The Genderizing is Too Much For Me
By Glinda
I have no clue if “genderizing” is a real word or not, but I’m going to use it because 1) I am lazy and 2) I don’t really care if it is a real word or not.
Professional journalist, I am not.
I was putting together an asked-for list of toys for relatives to purchase for my daughter on the occasion of her birthday and also Christmas.
Dang if almost anything you can think of comes in either blue and green or pink and/or purple and white.
Sometimes the manufacturer will offer the item in primary colors, and thank God for that. I really tried hard to avoid choosing toys that only came in “girl” colors.
Of course I’d noticed that most girl clothes are highly gendered in particular colors, but up until now, I hadn’t noticed the toys so much. Baby toys tend to come in primary colors already since they are said to stimulate little brains, so most of her toys were red, blue, yellow, and green with some black and white thrown in for good measure. Add to that most of her other “older” toys were passed on from her brother, so things such as the Little Tikes truck (that they sadly no longer make, because that thing rocks!) is blue.
It isn’t that I have anything against “girly” colors, I don’t.
But I want pink to be her favorite color because she truly loves it, not because it’s the main color she’s seen her entire life.
I’m also trying to avoid the entire Disney Princesses thing, but I think I’m going to have a much harder time with that because I loves me some Disney movies. Oh, and we live very close to Disneyland, so I think I’ve pretty much lost the battle already.
November 10th, 2011 at 8:52 am
I’ve been ranting about the same thing for a while now. My 3 year old daughter is very much a tomboy – she loves Star Wars, Cars, and Phineas and Ferb in addition to her dolls and things. I’ve gone as far as shopping for boys clothes – esp pajamas, just so she can get things with Cars and Mickey Mouse on them.
We tend to buy her toys like Lincoln logs, Legos, etc both because she like building things and because they aren’t drenched in pink and purple
We go out of our way to avoid pink everywhere but its very difficult. But it’s also hard on the other end. My friend’s 2 year old son loves Dora and its almost impossible to find a Dora toy that isn’t pink or directed solely for girls.
November 11th, 2011 at 5:38 am
I like the color pink, so a lot of Muffin’s clothes end up being pink. But she loves motorcycles, cars, tractors, etc., alongside her stuffed animals. She has one baby doll that she likes, but mostly she likes babies in general, not necessarily because it’s a “girl” toy. I also like Hello Kitty so she gets some Hello Kitty stuff, too. We’re trying to do primary colors for all the classic toys, but with pink Monopoly and pink Uno, it seems like it’s going to get harder as she gets older!
November 15th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
I find the Disney Princess thing far more vexing than the pink thing, although when my daughter was younger I always opted for the non-pink option (and purple is my favorite color). “Princess” is a state of mind, and not one I was ever really eager for my daughter to adopt.