How Pottery Barn is making me sad with pink
The holiday catalogues are arriving at an alarming rate. It’s totally time, I get it. (I won’t, however, accept that it is time for my local grocery store to have holiday decorations on display in their parking lots. I’m looking at you, Publix.) And while 98% of the catalogues end up in my recycling bin without so much as a backward glance, some of them do end up being casually flipped through. And since I like to pretend that I have oodles of money to splurge on my son on things like monogrammed luggage or Santa hats, the reality is that usually I am just window shopping. And I am cool with that.
Because W doesn’t really have a need for luggage just yet. He has plenty of baggage just having me as a Mama. bwha ha ha. What? Too self-deprecating? Ok. How about he doesn’t need luggage because he is 7 months old. As of today, by the way. (insert totally silly moment where I sort of sadly wave farewell to his infanthood)
But back to Pottery Barn, because, in case you didn’t already guess, that is where I am going with this post.
So the first (of what I am sure will be many) thick catalogues arrived from the PB yesterday. And color me red and green- it’s the holiday edition! And I get all giddy thinking about how this is going to be W’s first Christmas EVAH and dive in to get my fix of pretty decorations and toys.
And I’m turning and turning the pages (oh & if you have this catalogue at home you can read along with me!) and I get to page 20 and the sadness begins. Like on a totally weird, what is this emotion I am feeling??, level. Dolls. Lots and lots of dolls.
And before you think I am having some sort of, “I wish W had girl parts” moment I swear it isn’t. Instead I had a, “But why can’t W be in the marketing blitz when it comes to dolls? moment” Why does the language have to be so exclusive?
“Surprise her with a sweet, new friend to bring everywhere she goes, from tea parties to sleepovers.”
I get it- girls play with dolls. But I bet there are some boys out there that would like a new friend. I know that girls play and are encouraged to play with dolls in a way that makes them emulate parenting. It fosters nurturing behavior and creating play. But I have to wonder why we aren’t encouraging boys to play in the same way.
I don’t think it makes a boy effeminate or emasculate to play with dolls. I actually don’t feel like there should be any sort of gender bias when it comes to parenting. There are some pretty amazing fathers out there that are doing it on their own. Might there be more of them if doll play was more encouraged with little boys?
By the time I get to page 24 in the PB catalogue we are in more pink pages of independent play toys: doll houses, ironing boards, tea sets and retro kitchens. There is a slight change in the language of the items for sale. Instead of saying “she” the copy now says “kids”, but a picture is worth a thousand words and all of the “kids” demonstrating play in the photos are girls.
And then I turn the page and find myself in the boy section. How do I know it is the boy section? Well obviously because the colors have changed from sea foam green and pink to primary red and blue. And the items for sale are all geared towards sport play sets- totally non gender specific stuff. But you wouldn’t know it based on the photos because, once again, they only feature one gender- this time it’s boys.
I know that ultimately I decide what W plays with. And if I have dolls and kitchen sets for him then he might decide to play with them. I guess I am just bummed out over the totally in your face gender labeling. I am also bummed that there are more pink pages than primary colored pages (which wouldn’t bother me so much if pink didn’t = girl and primary didn’t = boy). Options, people. Give us options. Because I promise you that Mothers are buying dolls and kitchen sets for their sons and basketball sets for their daughters. It would just be lovely to see that reflected in the ads.
And now I promise to bite my tongue in regards to the toy airplane for sale with only a male pilot and female flight attendant as options. And more tongue biting over the generic families available for purchase for doll house play…sigh.
Outdated stereotypes…smells like the holidays are coming!
(by the way, check out the totally awesome new art in my header. Made by a reader in France who has not yet let me know if I may say her name, but holy amazing. Nothing like opening your e-mail inbox to that!)
When my son is in that age bracket of ply, he will have a baby and kitchen play sets and little cleaning supplies (vacuuum, broom, a bubble lawn mower! I loved those toys as a child!). Toys shouldn’t be gender exclusive. If Jericho wants to dress up as Belle, so be it!
I’m a bit crazy as my son is only 16 days old so this is probably all sorts of nuts, but I agree with you. And that’s all that counts.
