gift-giving to reinforce gender stereotypes.
Exhibit One: Katrin sent along this example from Zazzle. She writes:
The gift guide section is great… Men fish, hunt, are tech nerds, BBQ kings, and are in the military. And, if you really have to, there is a “Metro Man gift” section as well. Women are animal lovers, spiritual, environmentalist, interior designers, teachers, brides, sorority members AND they “support the troops” as military wives. Of course THEY are NOT soldiers. Just like men cannot be married to and much less, support, a woman in the military. The only thing men and women have in common? The 80s.
Exhibit Two: Keely W. sent along this delightful gift suggestion. Moms, need a gift that costs just a little but seriously pays off? Buy your daughter these eyebrow tweezers! They’ll make for hours of wonderful mother-daughter time! Here’s to the intergenerational transfer of patriarchal beauty standards!
Exhibit Three: Maggie G. sent in these screen shots from the Lego website. First, notice that, just as with the dinosaur website we posted about recently, legos are assumed to be for boys, unless they are specifically for girls. The girls category in the bottom row makes all the other categories, by default, for boys:
If you click on girls, you get two options, Belville and Preschool:
Here’s what the Belville sets look like (all pink with horsies, puppies, and fairies!):
Legos aimed at younger kids are, I guess, gender-neutral… which is consistent with the increasingly pressure to gender-differentiate as kids get older:
Got any more gendered x-mas guides? Send them in and I’ll start a post for next year.
See also this post on gendered gift-giving guides.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 16
mikuto — December 25, 2009
"Teach your daughter to groom her brows!"
Because god forbid she leave the house with busy man brows! Remember ladies, to be beautiful and feminine, it's often necessary to rip out your hair by the root!
What an awful christmas gift idea!
The History Enthusiast — December 25, 2009
I'm a female historian and I'm offended that the "historian" shirts are only in the men's section! Of course, if they define history as the story of great white men, then I suppose I don't fit in, seeing as I study African-American history and women's history. To many history buffs, those fields aren't really the *important* history...what really matters is how white d00ds manage to start wars and blow stuff up.
yoko_vibe — December 25, 2009
I'm a long-term reader of this blog - rarely read the comments, so probably this point has been made before. But in some cases, with the whole 'toy section 4 girls' idea, I never interpreted it as 'all the other toys are, by default, for boys'. Particularly on that Lego site, I interpret that the toys are, by default, for boys and girls equally, while there's a small sub-set of toys that boys would not be allowed to be interested in - too girly. In a way, it's like the other way around - it's socially acceptable for girls to like any toys, while boys must be kept away from 'girl's toys'.
Mind you, I still see the points you're making; I just think that part could be interpreted the opposite way.
Ed — December 26, 2009
This is a complete load of wank.
You lot really need to get a fucking life.
Marc Singer — December 27, 2009
Agghh! Why do people insist on dividing us so rigidly into gender roles (not to mention ethnic roles and other boxes)? Thank you for showing the latest examples.
Y'know what would be neat? If boys could enjoy "princess" toys and girls could enjoy "explorer" toys without being tagged & bagged for their choices.
As the character Cordy said on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (a gender-defying show itself): "Can't I have layers?" I'd like to have layers, and I want my kids to have layers, too!
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Alex — December 28, 2009
Given the trends we usually see here--that men are Default People and women are a Special Case--it's interesting that on Zazzle, the women's section has the just plain "funny" and "outdoors" categories, while the men's equivalent categories are specially labeled for men. I'm not familiar with Zazzle, and their home page isn't coming up on the slow connection I'm using at the moment--is it a site aimed at women? I'd also be interested to know if any of the same gifts appear in the shared (80's) or semi-shared (funny, outdoors) categories.
CC — December 31, 2009
"...in which marketers use the excuse of gift-giving to reinforce gender stereotypes..."
I would like to make a point here! I don't think marketers are maliciously out to dichotomize the genders solely for the sake of hindering progress. If people DID buy pink Legos for their sons and nephews, they would probably market pink Legos to boys as well. I'm not saying that girls really do want nothing more than to play house etc, but I think it's worth acknowledging that it must be mostly about capitalism and not necessarily just Keeping our Kids Away From The Queer.