Whenever the conversation turns to ev-psych, some chump or two (or twenty) shows up to insist that any test score differences between male and female teenagers must reflect an underlying innate disparity between the sexes. Apparently it is widely believed by chumps everywhere that there is no such thing as socialization, that boys and girls are all raised in identical featureless plastic bubbles and are treated exactly the same by their caretakers. Maybe it’s like that in your neighborhood, but I’m not seeing it.
Eight years ago, the Renfrew Center found that “90 percent of commercial toys and dolls for girls age 2 to 10 emphasize beauty, shopping and dating.”
What’s changed since then? That would be nothing, Bob.
In 2005 Sudie Hofmann did a study of children’s toys and found the same thing. Girls’ toys: beauty, shopping dating. All pink. Boys’ toys: war, weaponry, and educational toys. That’s right : the challenging word games and chess sets and science kits were all in the boys’ section. Hofmann couldn’t find a single female pictured on a science kit, nor a single science kit in the girls’ aisle. Not even a pink one.
But Hofmann did find one area of girls’ toys that the Renfrew Center didn’t mention: housework! That’s right, pink housework toys. For when the girls grow up.
Read her entire post, entited:
Socialization: another feminist conspiracy theory
It’s always a challenge when I’m at a playground with my toddler to find a girl under the age of 3ish not wearing pink somewhere on her clothes. The few who are not are usually wearing pastel purple. The boys seem to have clothes on of all colors . . . except of course pink.
Pink is hard to avoid. See e.g.
http://www.maddiescloset.com/
http://www.cwdkids.com/servlet/quagga/girls/skirts_dresses/silo.jsp/_qprm_/browse
http://www.hannaandersson.com/home.asp?rs=1&cm_mmc=Google-_-KidsChildren-_-Clothes-_-childrens%20clothing&cchkrd=y
http://www.gymboree.com/shop/dept_category.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374304778085&bmUID=1190315454380
I am guessing that change is not always universal. When I was young (the 60’s) my parents were full fledged members of the gender stereotype styled life. Now my mother sells real estate, my father sells plants and does 90% of the cooking (he’s great!), the goto person in my family when you have a mechanical problem is my middle daughter who also has a degree in accounting and finance (Magna cum laude) and soon will have her masters in insurance fraud (yea, I know. Master in fraud, ha,ha)…much has changed since I was a young whipper-snapper. I would agree, though, much farther to go for universal equality in all things to be the norm, Especially universaly unbiased thought.
I cringe whenever I go to a toy store to buy a gift for a female child. My staples are balls, books, and office supplies. Yes, office supplies – kids love having their own staplers, tape dispensers, post it notes, paper clips, etc. highlighters, pencil sharpeners etc. Strange but true.
Office supplies, what a great gender neutral and universally wanted gift. I would have loved to get them when I was a child. Heck, I would love some as a gift now! Strange but true.
Hey bobc, e-mail me your address and I’m sending you some.
If people don’t want their girls to be socialized in ways that they think are bad for girls, then why don’t they buy their girls toys for boys? (and why don’t they buy their boys toys for girls?)