The Holidays, Gifts and… Gender?
Written by Hannah McGechie on 30/12/09
Photo by ChrissyMorin on Flickr
The holiday season is upon us once again and for many, this means plenty of gift buying and giving. It’s a busy time of year and shopping sometimes gets left until the last minute, inciting a frenzied panic and chaotic trip to the mall. This year, a UK organization has launched a campaign to encourage consumers to leave a bit more time to shop in order to think critically about the gifts we buy, especially for children.
The PinkStinks campaign is concerned about the messages children are receiving from celebrity figures in the media and the toys they are given to play with. The organizers argue that these images tell girls that they must conform to a certain mold in order to be accepted. They don’t see the focus on feminine colours, dolls who are stick thin, and toys which promote women’s place in the world to be solely domestic as healthy.
The PinkStinks campaign raises some very interesting questions. Its focus is on the products designed for girls that tend to be very pink, feminine and promoting unhealthy body images. Boys are also subjected to very gendered toy options: pink and feminine are not welcome characteristics. This focus on what appropriate roles, behaviours, interests and characteristics are for each gender is troubling. When these roles aren’t obeyed – when a girl doesn’t strive for thinness and a boy wants to play dress-up – a lot of discrimination and bullying occurs. There’s nothing wrong with pink, blue, dolls or toy trucks, but there is something wrong with telling someone that they can only like certain things because they’re a guy or a girl.
So, when you’re tearing around town on Christmas Eve or looking for belated Hanukah gifts for your siblings and friends, give some thought to what messages you want to be sending them. Caring and acceptance, or a reminder of what gender they are?