Oooh, don’t start me on this topic! (Too late.) I feel like we’ve gone really far backwards as a society on this topic, having grown up in the Free-to-be-you-and-me, girls-can-do-anything late 70s/early 80s. Everything in catalogues is split by sex. It’s absurd. The Fisher Price catalogue in particular makes me crazy; I remember them just having “toys” when I was a kid, but now all the toys we had seem to be for boys, and there’s this whole pink category for girls. Gross.
I sometimes feel like we dodged a bullet with all the pink crap (although I guess we’ll see about #2!), as much as I might have craved it before J. was born. J. is not all that into dolls, so we haven’t bothered to gothat route, but he loves play kitchens so I’m tapping a grandparent for one for the holiday/birthday season. He likes vehicles all right, but animals are really his thing. I just wish/hope parents follow their child’s lead, not the catalogues’. Grrrr.
Happy 7 months to you and W! And ditto on everything you said. Grrrr.
My 3 year old loves to play “parent.” He diapers his animals, plays cooking, and pretends to pick up his baby brother from “daycare”. When I took him to a store to pick out a toy, he insisted on a Christmas ornament of Barbie riding on a horse. When he saw the toy catelogues with their pages of “pink” toys (he reads them on the toilet) he stuck out his lower lip and pouted that those toys were only for girls and he couldn’t get one. I had to tell him that he could have any toy he wanted, it didn’t matter what color it was. Oooh, the hubby is gonna love going to the store to buy that pink dollhouse!!! Screw “them.”
I’m already feelin’ ya with the gender stuff and the options, and he’s not even born yet! I totally get it. I had quite a few boy cousins who had cabbage patch dolls when they were younger and just LOVED them. I also had a boy cousin who loved playing store and house. My nephew and my friend’s little boy love to do peoples’ hair. Too bad that’s considered “wrong.”
My 2nd youngest cousin (a boy – most of them are) LOOOOOOOOOOOOVED playing with kitchens when he was little. LOVED. (Which is funny, b/c he’s the pickiest eater in the world.)
On the other hand, way back in the day, my mother splurged and got both my brother and I cabbage patch dolls. I used mine, well, mostly as a stuffed animal, as I never had much use for dolls (inanimate objects are INANIMATE, dontcha know), and my brother… used his as a football.
I hate the gender divide. I hate that people don’t realize it just has to do with the kid. And takes boys who use dolls as footballs to say “see? see?” when really it’s just, some kids like sports. some like dolls. some like books. Every KID is different.
I completely agree. We got my son a kitchen for his birthday last year after he started gravitating towards play food at daycare. This year, he is starting to show interest in his stuffed animals as friends he can love, so I am thinking for his birthday this year, we might get him a doll. I’ve never figured out why learning to be a nurturing, loving person is considered gender-specific.
ugh. just ugh.
Toys R Us Catalog is even worse with the genderizing, believe it or not.
Just. UGH.
I already have a kitchen set picked out for B. And while I suppose I can probably draw the line with getting him pink ruffles, he can have as many little stuffed buddies or dolls as he wants.
I’m getting him this for Christmas because it’s cute, and semi-dollish. (cute stuffed puppies count, right?). I realize it’s not the point of the post, but it’s cute enough to share. And p.s. it’s on sale right now, plus Target has a Target toy coupon for an additional $5 off Scout too. http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/190-0288029-0258957?ASIN=B001W30D2O&AFID=Froogle&LNM=B001W30D2O|LeapFrog_My_Puppy_Pal_Scout&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=B001W30D2O&ref=tgt_adv_XSG10001
of course, it’s NEVER easy to find, but here’s a link if you want to send them an e-mail…
https://secure.potterybarnkids.com/customer-service/email-us/
I’ve got two girls – and I’m an all out HATER on pink and ruffles and Barbies. Try finding a nice plain shirt that doesn’t say PRINCESS or DADDY’s LITTLE GIRL in pink sparkles. My oldest loves playing trucks and block and fiddling around with tools. I hate the gender specific toys – hence a lot of use your imagination toys here!
Oh wow, I love the header!
I can’t tell you how infuriating it is to go into any toy store and see the aisles are literally segregated by sex. It drives me bonkers and all of that pink makes me want to hurl.
My boys love dolls and kitchen sets, have at it!
