We have gone over and over this in our household and are at our wits' end. I wish I knew what to advise but can only offer commiseration.

Yeah. Given that I'm 'a man with breasts', apparently, I may be worrying about nothing. Perhaps she'll be happier knowing her place.

But I'm in a filthy mood anyway, for a whole variety of reasons.

You know what's really repugnant to me? If you go to Lego.com and click on the "Categories" tab, one of the categories is "Girls." No boys of course, because boys are normal, and playing with Legos that have to do with Knights or Vikings or Town or Dino-Attacks is normal for boys, but not for girls. This is so fucked up. It is just what I predicted when they started making Lego guns and Lego mini-figure heads with facial hair and eyepatches for the Pirates line in the early 1990s. Shameful!

Perhaps she'll be happier knowing her place.

Oh, LB. She'll figure it all out, eventually. The question is, how much does she really enjoy playing with the pink sparkly stuff? I remember that I never really care much for, say, Barbies, but I would play with them over at my friends' houses, 'cause that's what they had, and I had fun, but I wasn't like god I have to have some of these for myself. At home, I was more about, I think, reading and playing piano (frankly, I can't really remember). My totally unscientific opinion is that what's going to be more important than the toys she plays with are the types of friends she makes in late junior high/early high school.

But having a mom who's awesome and strong and doesn't have a limited femininity-only range of experience is the best possible place she can start from.

Was stuff not as much like this in the 80s? I swear, I didn't have that many gendered toys, and I don't think my parents were trying for it (or maybe they were and I'm not giving them enough credit). I can't remember any girly legos.

Syv's friend K turned 7 today! We were at her birthday party (which Syv had told me the other day was girls only) making chit-chat with her mom M., and I recounted that statement to M. and said, "But I guess she was wrong, I saw a boy going in." (We were upstairs while M.'s boyfriend supervised the kids downstairs.) No, that boy was Katherine, who just looks very boyish -- M. said she wondered what Katherine's gender would be since she dresses in blue jeans and t-shirts and cuts her hair very short.

Syv totally picks up on the girl/boy toy distinction and came out strongly against girl toys about a year and a half ago -- she wants no part of the princessy stuff which suits me fine. A funny side note -- I asked if she would like to read "Alice in Wonderland" for bedtime stories and without even considering it, she said no. Later I asked about "Through the Looking Glass" and she was totally into it, and now wants to hear its prequel when we finish. I guess the title was too effeminate.

Kids want to fit in so there is a strong internally driven desire for kids to do what others of their gender are doing. This objects of this are pretty arbitrary unless the toys are strongly coded pink or something.

One good thing is that the fads are fickle. This disney princess crap won't last for long. If kindergardeners like disney princess stuff, second graders won't play with it because it will be kindergarden stuff.

Luckily, girls have to pretend to be stupid or anything. Generally, girls who do well in school are the most popular.

Generally, girls who do well in school are the most popular.

I wish this were true, joeo, but in most schools, it's just not. It wasn't in the 80s, or the 90s, nor is it today.

(Syv's friends seem to be mostly either boys or girls, like K., who prefer to play with "boy" stuff. That's of course not universally true, and I think when Syv is with her friends who like girl toys, they play with girl toys or boy toys depending on whose house they are at.)

9: This was true at my high school, to a limited extent. Popular girls (and to a much lesser extent, guys) tended to get better grades. I think it's because the popular ones were all of the rich ones or upper-middle-class ones, and their parents pushed them more.

I think there's a distinction between good grades and acts smart. Top quarter of the class goes with being popular -- has academically interesting things to say for herself in class less so.

Yeah, but happening to have decent or good grades while being popular is not the same as the good grades/smartness causing the popularity. It doesn't. And I'm not just saying this out of bitterness--I was actually popular in HS--but most of my law school and college girlfriends were not, and they are all, of course, lovely and brilliant.

Also: is the fact that their naming their line "Disney Fairies" mean that this is part of the broader corporate-Hollywood push for universal homosexuality and depravity?

8 - The Disney Princess crap has legs. It's been around at least since the mid-90s, probably longer. And really, girls pretending to be princesses probably has five hundred years of oomph behind it.

No, it really doesn't have five hundred years of oomph behind it, not at this level of emphasis. It has a hell of a lot of marketing behind it.

This is pretty much the situation I'm in with my daughter as well. #15 is right about the Disney Princess stuff: it's astonishingly well marketed. The security guard at our daycare is probably not on retainer from Disney but he moonlights as a gender cop anyway and hands out princess stickers etc to the girls, from whence they learn to recognize them everywhere else.

