Danielle Q. sent us this gem, a 1980s commercial for a doll called My Child. It teaches girls all the important parts of being a mom:
Here you go:
Chen and Kristyn both sent in examples of gendered chemistry sets.
Chen found this example at Nemo, a science museum in Amsterdam. Notice that the kit with boys on it a boy in the foreground and a girl in the background is “Disgusting Science” and the kits with only girls on it are “Perfumery” and “Spa Science”:
Meanwhile Kristyn spotted these Cosmetic Science kits in Auckland, NZ. There were apparently at least four different kits aimed at making beauty products for girls.
Cleansing Pack 2, featuring Pearly Shampoos and Face and Body Cleanser:
Rejuvenation Pack 3, featuring Soothing Cream and Body Mist:
Enhancing Pack 4, featuring Glitter Hair Gel and Silvery Shimmer Lotion:
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.
Amanda M. and Lisa C. both submitted a recent Toy Story 3-themed commercial for Visa, pointing out how nice it is to see the Buzz Lightyear character advertised to girls.
I won’t disagree that it’s nice that girls are being included in the marketing for Toy Story 3 (especially as the movie appears to be as boy-centric as most), but I don’t see it as revolutionary. In fact, because we largely value masculine characteristics and pursuits, the idea that girls would be interested in boy things (like space travel) is generally regarded as cute, neat, or even awesome (this is why I like to order bourbon neat on a first date — impresses the men every time). The problem is that the reverse is not true. Because we devalue feminine characteristics and pursuits, we rarely respond to boys’ experimentation with girly things in the same way. In that case, it’s worrisome, strange, or even grotesque. We call the valuing of masculinity over femininity “androcentrism.”
So I would argue that this particular advertisement actually fits nicely with the source of gender inequality today: a devaluation of feminine things at the same time that women are required to perform some degree of femininity (the girl in the commercial is still girly, wearing baby blue, a skirt, and hugging Buzz delightedly before she blasts him off). Of course, this means that men’s life options are narrower than women’s because they have to avoid the stigma of femininity (and that must suck, truly), but at least the things men are restricted to doing and being are valued (both abstractly and with money).
More posts on androcentrism: “woman” as an insult, good god don’t let men wear make up or long hair, don’t forget to hug like a dude, saving men from their (feminine) selves, men must eschew femininity, dinosaurs can’t be for girls, and sissy men are so uncool.
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.
Women spend their young and young adult lives dreaming of their wedding day, or so the stereotype goes. Where might girls get the idea that weddings are a particularly important day in a woman’s life?
SociologicalMe sent in a wedding day toy for girls found at a Pathmark grocery store in Delaware:
And Mary, who blogs at Disney Princess Recovery, collected these examples of Disney Princess-themed wedding books for little girls:
So maybe it isn’t part of having two XX chromosomes.
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.
Andrew M. sent us a link to an interesting post by Lewis Denby at Beef Jack about the video game APB. The game lets you customize the characters in a variety of ways, including height and weight. Denby noticed something interesting about the customization, however. Here’s a male figure with the weight at the maximum level:
As Denby points out, it’s pretty unusual to have main characters that give the option of not being super muscular and slim, so this is pretty surprising. Perhaps less surprising is what he found when he maxed out the weight scale for a female character:
While she’s certainly larger than most women in video games, the maximum body proportion for her seems quite a bit thinner than the maximum allowed for the male character, and she still has an hourglass shape. So you’re given the option to customize the characters’ bodies, but it appears you get less choice for the female figures than the male ones. The question is why; did the designers think this is as large as anyone was likely to ever want a female character to be? Were they, for whatever reason, more concerned about female than male characters being too much outside the video game norm, to the point of limiting customization options? Some other reason for this disparity? If it were due just to technical design issues, I don’t see why it would be possible to give more weight range for the male character than the female one.
Beef Jack contacted the company for comment but, it being the weekend, they’re still waiting to hear back.
Thomas S. sent in this photo of the toy options for kids meals available from Burger King as part of their tie-in with the Marmaduke movie. The dogs are helpfully divided, as in most kids’ meals at fast-food chains, into those for girls and boys:
Notice the gendering of the dogs. Both girls and boys have the option of a Marmaduke figurine, though they are posed in different ways: the girl version is lying down, while the boy version seems posed to run or jump. The other girls’ options are passive in their poses, the descriptive words in their names (cuddly, loungin’, comb ‘n’ style), and what they do:
On the other hand, the boys’ options are given active descriptive names and different types of actions:
So the boys get the option of a doberman (or maybe a Rottweiler?) and what looks like an Australian shepherd, while the girls get a toy dog (a papillon, I think) and a collie, which is also a herding dog but here is presented as something to groom.
Obviously, the breeds and names (Bosco, Giuseppe, etc.) come from the movie, so Burger King didn’t create that part. But in creating the tie-in toys, different dogs from the movie were defined as girls’ or boys’ toys, and were designed accordingly.
It’s a great example of the feminine = passive, masculine = active gender dichotomy and the way children are socialized into it. Toys aimed at girls emphasize posing and appearance/grooming, while boys’ toys are usually more active and rarely involve grooming or dressing up (unless you count changing out the weapons G.I. Joe dolls action figures carry).
Of course, this doesn’t mean that kids and their parents will request the gender-intended toy. My sisters and I didn’t get kids’ meals often, but when we did, my mom almost always requested boys’ toys because they were usually more fun and did something, whereas the girls’ toys often just sat there. I’ve heard similar stories from lots of women. Given that men are discouraged from crossing gender lines more than women are, though, I wonder if parents are as willing to get their sons the girls’ toys if the son asks for it. And if we found the girls’ toys boring and wanted the boys’ versions, it seems likely that boys would generally reject them too.
Ryan was browsing the Walmart website for a toy for his soon-to-be one-year-old child and happened upon this play cop car:
Both boys and girls can aspire to be cops, of course, but the specifications on the product insist that it is for boys:
See also our post in which the exact same toy is marketed to boys as a doctor’s kit and to girls as a nurse’s kit.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
There are masculine and feminine versions of standing, ones that many adults reproduce rather consistently, and boys and girls must learn which stances are which. To illustrate this, Miriam H. sent us a photograph of a package of Tinkerbell figurines and a screen shot of a web page selling fairy costumes. These images — two among many possible examples — nicely show how girls are taught, from a very young age, how to stand.
See also a related post: Male Models Display Clothes; Female Model Display Themselves.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
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.