Eligh loves to use the play vacuum, the broom, and the kitchen. I say buy the stuff if you choose. I am not worried about “making” him feel more feminine.
Oh, and we need to schedule a meet up before I leave. I have a few bigger toys that I need to get rid of, as the kids don’t play with them and W would totally love them. I would mail them, but they are bulky. I would rather give them to a friend then to someone I don’t know. Let me know if you would like some specifics to see if you are interested.
I had to search high and low to get a doll for Ben when I was expecting Alex. All of them were so pink and frilly. I was so! mad! FURIOUS GEORGE!
Wait til you encounter PB TEENS! The guys’ stuff is all camo and sports logos and the girls’ stuff has sequins and maribou feathers all over it. I know there are some guys who like sequins and maribou feathers –Liberace and Elton John spring to mind — but they’d have to shop in the girls’ section.
I think the whole gender/toy concern started in the late 60s with Marlo Thomas and Free to Be You and Me. Yes, some boys like dolls, especially tiny little boys but they REALLY like trucks and things that spin and light up and make loud noises. Boys like to take things apart to see how they work. That doesn’t mean they’re not sensitive and nurturing; they just like different stuff.
one of my nursing school classmates has a schoolage son. and he is a barbie doll fanatic. and i do mean FAN-A-TIC. as in he has a vast collection and he adores them…has since he was a baby. and his mama? my friend? she totally keeps a list of which ones he has and wants for upcoming b-days and doesnt bat an eye at his barbie love. she rocks. we have all decided her son is going to be a designer when he grows up cuz he is all about the clothes and the dolls
it was awesome to be around someone like that.
back when i was still thinking about TTC and being a mom, there was a pink stripey onesie i found with a ladybug on it that said mommy’s little bug” or something cute like that. and i hesitated to get it for my Hope Chest ‘in case i had a boy’ and then i thought, even if i had a boy, he would be MY BUG. and so i got it. the gender biases are so deeply ingrained in us eh?
/rambling.
My oldest son got a doll for his second birthday because HE requested it. My boys have also had a pink tea cart that did double duty as a battering ram. I hate the stereotypes.
One of my son’s favorite toys is his play kitchen. And even before I had him I have always abhored the “pink” section for the girls. I hated it even when I was a little girl. Made me happy to have a boy. But…now I have a girl as well. And I too and received all of those catalogs and I STILL find myself seeing a page that is filled with nothing but pink and not even pausing. Even though I have a girl I completely skip those pages. I look for stuff for her on the “boy” pages. Because really, primary colors does NOT equal boy. And those all pink pages? Well they pretty much make me want to puke. My poor daughter is going to grow up getting her brother’s hand-me-downs of Thomas the Train and Bob the Builder and Spiderman. But I have a feeling that, just to spite me, she is going to want to be THAT girl that LOVES those damn pink pages. And I honestly don’t know how I will deal with that. I guess I can hope that we won’t end up down that road, particularly since everything is marketed in that direction, but only time will tell. But what a maddening process!
I think many of us have written this post. When you have a boy (or boys!!!), you go through this angst. Everything with boys is marketed as rough-and-tumble. Every shirt has a ferocious animal or a truck or sports or, my favorite was a onesie that said, “Big Man on Campus.” And I’m sure if I were a mom or daughters, I would be saying the same things, only the girl lamenting version.
My husband and I did get our boys a doll. They had a kitchen we found on the street (it was a horrendous plastic pink Cinderella kitchen!). They have been given every opportunity to embrace their “nurturing” side. They have gradually veered away from the dolls kitchen. They love love love trains, and one of them loves trucks and cars too. These are typical “boy toys.” Instead of being bothered by this, I enjoy their passion for these things and enjoy watching them play with them. They play with them in such fun, creative way. Lots of pretend play and interesting scenarios. They love those toys and, in a way, they nurture them. They love their favorite animals too and speak sweetly to them. I think what I like is *how* my boys play, and *what* they play with seems less important. But I do hear ya on the gender-specific marketing bs.
What’s really privately hilarious to me about your post is that for my little girl’s first birthday I got her pink, monogrammed luggage from PBK. Isn’t that just ridiculous?