I'm afraid I'm not so complacent about the "let them play with that stuff, as long as you let them know that's not all that's out there" approach. There's a lot of research that shows peers are more important than parents in a lot of ways, and which toys kids play with help determine who their peers are. Plus the anecdotal distinction between me and my sister: I was forbidden barbies, etc; my sister was allowed to play with some of that crap, but knew mom thought it was dumb. My sister is *way* less confident in a lot of ways, has way more body issues than me, etc. Dunno if it's the toys, the peers the toys gave her, the double message of "you can have this stuff if you like it but it's stupid," or what. My not being girly did mean I didn't have a lot of friends, but I always had one or two, plus books. It was okay. I guess what I'm saying is if you hate that stuff, I don't think it's bad to say "nope, not getting it for you."

With PK, we make a point of messing with the gender divide--his Papa absolutely *loves* Tinkerbell, and so when we went to Disneyland we bought Papa Tinkerbell things--and we also talk, very clearly, about how the "boy things" and "girl things" divide is "stupid," and how it's bad for both girls (who get told that they're supposed to be pretty and, in PK's words, "lazy"--i.e., not run around) and boys (who get told that they're supposed to be "cool" and fighty and not cry or like cute things). And we try really hard to shop at the independent toy stores that don't do the boy/girl aisle. And we kind of nudge him towards "male" roles that are a little counter-cultural--the skater/surfer thing, for instance, or pointing out older boys or men with long hair, or talking about camp culture.

FWIW, from this side of the toy aisle, the boy stuff is limiting, too--not as much about prettyprettypretty all the time, but most of your craft things are packaged for "girls," most of your pet stuff is for girls (kittens, mice, bunnies--boys get dogs, but not cute dogs--only rough and tumble dogs), most of the brighter oclors are for girls, and the boy stuff *really* overemphasizes fighting. PK *does* gravitate a little more towards the male protagonists nowadays. But thank god he still doesn't object to stories with girl protagonists, which I try to seek out.

That's the thing -- the gender police types feel free to be pushy about it, while the rest of us are hanging back leaving the kids' options open and letting them make choices for themselves. And there are a whole lot of people being the gender police.

I think it must be said that, yes, it's annoying that toys are sold that way, and that someone may give Sally pink slut-crap for Christmas. On the other hand, Sally seems like a pretty well-put-together little person, and she knows what's fun and what's not. In some ways, it may be good for her to learn how to negotiate the sexist toys of her peers. I never did, and would cry if someone gave me a "girl toy." But then, my dad raised me to be a misogynist from a very early age, and that's partly to blame for the ten or so years during which I had exactly zero friends. By fifth grade, the other girls were calling me "that fat four-eyed lesbian." If I had learned how to pretend to care about Barbies or Cabbage Patch dolls, I might have at least grown up knowing how to talk to girls who were more "feminine." I have a tendency to treat them like aliens.

What happens on TV and on internet shopping sites will matter not a lick to Sally as long as she has you for a role model, LB. I mean, sure, when your mom gives Newt a GameBoy, you could say, "S and N are sure going to fight over that! Thanks for thinking of them!"

Totally pwned by Bitch. And she's right about boy stuff. When Max and I tried to get PJ's for his younger (very sweet, gender-bending) son, all there was at Old Navy for boys was footballs and camouflage. Of course, all there was for girls was hearts and ballerinas. Slightly higher-end places like The Gap sell PJs with polar bears (!) and penguins on them.

Oh, I gave her a hard time about it afterwards, and she's intellectually on the same page I am, so she agreed.

Maybe if Newt gets boy toys for Xmas and Sally gets girl toys, you can make a rule that all toys for either of them are for *both* of them, to share?

Also, good girl stuff: the "Pirateology" book is about the search for a woman pirate. There's a book called "Aunt Agatha tells a Good One" in which the protagonist (girl mouse) becomes the protagonist of a frame story where she saves the kidnapped prince. Miyasaki, of course. Horses.

And don't overlook encouraging Newt to enjoy cute, pink, girly shit once in a while--which is a good way to counterbalance the "girls are *bad*" message you're afraid of sending by banning princesses. Just make a point of distinguishing between "stupid" toys ("you can't really *do* anything with Barbie") and toys that are fun for *everyone*: crafts, nail polish, pirates.

