Can it really be 2013?

[pbray]

When I was five years old, I desperately wanted a robot for Christmas. When Santa delivered, I took this as proof of his existence. My parents had to bite their tongues every time their little angel told everyone how only Santa could have known that she wanted a robot since her parents would have gotten her something boring like another doll.

Sadly, in 2013, apparently girls still aren't allowed to want robots, or any of the other cool gifts.

From the Discovery Channel store website:

Boys! From the adventurous and athletic to the creative and curious, find the perfect gift for the boy on your list.

Girls! Who needs sugar and spice? We've got everything nice for the girl on your list.

While there is overlap between the two lists, the Drum Playmat is a boys toy, as is the Polymer Chemistry Set and the Shark Explorer Research set. Girls toys include bead making sets and DC Cupcakes items.

Luckily for my nieces and First!Cousin!Wyatt! I am an extremely cool person who ignores such categories. But I can't help pitying all the girls out there who are getting yet another American doll when what they really want is a build your own robot kit. And likewise, for all the boys who want to be the next Ace of Cakes, may you be blessed with a godparent who buys you that baking set.

Comments

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I actually think it's gotten worse in some ways -- it seems as though everything is gendered now, even blocks and crayons and stuffed animals and toddler shoes.

My ILs are *very very* gendered in their gift-buying for SP and it makes me slightly crazy, but SP does quite enjoy "girly" things, so DH and I just have to make sure she also has access to the other things she's also interested in, like superhero comics, dinosaur robots, Xbox games, and sports equipment. And books. Lots of books.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It does seem as if everything is relentlessly gendered, possibly as a marketing ploy to force parents who have both boys and girls to buy twice as much. Even the Lego store was divided into girl appropriate and boy appropriate sets.

I facepalmed when I saw someone arguing that girls were genetically predisposed to like pink. Apparently they were unable to see the inherent cultural bias, or do the basic historical research which would have shown that girls = pink is a historically recent development

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I blame the prenatal ultrasound. We got a lot of flak for not finding out SP's gender ahead of her birth so that people (not everyone, but a lot of people) could buy her the "right" things -- even teeny-tiny brand-new-baby clothing is relentlessly gendered. At least when we were kids the relentless gendering didn't start until the baby was actually born :P Although yes, marketing very much too.

Hard to tease out the influences of nature and nurture when you can't even get to be a week old without being bombarded with gender essentialism.