Okay, this is seriously WTF.
Just to reiterate what a Kinder Surprise is for my American reader who can't get them in her country because they are illegal (there's a meme around the internet that has a Kinder Surprise on one half of the picture and a gun on the other side, and says "One of these is illegal in the USA."), they're the chocolate eggs with the toy inside.
So I decided to watched "Chopped" today on the Food Network, and a commercial for these Kinder Surprise for girls comes on.
And I don't even know where to begin with this.
Kinder Surprise has unisex toys. Some are cars, some are airplanes, some are people, whatever. They're in various colours, DON'T SAY FOR BOYS ONLY NO GIRLS ALLOWED anywhere on them.
So WHY THE ACTUAL FUCK do they need to SUDDENLY make a new, separate set for girls? And judging by the commercial, they're all fucking pink, or flowers, or fairies, or some other goddamn stereotypical bullshit that they couldn't put in REGULAR Kinder Surprises in case a boy got one and was upset.
Did I miss the part where things like this aren't for kids in general, but are specific to each gender? Like how LEGO decided they should totally make some LEGO sets for girls, but instead of making an actual LEGO set they had stupid things with barely any bricks so no building (you know, the entire point of LEGO), all in shades of pink, with a LEGO woman who had boobs and included stupid shit like a vanity so she could do her make-up.
Why do they have to add gender-specific bullshit to something that's gone on for years and years doing perfectly fine for both boys and girls? Why does there seem to be a sudden influx of not just things specific to boys and girls (we had those growing up), but boys things being turned into girls things in the most godawfully stupid way imaginable? Or in this case, a gender-neutral thing being separated out for girls in the most godawfully stupid way imaginable?
I know it seems a small thing, but it's that and the LEGO fiasco (seriously, those sets were bullshit), and a bunch of other stuff that is just regressing back to teaching girls they shouldn't be anything other than pretty.
Which is bullshit, and also a really terrible message to send to little girls, because the reality is that most of us will be average (hence it being called average...) and attempting to attain beauty is silly when we could be attempting to be a doctor, or a researcher who cures cancer, or a famous dancer, or a singer, or a wonderful mother, or whatever. You know, things we can do, not things we can look like.
Oh wow. We have Kinder Surprise over here, but we've not had the "girl" version yet, thank god. I remember the Lego deal though. All kids, girls and boys, have played with Lego as long as I can remember.. and now suddenly there's a girl set that's just crap from what I can see. Cause, I guess we couldn't expect little girls to be able to build something?
ReplyDeleteLego did another annoying thing as well. They released lots of Lords of the Rings Lego sets. You know how many females were in the cast of the Lego sets? Zero. Nada. Zilch.
Lego's explanation? They picked the characters that had the biggest roles/were the favourites. I don't know.. but I thought people were quite fond of Arwen and Galadriel. And speaking about big roles.. how about the woman who actually KILLED SAURON???
But I digress... I'm so sick of toys being for girls only or boys only. I don't see why girls can't play with cars and boys can't play with dolls. Boys grow up to be dads, right? And girls grow up to drive a car. So, what's the big deal?
I feel like some things are actually worse now than when I was a kid. Despite there being so much talk about feminism no longer being needed and all that.. But it feels like we're going backwards regarding some things.
When I was a kid I remember everyone wearing pretty much every colour. Now I go into a store, and the children's clothing are separated across each half of the room: pink and frilly on one side and blue and black on the other.
Another thing, they discovered over here in Sweden at least, that the same size of boy clothing was actually bigger than the same size girl clothing. Wait.. what? I mean come on.. A 110 cl shirt, should be the same size no matter if it's for a girl or boy, right? (Especially since over here the children's sizing is by length.. so 110cl is for kids that are 110 cm tall).
But I should stop typing now, cause genderisation is a big topic over here and I get frustrated by people who don't see the connections. And the clothes.. and the toys.. and .... *head explodes*
They didn't even have an Eowyn? She killed the bloody head Nazgul, I think that's an important character. WTF!
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