The Big Picture: Pink Is Not The Problem

[fractal_butterfly]

I think I start to understand, why my opinion about the Hunger Games movie (only saw the first one so far) differs so much from Bob's opinion. I really liked the movie, Bob hated it. It boils down to "having a different perspective". I never viewed the "bad guys" in the Hunger Games as beeing "feminine". For me they came off as beeing decadent and over the top.

OT: I think that it is important to still have those toys, i.e. the "tradiditional female and male" toys, since a lot of kids like them. In my personal experience, many girls tend to dolls and pink stuff, and many boys tend to action figures, weapons and technical toys. If they like it and it represents who they are or who they wan't to be, why not give it to them? I think that men and women are equally important, but at the same time they are different. It is important to embrace the differences and not try to "equalize" everyone. That's the beauty of humanity that there is this vast range of characters. On the other hand it is important to let a boy choose a pink barby doll if he wants to.

 

[CymbaIine]

That's actually quite an offensive way to it. I appreciate that you firmly stand on the side of 'vanity is bad', but plenty of accredited feminists do not. MovieBob's intelligence should not be pulled into question on this point. The main reason why the 'vanity is bad' argument is problematic, is that 'it is OK to have fun'. If wearing make-up makes you happy, you should be allowed to do that, the same way that it's OK for me to play a round of FTL if I get enjoyment out of it. In that same instance, it is progressive to make short shrift of the attitude that 'video games are something for kids'. Even utilitarianism does away with functionality at the moment that it impedes on human happiness.

I didn't question his intelligence, he seems like an intelligent guy. He just doesn't seem to have a very good grasp on this particular issue.

I don't think "vanity is bad" and "video games are for kids" are at all equivocal. Who are the accredited feminists that disagree with me? I would be genuinely interested to read what they have to say.

 

[MetalMagpie]

His added point on the end is that it's potentially damaging to always portray "empowering female role-models" as essentially quite "masculine" characters (and conversely villains as quite "feminine" characters). It can send the message that traditionally "masculine" traits (such as physical prowess and a stern expression) are "good" traits and traditionally "feminine" traits (such as sensitivity and pride in appearance) are "bad" or "weak" traits.
.

Pride in appearance is not associated with femininity. Vanity and/or perceiving appearance as extremely important is associated with femininity. This is to the detriment of women and girls, dolls which promote negative body types and homogeneous ideas of beauty are bad.

*shrug* I guess it's a matter of philosophical debate just where the boundary lies between "pride in appearance" and "vanity".

I would disagreed with the idea that dolls inherently promote a negative body image. (Most of the dolls my sister played with as a child were of babies!) And similar arguments can be made that children shouldn't be given plastic weapons because they might encourage violent behaviour.

As an aside: when I was a child, my parents restricted the amount of time I could spend on the computer to half an hour a day and only let me play video games that were educational. They were worried that computer use might have a damaging effect on me. I now work as a software developer.

 

[CymbaIine]

*shrug* I guess it's a matter of philosophical debate just where the boundary lies between "pride in appearance" and "vanity".

I would disagreed with the idea that dolls inherently promote a negative body image. (Most of the dolls my sister played with as a child were of babies!) And similar arguments can be made that children shouldn't be given plastic weapons because they might encourage violent behaviour.

As an aside: when I was a child, my parents restricted the amount of time I could spend on the computer to half an hour a day and only let me play video games that were educational. They were worried that computer use might have a damaging effect on me. I now work as a software developer.

I didn't say all dolls inherently did anything, I specified dolls that promote those things.

As for pride in appearance/vanity. I was thinking of the typical hero. He is often unshaven but rarely has a huge beard. He can be smudgy but not filthy. We expect men to take somepride in their appearance which is why I don't think we can call it feminine.

 

[chikusho]

Part of the problem is a bit of chicken and egg issue. Do you think girls like dolls because that's what's advertised to them or is that what's advertised to them because girls like dolls? Do girls like pink because they're told they should, or are girl toys pink because they like it? If you look historically, before tv, girls have always like these kinds of toys, and boys the other way. It's not like some one decided these are what girls would be interested in, that's not how marketing works. If most of it were caused by marketing, you should be able to point to some point in history before this gender split in toys occurred.

