Search results for toy

Duplo blocks are made by the Lego company.  They are like legos, but bigger and chunkier (less swallowable).  Like this:

Amanda R. captured this screenshot on the Duplo website:

Apparently, if you’re going to buy Duplos for some little kid, the very most important first piece of most vital information you will ever need before you ever ask anything else is whether or not the kid has a penis or a vagina.

Meanwhile, Elisabeth R. found exactly the same thing at the Toys R Us website:

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.

Nora H. sent in this excellent example of how advertisers gender chores. The ad goes through how generations and generations of women have done laundry.

For more examples, see these: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,.

See also our posts about how funny it is when men do housework: one, two, here, and three.

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.

NEWS:

During November we divvied up the massive gender tag into 18 sub-categories to make it easier to search for specific types of gender posts.  For example, you can now browse all of our posts about masculinity by going to the “gender: masculinity” tag.  We hope this makes it easier to navigate the site.

In other words, we worked our asses off for you over Thanksgiving break, so go browse a gender tag right now!

And, your monthly reminder: we’re on Facebook and Twitter, if that floats your boat.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

Last November we posted an analysis of the negative reactions to female body builders’ bodies.  It reveals the entitlement that many feel to be aesthetically pleased by women’s appearance.

And in November ’07 we featured an Orangina ad that Gwen says is “possibly the weirdest freakiest ad I have ever seen in my 34 years on this planet.” As reader Gis said in the comments:

AH! AH! AH! AH! WHAT?!?!  AH!  I can’t unsee this!

So, yeah, uh, check that out.  You might want to watch it in high quality on a full screen.  I’m just sayin’.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! Nov ’09):

Remember that 1981 ad for Legos that everyone LOVED?  I found three more examples of vintage ads that seem rather devoid of gender differentiation.

Just last month we added material to our post on racial and ethnic themed college parties.  This month, we get to do it again.  This time courtesy of a University of Delaware party at which white people dressed up as Mexicans (triggering and NSFW).

We added another example to our collection of vintage illustrations of the argument that black people are closely related to apes and monkeys.

Erin M. sent us an example of a sex toy for men being described as “shameful.” We added it to our post discussing how the use of sex toys by women and the use of sex toys by men are evaluated very differently (NSFW).

Tim McC. sent in a link to a Volvo concept car aimed specifically at women.  We added it to our post on the Dodge La Femme.  It’s really interesting to compare how cars were marketed to women in the 1950s and today.

Kristyn G. sent in another commercial where the idea that women are liberated by choice is used to market a product.  This time, it’s an Indian cable company marketing itself by comparing itself to non-arranged marriage.

Jackie S. sent us a link to a satirical Onion news report illustrating how feminists might protest PETA.  We added it an old post with an image of a PETA protest.

Dmitriy T.M. sent us another example of services being marketed as “wife” or “husband” services.

Jessica S. sent us a comedic skit for the Shii, a girls’ version of the Wii.  We added it to our post on otherwise-gender-neutral-games gendered female.

We added a fourth commercial, this one for Target, to our post featuring commercials that depict women as just plain insane.

We added another vintage ad featuring the word “gay” as it used to be used.

Do you feel you have a truly special relationship with your cleaning products? If so, check out the Lysol commercial we added to our post about Sarah Haskins’s “Target: Women” segment on household cleaners marketed as women’s special, special friend.

We added another example of U.S.-based advertising that removes people of color when moved overseas.  This time the product is the movie Couples Retreat.

We added a 1987 ad for Contra to one of our collections of sexism in the technology world.

Last month we posted about the Ralph Lauren ad featuring a woman photoshopped to be incredibly thin. We updated the post with a video about the model in the ad, who has now been fired for not fitting into some clothing.

Dmitriy T.M. sent a link to a Cracked list of misguided products. Among them, was a discussion of a doll I remember from when I was a kid: the Cabbage Patch Kid Preemie.  Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage.  The preemie version, a supposedly prematurely born “kid,” was a sort of spin off.

Cracked points out one of the ironies here:

So What’s the Problem?

You know what’s not all that cuddly? A one and a half-pound infant fighting for its fragile life in a coffin-shaped incubator with more tubes and machines attached to it than Weapon X. Don’t forget the bandages that keep the light out of its underdeveloped eyes, or the little heating beds it has to lay in because it can’t maintain its body heat. Toss in some weeping parents and a couple of nurses probing and prodding its frail little body and you’ve got the must-have toy of the season.

Given this deserved critique of the product, what exactly is it about the idea of a premature baby that would make Coleco think it would appeal to children and their parents?  I think this commercial gives us a clue:

The Cabbage Patch slogan, “You can give them all of your love,” is an excellent example of what this doll is really about: socializing young girls to be nurturers focused (apparently exclusively) on children.

In this case, what could possibly require more nurturing than an infant?  A premature infant!