18 -- wrt the consciousness-raising stuff: The lady and I have both tried to talk about this stuff with Syv but we always get a pretty dismissive response, like "I know that already," and it's really hard to tell what she thinks about it beyond that she doesn't want to be identified with the cutesy girl merchandise.

My mom never let me have Barbies or My Little Ponies, b/c she thought they were too girly. But she also thought GI Joe and He-Man (what I really wanted) was too violent. I think she finally caved in and got me a She-Ra doll, b/c at least She-Ra was a strong woman and the the doll's outfit wasn't as skimpy as the cartoon character. I did get plenty of girly stuffed toys, but also "boyish" ones, and lots of robots. My dolls were all robust works of art, which made them weird and hard to share but also durable and still appreciated. When I was very small I had a lot o Fischer-Price people, which I think are pretty unisex as well. I think it's easier to buy a mix for girls. How do you get a good mix for boys? It would be good to have a line that have both dress up and accesssory/social qualities as well as action-ficgure qualities would probably be a great invention.

So I have one Disney toy that an ex-boyfriend gave me that I absolutely adore. It's a plush Nemo, and he's the. cutest. plush. toy. ever. Slightly gimpy fin, big eyes, adorable smile. And I've seen plenty of litttle boys play with (other copies) of him. It strikes me that are a few movies, and a few character sets, that are more neutral that way--Nemo, Winnie-thePooh, the Great Mouse Detective, Mary Poppins. Maybe if we start there we can work our way out, we'll come up with a good toy list.

Plus, re. the gender police, it's a good way to teach kids manners. "People used to think that girls should do x and boys should do y, and even though that's silly and people mostly don't think that any more, sometimes they say stuff like that without really thinking b/c they're just used to it. Don't yell at them. You can say thank you, or, if it bothers you, you can say *politely* that you think it's a little bit sexist to put all the girls on one team and all the boys on the other." Etc.

"you can't really *do* anything with Barbie"

Well as long as you are not taking into consideration the life-size, anatomically correct model.

There actually is a lot of dress up stuff for boys nowadays, again in the more independent upper-middle-class toy stores. And there's nothing that says a boy can't have a dress-up pirate outfit *and* a pair of fairy wings.

My brother and sister-in-law are pretty determined not to let their two daughters go the femmy way, but the grandmother screws everything up. Within the family the various junk toys (not just the femmy ones, all the heavily-marketed toys) are technically designated as "crap". The girls are untroubled by this, but it bothers their little friends (some of whom are using makeup and worried about their weight at age 10).

One of the two is big into dressing up, unencouraged by either parent and pretty much independent of TV styles (the house is full of vintage garage-sale stuff). She's really a natural. She's also the aggressive one, and bullies her larger, older sister.

I have to admit that I'm more into having girls be more like boys than having boys be more like girls. Some of the androgenous gender-bending lifestyles I see seem to just be meta versions of the stupid primary obsession with gender and sex-roles that most people are stuck with. (As you might expect, I am favorable toward sexlessness.)

27: Dude, Barbie *can't stand up*.

30 -- that's sorta the point, right?

I don't have kids and don't know what the hell I'm talking about. But play is more important than toys, right? I recall getting very bored very quickly with the prescribed characters of any toys (mostly action figures). Maybe I was a freakazoid, but all I ever did was meticulously plan my battle station and defensive strategies, and I almost never actually played out any battles with my brothers for fear of risking the structural integrity of my headquarters. I may be mistaking some inherent quality of boy play for my own ingenuity, and I know that the pressure of fitting places a limit on imaginative expression, but Sally's imagination probably can't be limited by the toys alone.

You should buy your kids toys by Takashi Murakami. Teach them about contemporary art and the pernicious influence of exagerrated gender roles!

So much of the advice above is good, I will avoid the tediousness of repeating it. I will say that 26 and the last paragraph of 5 seem particularly true.

Just let her read this post, then she'll totally understand where you're coming from.

How is it that no one's mentioned the most perfect toys in the world--refrigerator boxes? Also, I used to have these cardboard bricks (made as toys) that were about twice the dimensions of normal bricks. You could make a lot from stacking those. And couch cushions and blankets and tables.

Legos were the greatest toys ever created. The less detailed, the better--ornament is crime. What they've done with Legos violates the spirit of Legos. Today, they're just--fucking--Star Wars toys!

Someone gave us the Disney Princess storybook, which has brief, poorly written synopses of the movie plots, in which characters come and go without explanation and which, in someone's infinite wisdom, was written in cheerleader/Playmate idiom. Ariel knew the Prince liked her for her "fun-loving personality," y'see.