If you look historically, before tv, girls have always been given these kinds of toys as preparation for household work and caring for a family. If society expects you to conform to a mold, you are very likely to shape yourself to fit right into it. Girls grow up, see women as caring, nurturing and responsible for the household and identify with those characteristics. Ergo, pink dolls.
If women were genetically predisposed to just care for a family, phenomenons such as this would be impossible:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/jun/15/childrensservices.familyandrelationships

What I'm really worried about is the insanity that is going on it Sweden. It's a law in Sweden that you can't have gender specific toys. They are in the process of trying to eliminate male and female entirely from perception. They've created 170 new gender neutral words they are requiring teachers to use instead of he/she, toy companies can be sued if they show girls playing with dolls in their toy catalogs, ext. The worst part I found was "One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely "stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented."

I'm from Sweden, and no such law has ever even been discussed. You're talking about one single ad campaign in a catalogue that had a girl playing with a toy gun and a boy in a spider-man costume pushing a toy stroller.

We've created _one_ gender neutral pronoun to use when gender is not known or not important, and noone is required to use it.

Also, several schools follow educational philosophies that strictly have no toys whatsoever, but rather activities with games and creative stations. This has had some effects on gender identification, but it's not the main purpose.

 

[Goliath100]

Anytime someone claims that boys and girls are interested in what their interested in because of society, I will post this.
Dont ignore this just because of the title, just watch the damn thing.

Nobody should ignore it because of the title. Everyone should ignore it because its use of Selective Editing and Reporter Bias.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Overall, that was surprisingly good stuff.

Much more reasonable and thought provoking than I thought it would be.

One the other hand..... I think you are missing the point on the 300 and Hunger Games bad guys.

Yes, women are often portrayed as evil, but I really don't think that was the case in those two movies. In both cases, the frilly preening and whatnot were less feminine and more wealthy. Everybody hates an arrogant rich guy and it's much more sensible to make the distinction of Catfish and Lionides being the tough, honorable, somewhat average people (even though Leo is a king, he's still shown that way) and the evil people being so arrogant and rich that they look down on the good guys.

Just my take.

Looking at the brief clips of the Hunger Games, I've come to the conclusion that the establishment are probably based on how we viewed the old Aristocracies, particularly the popular image of the French up to the Revolution. If the phrase "Death to the Aristos" doesn't come up in that series somewhere, I'd be very surprised.

 

[kingmob]

I'm really happy Bob took the time to make this distinction, because in the current 'hype' of feminism a lot of things are going wrong. Stuff that will actually make the problem worse, not better in the long run.
I'm being frequently called a sexist and worse for pointing out similar things, but people don't know me and so it is easy to straw-man away my arguments. Bob, not so much.

For me, the main message is that one should never condemn anyone for what they like and/or consume, even if such stuff is somehow enforcing stereotypes. Exactly for the reasons Bob said. Applying such significance to harmless stuff actually makes the underlying cause stronger, not weaker. Art follows culture, not the other way around. A lot of a single stereotype does enforce and maybe even legitimize the stereotype for sure, but this is not the fault of the art.

At this point it has gotten so crazy I have already seen it become the norm to condemn sexualized art in games, even (or maybe even especially) when it is made by women!

 

[Ninmecu]

I'd just like to point out that this whole issue makes my ancestors laugh, like, really REALLY hard. I'm of native descent and my tribe(amongst others) believed in completely free and open constructs. Men could be hunters just as much as they could be the cooks or the cleaners. Gay men(or women) were not considered "odd" they were considered "Womanly Spirited" or "Manly Spirited" and were able to become part of relationships without bias. Children were allowed(After a certain age) to participate in hunting, cleaning, creation of clothing, preparation of foods, whatever they were interested in regardless of gender. The age thing was mostly a "Just in case they get hurt" kind of thing. But, I digress, this is then and that was now. I just honestly don't understand the debate as a whole, let people become who they feel they should be, don't try to reinforce or abolish "constructs" and let the individual grow into who they choose to become. The whole "hard wiring" thing has been proven as mostly mythological, we've proven that the human mind is remarkably plastic.

 

[Penguin_Factory]

This is a really good point, but I think it's important to recognize that it's something many feminists have been saying for a long time- ie the "drop the gender binary" crowd aren't necessarily going around demonizing traditional notions of femininity either, in fact I've read many a feminist critique of a work of fiction where the idea that women can only be seen as equal and worthwhile by completely casting off things that are feminine and "girly" is slammed just as harshly as the idea that women are only worthwhile to the extent that they conform to those traditional ideals of femininity.

