These dreaded little dolls with their infuriatingly teensy tiny little shoes and rubber clothes… argghh!!! Yes, my daughter adores them. I noticed, something though… check out this photo:
From left to right: Polly Pocket doll, the first Cinderella polly we got, and then the most recent Cinderella polly we acquired.
Notice anything?
Edited: March 2nd, 2010
So yesterday Bella and I stopped by a bookstore. There’s a nice, if small, area for children, complete with a train table and lots of toys for sale. When we arrived, a little boy of about Bella’s age (late 2, early 3) was also playing. Bella went straight for the train table, then a bit later got bored and headed over to grab a ride-on horsey. She pranced around on her horsey, and of course this got the little boy interested, so he too ran over to grab a horsey.
Unfortunately for him, he grabbed a PINK horsey. 
I was honestly bewildered to see his young, hip-looking, pierced mom, sneer at him “You don’t want a horse like THAT,” before she grabbed it away from him. Before I knew it she had whisked the little boy away. One aisle over, where she could angrily put him in time-out for being “bad.” The little boy was, of course, crying, his mom AND dad were now yelling at him, and Bella looked at me all concerned saying “Mommy, that boy is sad!”.
So. What kind of horse do you think the boy will choose next time? And then his mom will tell all her friends, “He is SUCH a boy, he just has NO INTEREST in pink things at all.” Some mystery there, huh? Genetics? Or Mommy goes HULK SMASH if you touch something pink?
I can’t help but wonder what the mom was so concerned about anyways. Did she think the little pink horsey would …. give her son Teh Gay?!?!?!
I suppose I looked pissed-off to hipster mom. In fact, I was fairly pissed off. She communicated in that moment utter disgust for a boy choosing something pink, not only to her son, but to me, and to my child.
So much for the idea that sexism is dead, huh?
Edited: September 17th, 2009
A mom was forced into a hospital and to undergo medical treatment for the care of her fetus. She was 25 weeks pregnant. After being in for three days, the baby was born (already deceased) via c-section. Had the mom stayed in until the baby was full term, she would have been forced to stay in hospital for 15 weeks.
I’m beyond horrified by this story. Read the whole thing at the Unnecesarean.
Edited: August 4th, 2009
I recently read this story, about a Swedish family who are not revealing their child’s gender until the child chooses to do so. It’s quite interesting and a few important points before you even begin to ponder this; the child is not being forced, the child is being provided with accoutrements of both genders and allowed to freely choose, the gender of the child is not being *hidden* from the child, just not shared with anyone outside the family.
Really interesting to me in light of the fact that last night was the first time Bella ever corrected my pronouncement of the gender of a character in a book. Since so many books (the vast, vast majority) are written about little boys, or using “he” pronouns throughout in the case of animals, I often switch it up and just say that the character is a little girl with short hair.
Last night Bella said to me, as though it were obvious; “NO Mommy, he is a boy!”
For the record, this is the book, and it is positively lovely.
This comes simultaneously with her telling me, yesterday, for the first time ever; that her favorite color is… pink!
I want her to be who she wants to be, but I worry so much about the exposure and influences of the world around her. When a child chooses a thing, that choice is reinforced (or not) in so many ways.
Say a little girl chooses a pink dress, and people go on and on and on about how pretty she is in her little pink dress, and isn’t she a little princess… and then at the bookstore walking around browsing, she sees so many books with little girls dressed in pink dresses or dressed up like princesses… and then she sees a few Disney Princess movies… and then she sees a few commercials featuring princesses…And the next thing you know, a princess obsession is born and your house looks like a giant pepto bismol spill.
Don’t get me wrong; I love pink. Just not too much pink!
I really hope that if my daughter chooses to be a princess, I can help her become one of the self-rescuing kind.
Edited: July 1st, 2009
Complete and total insanity; a 13 year old honor student was strip-searched by a nurse and secretary looking for drugs, at her high school.
“Children call their private parts their private parts for a reason. They not subject to exposure, to observation by school officials. When children are strip-searched, they experience trauma that’s similar in kind and degree to sexual abuse,” says Wolf.
School lawyer Wright counters, “We just have to ask ourselves, as a policy matter, do you really want a drug-free environment? And if you do, then there are going to be some privacy invasions when there is reason to suspect that those drugs are being dispensed on campus, that they’re being used by students.”
I think I’d rather have the possibility that there are some drugs floating around school than have my daughter violated and stared at in the nude for no good reason.
This case is before the Supreme Court now.
Edited: April 23rd, 2009
Well I got some great tips for shows to watch after my last post about the lack of female heroes on tv. So I have now discovered the joys of Nickolodeon, including Ni Hao Kai Lan, the Backyardigans (which features both female and male characters), and Pinky Dinky Doo. I haven’t been able to catch Pinky Dinky Doo on tv yet, but think it looks adorable. I also realized Olivia is also a tv show, although not my favorite; she is kind of whiny. And Max and Ruby was suggested to me as well, and Dora the Explorer of course; we haven’t watched either of those yet. For some reason I’m really reluctant to get into the Dora thing. Maybe because it is such a *thing*.
