Christmas displays the gendering in our society
Casey O'Lear
Everything you need to know about human society can probably be revealed by a stroll through a department store during the holiday season.
As every consumer’s favorite shopping season swiftly approaches, we prepare ourselves for a bombardment of advertisers telling us how to buy the perfect gift for our loved ones so they know that we love them.
These potential gift items targeting specific types of family members actually say a lot about the expectations society has for us.
For example, let’s say that you want to buy a gift for your 8-year-old niece. The toy section of any department store is clearly divided into male and female sections — the neon pink glow emanating from all of those Barbie and Bratz doll packages collected in one place can probably be seen from space.
A quick perusal of the aisles produces some disturbing results. According to toy manufacturers, activities that young girls enjoy center mainly on fashion, beauty, child-rearing and performing household chores.
In order to prepare young girls for lifetimes full of insecurities and unrealistic beauty standards, companies produce countless makeup, hair and nail kits for children. Why should young girls spend time playing outside when they could practice using blush to conceal their flaws and gloss to flaunt their luscious lips? The idea that females are only as valuable as they are beautiful is enforced in society from a disturbingly early age.
In order to prepare young girls for the exciting world of breeding, a multitude of realistic baby dolls are available.
What could possibly be more fun than pretending to change a baby’s pretend-soiled diaper? Nothing but the real thing, which girls have to look forward to once they’re used to having an animatronic baby cry, burp and chew on their hair relentlessly.
Society tends to encourage girls to emulate their mothers and nurture their “motherly” instincts. This subconscious push for children to prepare for procreation is nothing short of creepy.
In order to prepare young girls for the responsibilities of caring for the home while their future husbands are bringing home the bacon, mini kitchen mock-ups are created to help them along.
Cool gadgets such as the Easy-Bake Oven show girls that cooking is really super fun, so they have a lot to look forward to in adulthood!
Other products include tiny kitchens with tiny vegetables to pretend-chop and tiny messes to pretend-clean, as well as tiny vacuums, tiny irons, tiny dishwashers and tiny careers to explore in various fields so that girls know they don’t need to depend on a man for their livelihoods. Oh, wait. They don’t sell the last part.
Products marketed toward boys are often equally disturbing. Where aisles of girls’ toys evoke sparkling pink domestic bliss, the aisles containing boys’ toys present a far less peaceful message. Rows upon rows of weapons are presented as toys — tiny AK-47s with which to shoot all of your enemies and tiny nunchucks with which to whack your friends over the head. Some of these toy weapons shoot some form of bullets, making them dangerous in addition to disturbing. Didn’t anyone tell you that you’d shoot your eye out?
Toys like these seem to be conditioning boys to be violent, even preparing boys for warfare.
Unfortunately, children have always been brought up in such a manner. Before they are able to think critically for themselves, society’s expectations for children are thrust upon them. It begs the question: To what extent does this intense conditioning at an early age affect a person’s course in life?
Are women who were once presented with tiny sets of household appliances better cooks or better wives? Are men who spent their youth playing with Nerf guns better equipped to join the military?
Regardless of the effect, these societal pressures are something that every young person has to fight against in order to fully become themselves in adulthood. This makes a significant statement about the relentless gendering of society.
Casey O’Lear studies English, journalism and political science. She can be reached at colear@nevadasagebrush.com.
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One Response to “Christmas displays the gendering in our society”
I would like to remind you that Gender is not a social construct as you would like to claim. If you take Psychology 101 you may learn that there are major differences in the behaviour of boys and girls even in the first few years of childhood. What you are seeing as “Gendering” is in fact the catering to the natural tendencies of the Males and Females of our species. Gender is not something that you can simply “create”. Our Gender Identity may be “fluid”, but the fact that you are a Man or a Woman will never change, no matter how hard you try. I would say more but knowing the quality of this “newspaper” I doubt that any real truth, reporting, or intelligence will prevail.
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