 

[nuttshell]

...the gender stereotyping our society...

Why is it feminine to wear skirts? Why is it feminine to have long hair? Why is it masculine to be a car mechanic?

Oh, my...somehow I can't shake the feeling, that Bob and some others here, think that America in it's current form is the only country that ever existed.

http://thechinachronicle.com/why-chinese-men-grow-long-fingernails/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_skirts

http://cosmeticsinfo.org/Ancient-history-cosmetics

Cosmetically accentuating different bodily features was allways done in order to impress and label people (stunning, right?). Yes, it was also about sex, as in: impressing the opposing gender. But first and foremost, it was about impression. Having smooth skin and soft hair is an indication that you have the time and money to bother with having those. Having dresses in which it is impossible to run indicates that you dont need to run. Having long finger nails indicates that you dont have to work with your hands.
Even in early America, people of both genders wore differently sized hats and long, expensive wiggs to show their social status. The industrial revolution and a few (or better: many, many) wars favored exceptionally more men than women in the workforce and that is why cosmetics became a female dominated field in the west.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

So what would you say about Barbie? Dreamhouse? Party?. I saw NerdCubed LP video of it an i was disturbed. If i had a daughter who would enjoy something like that i would have to ask myself: Where did I go so wrong?

 

[CymbaIine]

...the gender stereotyping our society...

Why is it feminine to wear skirts? Why is it feminine to have long hair? Why is it masculine to be a car mechanic?

Oh, my...somehow I can't shake the feeling, that Bob and some others here, think that America in it's current form is the only country that ever existed.

http://thechinachronicle.com/why-chinese-men-grow-long-fingernails/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_skirts

http://cosmeticsinfo.org/Ancient-history-cosmetics

Cosmetically accentuating different bodily features was allways done in order to impress and label people (stunning, right?). Yes, it was also about sex, as in: impressing the opposing gender. But first and foremost, it was about impression. Having smooth skin and soft hair is an indication that you have the time and money to bother with having those. Having dresses in which it is impossible to run indicates that you dont need to run. Having long finger nails indicates that you dont have to work with your hands.
Even in early America, people of both genders wore differently sized hats and long, expensive wiggs to show their social status. The industrial revolution and a few (or better: many, many) wars favored exceptionally more men than women in the workforce and that is why cosmetics became a female dominated field in the west.

I think you are, if anything, supporting the point of the second quoter there.

 

[Darmani]

That said, I suppose a point could be made that the bastions of liberalism have generally been the wealthy coastal regions, with the biggest public proponents of this kind of stuff being wealthy media tycoons, decadent Hollywood celebrities, and the ilk. A lot of the opposition? Well that comes from the more rural working classes in the south, and pretty a lot of what are dismissed as a "flyover state", the term which also tends to sort of illustrate the problems. That said despite my personal opinions, I never really felt this was a big part of the message in "Hunger Games" at least. There is a difference between being simpering, and acting "flaming", albeit I can see where they overlap and how some people might want to project other issues onto it.
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Ugh I love how we've bought into this bullshit

Did we all forget the first states to sanction women owning their own property and voting rights, civil unions between same sexes, where a lot of gay rights and literature comes from? Why are we STILL buying into the idea of LA is where all the gay men who immigrated from France are!!! TBF, its more a matter of presentation but even boystown and other superpopular gay districts are noted more for coincidence (they are close to media coverred outlets, or points of mass populace migration). I mean do we still assume all sailors love it up the butt? Its this narrowminded overall viewpoint that makes me wince. I ESPECIALLY would hope post It Gets Better (at least what testimonies I've seen) we'd lose the you need to run to hollywood to be gay as to just open a phonebook and look around or call this or that number.

