Trucks Are For Kids!
Not too long ago, I was watching televsion. Yes, I have many better things to do with my time, but hush.
Then, this commercial came on:
If when writing this commecial, the people at Playskool thought to themselves, “Let’s film something that will get people’s panties all in a wad!” then they certainly succeeded.
I agree with the basic sentiment of this commercial. I happen to think that boys and girls ARE different.
Go ahead, put your head between your legs and breeeaaaathe. Iiiiin and ooouuuut. Feeling better?
Now before you go pounding your fist on the computer, begin composing nasty emails about the conspiracies behind why the ERA was never passed, or how I am a betrayer of my own sex or whatever, let me explain myself.
I happen to have a son and am myself a woman who was once a girl. I think I have a pretty good perspective.
It doesn’t mean that girls can’t play with trucks and that boys can’t play with dolls. It just means that the main demographic for this toy is boys, plain and simple. Just as the main demographic for My Pretty Pony is girls. There are reasons for this, and the use of the word “different” does not necessarily connote that one is better than the other.
Is the commerical an enforcer of outdated stereotypes, or simply a reflection of our society?
And why is it that I have never heard a peep about the lack of boys in a My Pretty Pony commercial?
*If you would like to see for yourself the controversy I was referring to go here. I didn’t originally link because the site usually requires that you watch an ad, but I thought I would present an opposing view since most commenters are agreeing with me!
The commercial says, “boys are built different,” which, you know, is literally true! I have a boy and a girl and have seen many on the playground, and I agree: boys tend to be drawn to certain toys and girls have different preferences. It’s a broad generalization, and there are definitely outliers. When all the other 4 y.o. girls liked princesses and Barbies, my daughter knew all the dinosaurs and whether they were lizard-hipped or bird-hipped. Although my son is very rough and tumble and “all boy,” he is also the one who likes things soft and cuddly and sleeps with all manner of stuffed animals and blankies.
Anywho, I’m not offended by the commercial.
I don’t have a problem with the ad. It’s true, isn’t it? Boys and girls *are* different. I have seen a friend’s son take his sister’s Barbie and turn it into a gun. What’s wrong with different?
I completely agree with class-factotum. Why not celebrate the differences between little girls and little boys? For instance, my daughter stubbornly holds wears her summer dresses (even though she has to wears jeans and a long sleeve shirt underneath now that it is cold!) She is so delicate yet excerting her will with such feminine power! And my son? He is ‘all boy!” So robust! So rough housey!
viva la differance!
They ARE different. We can spend our time trying to force dolls and ponies and princess wands into our little boys’ hands in the name of “equality” or we can just move along to something more fun and worthwhile. Play with what you want kids, no injuries and it’s all the same to me.
Of course, my little girl likes to walk around with clothing tags stuck on the bottoms of her feet (seriously, noting is funnier to her) so I’m not such an expert, I guess.
Yep, boys are different. But, while celebrating those differences, we shouldn’t use them to hold them bakc. Like Jen says, let them play with what they want how they want (so long as they’re not hurting someone or thing). Right now, my son’s favorite is playing with the gingerbread men from Candyland. He likes them to ride his trucks.
Yep, they are definitely different!
Only people without children or really deluded parents would be offended by this ad. I saw it on television the other day and didn’t bat an eye (except to watch that my son didn’t mimic the flower-pulled-out thing). I have a son, a husband, brothers, numerous nephews and trust me, sometimes I think I’m from a different planet than my wonderful boys!
Class-factotum, Your comment is right on. When my son was little I decided there would be no guns or war toys in our home. Needless to say he spent his leisure time turning every other toy or household implement he found into a gun, much to the dismay of his hippie love-child mother. Anyway, boys are different from girls. My sainted mother once looked at my 2 year old son playing with a matchbox truck and mused “How is it that boys know how to make that car motor sound from birth?” You can’t fight it. They’ll choose their own path.
AMEN Glinda! Boys are built different and I could never understand the controversy identifying this. From a personal experience, when Lil Man was a baby and into toddlerhood we bought him gender-neutral toys. We wanted him to enjoy playing and learning in an uninhibited environment. Other family members and friends would buy his toys geared toward boys. He always preferred the toys that were “built” for boys. To this day he is fascinated with cars, trucks, hammers, wrenches etc.
Well, call me a really deluded parent, then, Eilish, although I think that’s uncalled for. I agree that boys aren’t generally into the pink frilly stuff, but I don’t understand why the company would so obviously market that toy to boys only. I know lots of girls who would love it, but if they watched that ad, what idea would get put into their little heads? And it’s not just the tv ads. Check out some toy catalogs sometime: which gender is shown playing with the telescope, the toy train, the doctor kit? And half the time when they show both a boy and a girl, the boy is playing with the toy while the girl watches admiringly. Ecch.
Hoo boy. Funny how people react to stuff like this. I don’t have boys but I have nephews and it’s pretty obvious they are built different from girls. The beauty is that all kids are different, even siblings who are the same gender. I have one girl who was into any kind of doll while the other wanted to play with lions and dinosaurs.
The ad doesn’t bother me, mostly because ads like that are so not on my radar anymore.
Susan, my apologies if you took offense. I was never put off as a girl by playing with my brothers’ toys or any others that looked interesting, and none of my nieces seem to mind either. In my experience, more marketing has an anti-boy stance as opposed to the anti-girl bias you seem to perceive. I guess it is all in how you see it. Some parents are simply more sensitive than others and “deluded” was poor word choice.
How much impact do commercials really have? How much impact does one’s family have? How many women lawyers, doctors and CEOs had mothers who were in the same professions? Not many, I’ll bet. Most women of our generation were raised by stay at home moms and saw awful, sexist advertising — and yet we managed to break that vicious cycle!
Maybe kids just need decent parenting, regardless of what’s going on in popular culture.
And let that be the end of the debate. Excellent last word, class-factorum!
Thank you all for a polite, well-informed debate!
Kudos to you all!
I stayed out of it on purpose, since hey, I wrote the thing.
I was hoping that someone would go where class-factotum did. I was raised in the seventies where tons of sexist advertising existed. But you know what? When you have parents and mentors who tell you that you can do anything you want, that you can be anything you want, the advertising becomes white noise.
If my daughter (not yet in existence) wants Hot Wheels and Tonka Trucks for Christmas, so be it. If my son (also not yet in existence) wants stuffed animals and a Cabbage Patch doll for his birthday, they are his. I don’t have children and I don’t see anything wrong with the ad — I, a girl, like pink and makeup and dressing up (sometimes). Hubby, a boy, would prefer his carpenter jeans and camo hats and playing in the dirt with his friends. It’s the way that we are hardwired, and there isn’t anything that’s going to change that. Some people find the ad sexist…I find it’s just an ad to sell something, and I honestly think they did a good job of it. Hubby made the statement that “just because it says ‘Built for Boyhood’ doesn’t mean anything — our daughter’d probably want it first!”
If any of you have seen this weekend’s Wal-Mart “For Every Wish Guide 2007,” it goes along with the ad above. The first eight pages are done all in blue and in the top corner, they are all titled “Boy’s Backyard.” Not a single child is playing with any of the toys — they are all on their own. Next ten pages? “Girlie-Girl World” and pink. BUT, there are two pages in this “Girlie-Girl World” that have toys geared to both sexes, and have children of both sexes playing with them…except the “Light Sketcher” — that just happens to be a boy portrayed in the “girls only” section. I found that slightly off…even before reading this blog. Anybody else run across this and find it off?