I heard a British engineer blame the decline of British engineering on Legos having displaced Meccano (kind of like Erector sets).

38: That wouldn't be an issue if we just made buildings out of Legos. Problem solved.

There are lots of cool genderless Japanese toys, definitely. Probably the most prized thing in my ex's household was a little toy grocery store display with tiny racks, shelves, little plastic bags, and stickers with prices (in Japanese) on them. It was $2.50 at Kid Robot. (I guess they're also expecting you to buy the tiny food that goes with it for a lot more, but Max's boys wanted to make their own tiny food to put in it.)

Of course, it wasn't long after that purchase that they became obsessed with the spaghetti westerns their mom's boyfriend shows them and they begged their dad to make them rifles and tommyguns out of wood. It was really weird to see them going from drawing, creating, imagining little stores and cool scenarios to spending all day pretending to shoot each other and blow one another up.

my condolences, lb.
feels to me and my wife as though our kids are acting out some sort of cultural backlash.
neither of us was very gender-appropriate as kids--she v. tomboy and athletic, i very into nerdy stuff, not sports, read lots of books (e.g. shulamith firestone).

somehow despite our best intentions, we have a girl very into dolls (not disney, but some american girl, and others home-made), and a boy very into star-wars, redwall, wwii history, anything that goes boom.

it's a bizarre situation. i have no advice. can only commiserate.

One thing I've taken from childraising is that the neighborhood raises the child. This is a partial answer to the claim that "parents have little input". I think that the biggest thing that parents can do to raise their kids right, for any definition of "right", is to raise them in the right neighborhood. If parents fight the neighborhood, they usually lose. (This is an orthodoxy of Chinese philosophy, BTW, via Mencius).

Conservative Christians scorn Hillary's "It takes a village", but they are still attentive to the neighborhood they live in and their kids' choice of friends. They really agree with her, but they need to shit on her for other reasons, so they go right ahead. (They're too moronic and nasty to think to compare Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton to the kids of Reagan and the two Bushes. The Presidential childraising comparisons are pretty conclusive on that particular data point.)

"moronic and nasty" s/b "gentle and loving"

My niece is totally into the pink thing, despite discouragement from her mother. I suspect her father of giving perhaps unconscious signals of approval for those girly choices. However, she is quite strongwilled, and holds her own pretty well against her older brother in the inevitable sibling rivalries.

But what's an aunt to do at xmas? The nephew is easy. He gets the remote-controlled giant spider. I know I could get J the ballerina outfit and be teh hero, but I just don't want to. I got her a kit of parts you put together to make amusing and brightly colored little creatures, which you can then clip to your backpack. I'm afraid it's going to be a disappointment. And then I broke down and got her a pink sparkly ring. And some pink candy labelled "fairy food".

I should have said "The recent data points on this question are pretty striking." Data points are by definition not conclusive.

Ballerinas are sterotyped, but they're actually trained athletes. My femmy niece may be getting into dance, and to me that's great even though it's sterotypical.

Emerson is courting the wrath of JM.

Ballet isn't a career and I always worry about the inevitable heartbreak associated with seriously pursuing it (same way as girls'/womens' gymnastics), but it's a serious pursuit and totally noble on its own terms. (and the body it gives you is 115% hot).

There actually is a lot of dress up stuff for boys nowadays, again in the more independent upper-middle-class toy stores. And there's nothing that says a boy can't have a dress-up pirate outfit *and* a pair of fairy wings.

Now I'm working on a fairy pirate costume, with pink glittery dreadlocks, a little pink leather eyepatch, wings, a teeny fairie dragon on my shoulder, bottle of Lethe rum on my hip....

JM wouldn't be the man she is without dance.

Gymnastics is another difficult sport which seems femmy but really isn't. Figure skating is still another (though I think that the judging does have a bias toward fairy-princess types.)

38: He's right. For one thing, with an Erector set one learns that triangles are good and rectangles are bad. That knowledge comes in handy. Another thing one might learn is that some parents can get really upset when they find a stray nut or bolt and then can't figure out where it came from, and so expect the whole house to collapse in the middle of the night.

One of my friends' daughters was in NYC and moving up in the ballet world when she blew out her knee the second time. It's a pretty risky biz.

Apropos of nothing, I can report that the kids of the leftists I knew from the Sixties tended heavily to go into the arts but not into political action much.