I don't know its just one of the most affirming things about being queer for me was it wasn't some foreign thing but about local michiganders and even black people and all who wanted what they were due and had been a part of getting the acknowledgement. Pagentry = gay mainly I think for the reason lots of things are sort of as a response counter-entanglement. and also from personal experience you'd be surprised how many things you if not currently but initially do on charge of "this is normal/straight or not doing this thing gay/bad/queer" Some who especially are not appreciative of repression go full the other way on that. Why cut my hair if it looks "girly" long people already say I'm girly and I like my hair long and its troublesome Why NOT sing female pop songs, its not like it makes me less straight in truth OR in other people's eyes, etc. Admittedly, and this is slight myopia I notice about myself and other gay guys at least in general in a group, this turns into looking as ALL mainstream and straight culture with a sort of remove and kind of...arbitrary or repressive or potentially so. This leads to the cliche gay bestie with great romantic advice (they have special perspective that offers insight and there is the added bonus of not being influenced by same drives/desires.) but also for who some its ALL about heteronormaty ruining it for us all.

More on the topic I'm always surprised Barbie and the DPs are held up in effigy. I played with dolls and barbie. Some of my heroes were the girl toons, including the "first" MLP cartoon for their bright colors, rainbows, fantasy colors and other aesthic. I mean Barbie was cool, she drove a car had lots of stuff to collect, wear and could do damn near anything and was like your parents. She was a means to emulate all the cool parts of being an adult or celebrity (own house, car, stuff, kids). Jem was a rock star. KEN was the joke there and lame, who would want to be ken, Barbie was cool. I LOVED rainbow brite, the care bears (they were for girls, really?). I get Snow White getting the hate (who wants to be a murder victim who survives by generally inspiring attraction instead in your victimizers) but Cinderella, Ariel (I've gone into her being cool before, near I can tell its because she's defiant AND wrong and that's a no no in femmepowerment mythos), Aurora, Pocahontas, Belle (she skates by near I can tell because reads romance novels equals education equals femmepowerment :, and others who are less violent attack to power types but people who challenge the world and are good looking doing it.

Ariel REALLY gets me as she's an even handed take off of teenagehood her problems are an environment that's infantilizing her and she shows personal courage, wit, and enthusiasm and ambitions BUT she's naive as to the full implications so needs adult guidance or at least cooperative assistance. Triton won't budge or admit he's wrong opening the door to Ursula's horrific advice and exploitation

"You need to spread your tail into legs and keep quiet and run off with a man" She's NOT about self acceptance her solution to a fat woman and an inconfident shrimp in love is forced UNHEALTHY makeovers not big is beautiful and date coaching.

Sebastian is the better parental figure if only he's trying to look out for her interest, educate her and doesn't deny her even when she does wrong and help bring her out and finally getting the authorities. Making him the best Disney animated canon mom I suppose. Hell most romantic comedies usually end where Frozen and tangled does yeah we skipped to the wedding but AFTER the characters have symbolically built to join each other and more "grounded" works like The Rescuers has the more realistic build up. I think people are blaming Disney more for their own immaturity than any message they push.

 

[Makabriel]

I have no problem with girls playing with boy toys and vice-versa. But there is nothing wrong with "coding" a female or male marketed toy to a certain set of colors. It's years of cultural evolution that really is harming no one.

No, you mean it's not harming YOU. Many children are being "harmed" by the idea that they cant play with dolls becuase dolls are for girls, or vice versa. Many transgendered or homosexual/bisexual people are being harmed by the binary male/female separation.
I, for example, am "harmed" by disapproval from the rents when i wear large hoodies, becuase they arn't what females wear, apparently.


Try some empathy. I know its hard being a (probably white/straight) male. Hard to emphasize, that is.

You have the White Straight Male correct.
However, I am married to a Bi-woman who is active in the LBTG community, and I have hair longer than most of my female co-workers (and have had it this long for most of my life). I'm far from your typical straight/white male.

Society does not tell people they can or cannot play with dolls. Making things a certain color does not force anyone not to buy them. Acceptance comes from within, not without. If someone is comfortable in the way they are and what they choose to do, they will be happy.

 

[Petromir]

Like so many things gender roles are likely a mixture of nature and nurture, and telling exactly where the boundaries between the two lie is next to impossible.

It should also be pointed out that even if a trait (physical or mental) is 'nature' that doesnt nessesrially make it unchangeable. Outside influence can still change it. This doesnt mean its nesserially a good idea to deliberately force things one way or another, its possble to mess people up by trying to hard, or soemtimes have the opposite effect.

 

[nuttshell]

I think you are, if anything, supporting the point of the second quoter there.

I probably should've pointed out, that "some" in my post, doesn't apply to "Farther than stars". I didn't mean to undermine his point, I thought, that was obvious.