On pink toy microscopes
The pink microscopes and telescopes for girls offered in a Toys ‘R Us circular are getting some attention; my favorite discussion was at Pharyngula. From Minnesota’s own PZ Meyers:
There is a message being sent here. Being feminine, being girly, means you belong in a separate category in the science world, and it’s a category that needs less utility and more concern about appearances. I don’t get it, and I don’t understand how these kinds of distinctions persist.
As expected, the more than 250 comments are the typical ones we hear when someone dares to criticize The Product:
1. The author/other commenters are overreacting to The Product;
2. There’s nothing wrong with The Product;
3. The Product wouldn’t be on the market if there wasn’t a demand for it;
4. There wouldn’t be a problem if “boneheaded” parents wouldn’t buy The Product;
5. Someone knows someone who owns/bought/uses The Product and they’re fine so the entire criticism is invalid.
Heavy sigh.
But one enlightening comment:
Anyone claiming that they don’t see differences in gender-based marketing of children’s toys, particularly differences that have a negative impact on girls – how much marketing of children’s toys to girls have you looked at prior to this?
The fact that you don’t notice a phenomenon that is not aimed at you in the first place doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Thank you, brilliant commenter.
I’d like to offer that the issue isn’t about getting girls interested in science (please), nor is it about selling the most toys.
It is simply about developing life-long consumers to ensure that corporations remain in business and continue making profits.
It begins with a pink microscope (or pink Monopoly or pink globes or pink toy pianos or pink wagons).
Soon the indoctrinated girls become the fashion-conscious tweens and the trillion-dollar moms of marketers’ dreams.
I have no problem with advertising and marketing tactics directed toward adults. We understand it and can choose to ignore it.
Kids can’t.
And too often, those marketing messages and products made for kids are detrimental to their health. See, being a good little consumers is not necessarily good for kids.
It’s good to question pink toy microscopes. Keep it up.
photo courtesy Terren in Virginia
January 6th, 2010 at 9:59 am
I liked your taxonomy of critical comments a lot. That’s fodder for your forthcoming journal article on this topic, right?
You got me wondering, so I did a Google search of “Microscopes for Boys.” At AOL’s gender-divided Shop Educational Toys site you’ll find, let’s see, 1, 2, 3 . . 48 microscope products listed for boys and, hmmm, yeah, one (1) for girls.
As you observed, that could say more about perceptions of parents than the marketers. Or not. No matter: In terms of promoting girls’ interest in science education, all this is an interesting symbol of how far we have to go, in 2010.
January 9th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
As the mother of a 4yr old girl, and the owner of a clothing company that empowers girls, the “Pinkification” of all girl products leaves me shaking my head. In 2010 there is more of a gender-abyss in the toy aisles than ever before. In fact, we were just toy shopping with our children this morning and my husband commented, “Even the peg board is pink.” A shame, since our little girl was on the hunt for dinosaurs. We found them in the “boy” aisle.
I am a firm believer the childhood should be gender-stereotype free. As a daughter of the women’s lib movement, I am amazed that companies limit toy choices for girls to: fashion/beauty, cooking/baking, care of babies/animals. It seems, if one were to look past all of the glitter and tulle, that we are moving backwards. And enough with the pink!
The pink microscope drives me crazy because it seems to say “You may want to be a scientist, but your gender-specific colored scientific instrument will be a consistent reminder that you are a girl first, foremost.”
Somewhere, Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are rolling in their graves.