46: Right, but at her age it's just another super-femmy dress-up opportunity, all about being graceful and fairylike and light as thistledown. I loved that shit myself when I was six. Actual dancing, not so much. I want to give her something she'd like, but every time I see her I'm just overwhelmed by how pink and princessy her taste is.

Dance classes are a much better way for a little girl to spend her time than sitting around dressing Barbie. But they can reinforce the anxious narcissism that so much girly socialization encourages.

Ugh, it's so fucking hard. I'm kind of fortunate I guess, because my kids don't go to school so they're not quite 'normal' anyway, but it's always on my mind. So far though, they (10, 8 and 4 year old girls, 6 year old boy) seem quite balanced. The 10 year old was moaning to me today that the author of her favourite series of books (CHERUB - about kids who are secret agents - by Robert Muchamore) is on tv on Boxing Day on a show called "Adventures for Boys"! I'm glad that she can see how fucking shitty that is, but it annoys the hell out of me that such bollocks still continues.

And yes, it's far worse than 20 or 30 years ago, and even worse than (less than) 10 years ago, when she was young. E.g. a toy telephone from the Early Learning Centre now comes in blue or pink. 9 years ago when we bought one there was not a choice of colours. Clothes too.

The 10 year old may be going to school in January - she's school-curious! - and I'm kind of morbidly intrigued to see if/how it affects her.

Asilon -- are you home-schooling your children? I thought (a) that you lived in England and (b) that home-schooling was a U.S. phenomenon. Clearly I was mistaken on at least one of these points.

The answer is sandbox. Get your children sandboxes, people.

We played with Madame Alexander dolls. I actually had this doll. They were girly, yes, but they had little pot-bellies and baby-befatted arms and legs, unlike Barbie's completely ridiculous proportions. They were expensive, very expensive for children's toys, but we cherished those dolls like nothing else we owned. Almost all of them have survived. Compared to these dolls, Barbies were just crappy. One or two Barbies may have shown up at our house, but, as I recall, they met hideous fates at the teeth of our dog.

About ballet, I should probably keep my mouth shut. Just this one observation, though: by the time I was 12, most of my friends from ballet had had a bout or two of tendonitis.

JM -- see, you should be bragging about how tough and macho you and your friends were.

Empirical report: this evening, mum was talking about the *toy kitchen that burned meths* she got as a little girl. Mind you, this came minutes after she had the canonical second wave/third wave argument with my sister, so it can't have been all that effective.

Then, I had Lego and Meccano, and a ZX Spectrum, and I still didn't become an engineer, so perhaps we're all barking up the wrong tree.

I brag about my ability to smile gracefully while knowing that inside my point shoes was a pool of blood, yes. The more permanent damage makes me sad.

54 - Clownae, yes, it's spread over to this side of the Atlantic too. Less fundie-driven though. We've enjoyed it so far.

Blowing one's knee(s) out is no big deal these days. ACL surgery is 110% rehab-able. (The extra 10% coming from the gains in strength from having a good physical therapist do the rehab...) More worrisome is long-term cartilage loss, but that's gonna happen to you pretty much regardless, and might as well get the most out of your knees while you're young.

Perhaps ballet should just be switched from the harmful femmy category to the harmful macho category.

I've *always* said that we should abolish the femmy.

Also, you know, while I'm here: it logically follows from 61 that any athlete with the money should be attempting to blow out his or her own ACL, for the sole purpose (at least) of the 10% gain in performance. What?

I've *always* said that we should abolish the femmy.

Here we go again...

Again on our own?

gallllll?

I hled down the key too long. Becks sytle. Family tyime in arthelgall household

Because I had no sisters, no daughters, and no extended family that lived within 500 miles, little girls are a complete and total mystery to me. My mother and my wife (one of five sisters) want a girl so badly they can't stand it.

Given that the universe has a sick sense of humor, is it more likely that they get disappointed or I get to spend my forties taking a crash course in girlology?

Girllogolyg.

That's the Welsh spelling.

No, it's North Carolina, driving me to drink.

69: Maybe too personal a question, but do you know the upcoming baby's sex yet?

Or wait, was that the point of 69?

From what I know from dating the former ballet prodigy, at the top levels it's nothing but amazing athletes, but also a completely fucked up psychological environment.

I don't know yet. Ultrasound is scheduled for the end of January.

Are you from North Carolina?