But I *love* Kai Lan. Super cute and she is not overly girly.
Of course I’ll like it even more when I’m not coughing like crazy all the time and the weather warms up and we can spend all day outside at the pool, instead of cooped up in the house!
Edited: April 22nd, 2009
In a nutshell, where are they? I’m desperately searching for some things to give my daughter female role models. Right now, of the top ten books for kids up to age 3 on amazon, 7 of the 10 feature male leads. The other three are more gender neutral, but not specifically female lead. It’s really starting to frustrate me.
We are watching a lot of Tigger and Pooh lately, because I love Darby as the lead of that show. Another cool aspect of the show is that they are always out and about playing in nature, jumping rope, playing hopscotch, etc. But even there, with lovely little Darby saving the day, literally every other character in the show is male. Tigger, Pooh, Rabbit, Piglet, Eeyore, Heffalump, Roo. The only other female characters are Heffalump and Roo’s moms, who are rarely seen anyways.
The other shows my daughter likes are all male leads, and everything else I can find on TV is male oriented. I love the Wiggles, but that’s four men. Why couldn’t Imagination Movers have been half female? Or, to hell with that; why not make them all women? Aren’t there more women than men in the world anyways? I love Charlie and Lola, but let’s face it. Lola is a little silly girl and Charlie has to rescue her all the time. Why not make Lola the big sister and Charlie the silly little boy? How about Sid the Science Kid? Why not Sarah or Sally the Science Kid?
Curious George… male.
Arthur… male.
Sid the Science Kid… male.
Mickey Mouse… male, and Minnie and Daisy are horribly caricatures of women IMO.
Little Einsteins… male.
Charlie and Lola… the male is the capable one.
Handy Manny… well, come on.
Oso the bear… male.
Super Why… male.
Am I missing any? Is it me, or is this a serious phenomenon? Yesterday I stopped in a little toy store here in town run by a woman who knows her stuff, and asked her to keep her eye out for any books for the pre-k set that include female leads. I didn’t even say “heroines.” She was all “Oh, what a puzzle! A good question for me to think about!” She didn’t know a single one off the top of her head.
BTW I’m aware of Word Girl, but think it might be a little old for Bella right now; also it’s shown in the afternoons and my silly little female brain keeps forgetting to record it. I’m just getting more than a little frustrated that just about every song, every book, and every tv show or movie is centered around boys; and those that are centered around girls (movies) tend to show girls in the role of the helpless princess role. Bella has not yet seen a princess movie and I intend to keep it that way as long as I can.
Edited: April 10th, 2009
Sexism, alive and well on the cover of a Handy Manny book!
The first time I encountered sexism in one of our activities was in our Kindermusik class. Now, please don’t misunderstand me; I love Kindermusik and our teacher has been lovely since day one. Bella *adores* her. But sometimes the content makes me a little crazy. As an example, one rhyme goes:
The carpenter’s hammer goes rap rap rap
and his saw goes see-saw-see
he hammers and hammers and saws and saws
and builds a house for me!
Well it bugged me that the carpenter is always male. I asked if we could alternate doing he’s and she’s in the song, and our teacher graciously did so. Of course there’ve been other things; the females are almost always in the kitchen, sister has a mirror, etc etc. But overall, I love the class; the sexist content has really been my only complaint.
Sexism is one of those insidious little things that just straight up bugs me. At home, I frequently change the protagonist of songs and stories to be female. I very much want my daughter to grow up knowing that women and men can exist in whatever roles they choose. I want her to understand that life is fluid, and the important thing is that we all figure out what makes us happy. I don’t want her bound by gender roles. I know that some of it is unavoidable, but in those places where we can make a change for the better, why wouldn’t we?
Today I asked our preschool teacher if she could alternate singing Old MacDonald with a male and female role, instead of always as a male. She got quite flustered, and said that her farmer dolls are all men, and she won’t be singing it again anyways, and the kids don’t notice anyways.
Well. Yes, they do notice. Yes, it does matter. Yes, it is just a tiny thing, just a little tiny thing, but it is one little tiny thing thrown in with millions of other little tiny things that all add up to some very big things. It seems a pretty easy thing to do, honestly, and I’m not sure what the big deal is. But she seemed quite flustered, and like she was humoring me to even discuss such a thing.
I mean, everyone knows that farmers are only MEN, right? It’s not like women could handle those big bad tractors, or hammers, or big bags of grain, or… y’know, manly stuff.
Of course, this teacher, this semester, are temporary; and actually almost over! But I know that this is only the first of many times I will be making similar requests through my daughter’s schooling.
Edited: April 1st, 2009