The Cabbage Patch Kids website, where you can still buy preemies in addition to kids and babies, says that this premature version of the doll “will require extra attention and lots of Tender Loving Care. Be sure to spend lots of time with these tiny ones once you adopt.”  As Grandma reminds the girl, “Preemies need extra special care.”  And the girl responds in a way that implies that a baby that needs “extra special care” is even more rewarding than a baby that simply needs special care. The more self-sacrifice is required, the happier a girl will be.

Some deep and disturbing socialization indeed.

Oh and also, I couldn’t help but also share this doozy with you, from the description of the Preemie doll:

These small babies have no hair, but come with a choice of eye colors in blue, green, brown, and Asian.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

NEWS:

Remember, if you’re so inclined, we’re on Facebook and Twitter!

We’d like to draw your attention to the comments thread on an old post, Marketing Asian Women to Anti-Feminist Men.  While, to be frank, I don’t think the post was very strong in itself, it attracted the attention of the very men to whom I argued Asian women were being marketed.  Their comments are a really fascinating insight into the logics of white men who prefer Asian women.  It’s a pretty amazing read.

If anyone without access to journal databases would like a copy of my most recent publication, “Defining Gendered Oppression in U.S. Newspapers: The Strategic Value of ‘Female Genital Mutilation’” (Gender & Society, 2009), I’d be happy to email you a copy.  Just send us a note at socimages@thesocietypages.org.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

One year ago in September, we dissected a news story about “black and white twins.” The story reveals a great deal about how Americans think about race and so we decided to revive it for today.

Two years ago in September, when we were but a wee blog, we posted our first PostSecret about the pressure one man feels to perform masculinity.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW!):

Race

We found more examples of black models (Naomi Campbell again, Iman, and Grace Jones) being posed with or as animals and added them to our post on the topic (not safe for work).  Bri A. also sent in some photos of Bratz Nighty Night dolls; only the dark-skinned doll is in leopard print pajamas.

We added an image that questions why we accept American Indian sports mascots when we’d surely express outrage if other minorities were used as mascots to our post on Native American mascots.

Discourse

Man poisons wife; Reuters says it was an act of love.  Screenshot here (scroll down).

Gender and Symbols

I snapped two pictures at the Dublin airport of warning signs for moving sidewalks that, like an earlier example, mark stick figures as female as soon as a child is involved.  Also new to the same post, Emanuelle sent us an example of a sign showing a stick figure with a child… and the figure isn’t clearly marked as female.

We also added a photograph to our collection of traffic signals that feature a female instead of a male figure.  This one, from New Zealand, was spotted by Pharmacopaeia.

Sarah D. sent in another example of the feminization of sugar.

Socialization and Gendered Products

We added commercials for two more toys that socialize girls into cooking and other housework to our post about the Hasbro Rose Petal cottage.

The trailer for the movie Teenage Doll, another old movie about teens going crazy with lust, made a nice addition to our post with other examples on the same theme.

As we often do, we have more examples of gendered kids’ products: boys’ and girls’ versions of a book on “how to be the best at everything.” They make a nice pair with the girls’ and boys’ doodle books we posted here.

More pointlessly gendered products! Now sunscreen comes in a version just for girls (scroll all the way to the bottom of the post).

Objectification of Women

Giorgos sent us another fantastic PETA ad, this one implying that you might get to see “explicit footage” of Pamela Anderson. We added it to our post on how PETA objectifies women.

How many boob-focused ads for the video game Evony can there be? At least three more.  Thanks to D.R.S., Alex B., Wtfcats, and Kim H. for sending them in!

Alicja W. told me about this Barbie commercial from 1959 (which may be the first Barbie TV commercial, but I’m not positive about that) in which girls are encouraged to identify with, and aspire to, Barbie’s charm and beauty:

It’s not just that Barbie is fun to play with; she’s overtly presented here as a role model for girls, who can dream of someday being “exactly like” her–petite, popular (“at parties she will cast a spell”), and beautiful. And until they can actually become that person, they can “make believe” they’re Barbie. It’s a great example of how toys can be an important part of childhood socialization. In this case, it’s not just a set of behaviors girls were encouraged to mimic (caring for a doll, for instance); the toy is presented as something they should actually aspire to be.

Caroline J. sent in a link to an anti-rape campaign in Scotland title This Is Not an Invitation to Rape Me. The campaign includes various posters with commentary on the myths associated with them. Some examples of the posters (the second one might not be safe for work, so after the jump):

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I found these ads for Matchbox via Copyranter.  In them, war toys are sold by situating small boys in realistic, not at all playful, conditions.   The blurring of the lines between pretend and real war is really interesting.  Whereas pretend war could be fun, real war is certainly not so.  And, oddly, the facial expressions and postures of the children in the ads do not suggest that they are having fun at all.  The ads seem to reveal, more than most, how play is also socialization.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.