I too wrote a similar post when Max was young. I find it offensive really. In our family, colors are for everyone. The Easter Bunny brought Max a stroller the only color choice was pink. When it needed to be replaced, the only color option was purple. Max needed a belt and not only did the store not have boy belts his size he got his heart set on this pink sparkly one which he has worn to school. Yes, we got it, even though I offended a fellow shopper who kept trying to tell me it was for girls when I pleasantly thanked her for her opinion and smiled and said “colors are for everyone in our family, including pink”. R and N got Max twin dolls when they were born/in the hospital and that is what he wants to take in his sharebox to school on Monday. He is not effeminate, but I despise the stereotypes. Now, I do have to say having 2 boys and a girl that they do play differently. The stroller for Max and R are to run around with and it has wheels and have you seen it fly down a hill? N likes to climb in and out and try to do the straps. What makes me even sadder than the blatant stereotype adds (and really it goes beyond the adds to product development and availability) is the peer pressure from school to conform to those ridge standards…not from the school itself or the teachers, but from the other kids. Okay, I could rant for quite awhile on this one as it is a hot button for me, but I’ll stop. Oh, and R and N are getting a kitchen from Santa with a shopping cart and various fruits, veggies, and pantry items. I know they (and Max) will love it. And, one last thing, I also find it offensive that it is very difficult to find things for girls that are not pink or purple..clothes, toys, whatever. It is so annoying. Colors are for everyone. Deb (Deb2you2)
Aw, looks like my second mail didn’t go through? Or my English is still worse than usual
I wrote you a (loooooong) email yesterday about my old blog and how it was up to you to link to it or not since it might look scary to some. And then I thought I had scared *you* away! My provider was bought by another and there have been all kinds of email and Internet troubles lately, I’ll try to send it again.
Also, I so completely agree with your post! I was telling some friends the other day that having a girl in that world where everything is gender-specific and girls get the pink and the play makeup and all the passive toys scared me… And I made the friends laugh. Honestly, if our girl ended up verystereotypically girly, I wouldn’t know how to help her! I hate pink, never knew what to do with dolls once I have made them clothes or furniture, don’t know how to apply makeup, hate shopping (except for books), love outdoor sports. Guess we’ll see! At least, she won’t have war toys marketed towards her. The last catalogue I saw didn’t have primary colours for boys, it had camouflage colours, argh.
Also, my nephew, then 2 years old, kept wanting to play with the little girl’s dolls at the playground, so my sister bought him one for Christmas. I went all day holding the doll and saying “baby, baby”, so cute! Now he’s not so much into dolls but goes everywhere with his teddy bear, giving kisses to people with it. Doesn’t prevent him from loving tractors too
We bought Wil a kitchen set for his 4th birthday… very cool retro CraftMaid – non-gender specific. He loved it, in fact he and his girl friends STILL play with it and he is almost 8. The other day he saw a commercial for the Barbie Nail Salon or some crap and he came in and said “I bet if I was a girl I would really like that toy, but I’m a boy and I cant have that”. All I could do was tell him that he actually could have any toy he wanted….. made me so sad. Sexism – alive and well in the toy aisle! Love you and Happy 7 months W!!!!
Infuriating (and worse) isn’t it. It really is amazing what gets gendered in the toy aisle too – we got a vet set for my nephew last Christmas and it was “for girls” I discivered, wrapping it up. WTF? So boys don’t like animals or want to care for them when they’re sick? Or maybe they’d rather be doctors you know because, well, they get paid a shed-load more than vets, right?
Outdated indeed. Whether I’ll be having a boy or a girl, it will be very important for me to expose her/him to both “types” or toys and colours and all, let the child make the choice.
And the header – very nice!
I had the exact same thought process & experience when I got that catalog in the mail. Yay, holidays! Oh lord, SO much pink … oh, here’s the boys’(sports) pages … Blech.
My boy liked to play doll and kitchen set too…But I tried to teach him enjoying boy toys. Slow but sure he start liking it.
When I was in TX recently I found a dollhouse set with tons of cool room furnishing for a BOY. I almost fell over. Of course, the furnishings were BOY things. Because boys don’t cook, do laundry, etc. Wait! What is my husband doing RIGHT NOW? He’s cooking! Dinner! I wonder where he learned that behavior? Stupid people and their gender norms, yo.