77 -- of course, man. I even thinkk (courtesy of becks, who reveals all secrets) that we're both staying at the same hotel for the unfoggedcccon. On the 308th.

gddmtn.

Blowing one's knee(s) out is no big deal these days.

Uh, you ever had a significant injury to a major joint? The rehab is not necessarily 100 percent, and the injury itself isn't pleasant. Mine wasn't an ACL, but a dislocation. Wee bit painful.

78: Is there a hall reserved at a specific hotel? This reminds me of high-school band trips.

Reserved? No. I think I got some kind of semi-inside tip, and decided to avail myself of it.

I am unduly impressed with mself, that I managed to spell "avail" corectly, at the moment.

Also: there will be tape on the doors.

of course, man.

Wow. I knew McManlyPants and Rah of course, and I think sam k and cw, too. Damn but there are a lot of us up in here.

And, obviously, NCProsecutor.

Down in here. man.

On the girl toy front, god I hate that whole market. My daughters aren't allowed to have Barbies or Bratz at all. They're going to get blitzed with enough of that shit from other sources, and there's some things I just won't facilitate. I also have no patience for gender lines on what the stuff we do together. My daughters are getting fly fishing rigs for Christmas, and they're excited because I told them that in the spring we'd shop around for a .22 rifle for them to learn to shoot with.

The after party will be at the hotel.

Pre-party. Party. After party. All these parties, and yet it all just boils down to me drinkiing gin in my hotel room. Swe333t.

86: What does Mom like to do?

What does Mom like to do?

Similar tastes to mine in many ways. My wife shoots as well, and likes camping, hiking, and that kind of thing. She's always been a bit of a tomboy. Played varsity basketball in high school, on the track team, etc. Similar taste in movies too. "Chick flicks" not even on her radar. Loved Batman Begins, The Departed, and is bugging me because we haven't made it to Blood Diamond yet.

69:Because I had 4 sisters, no father or brothers, little girls and big girls are a complete mystery to me. But then so are little boys and big boys, and all combinations, so life is easy & good.

What little interactions I have with rugrats usually involves dog encounters. After asking about biting and friendliness most seem trained well, the girls more often demonstrate courage to the peer group by approaching & petting. "Careful, gentle, slow, confidant, and don't be afraid," seems to inspire the females, while the guys are still trying to process. And they are so proud when the dogs don't shy.

So my only suggestion to this thread might be really really big dogs as a girly fashion accessory.

So, you've mentioned these dogs repeatedly. Breed? Mutts? Do you have pictures?

69: I get to spend my forties taking a crash course in girlology?

We had one of each, without much prior experience with siblings. It's no big deal, you just raise them the same way you would a puppy. They turned out to be very different, the boy tends toward the reflective and analytical, the girl is inclined to things like sky-diving and bungee-jumping. The best thing I can say about either of them is I'd like them even if we weren't related. My ashes get divided between them to keep in the car trunk for when the roads get icy. IMX the scariest words you'll hear are "Dad, can I have the car keys?".

I think I've mentioned this on Unfogged before but my parents wouldn't let me have any girl toys growing up. Not only that, they went out of their way to buy me "boy toys" instead of just getting me gender-neutral stuff like blocks. I had a huuuge collection of Tonka trucks. I was fine with not having Barbies but all I wanted in the world was a Cabbage Patch doll. They finally relented (justifying it by saying that even boys were getting Cabbage Patches) and I finally got a Cornsilk Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas when I was in (I think?) second grade. I named her Jessica Elizabeth, after the Sweet Valley High twins (books I was also not allowed to read because they were girly).

Did it work? Well, I've got a good professional "man's" job but I also never figured out any of the useful girly stuff like how to dress myself or put on makeup, so not entirely.

I remember a toys being mildly gendered when I was a kid, with a lot of neutral stuff. Nowadays everything is either/or and over the top.

I wanted to buy the nephew a plastic dinosaur the other day. I couldn't find just a plain semi-realistic dinosaur. They were all armored and Xtreem and with saddles and these warrior dudes sitting on them in some future combat scenario where robots rode dinosaurs into battle or something. I dunno what the hell was going on. Then I walk pass the girly isle and . . . gah! The pink. Needed some sunglasses. That would get cloying.

There's some stuff they haven't figured out how to gender yet: play doh, paint, crayons, that sort of stuff which is what I tend to get the nephews.

My sister and I used to tie up our fashion dolls and dream up interesting ways to "kill" them. [We created the precursor to Wednesday Addams' headless "Marie Antoinette".] That reflected a general discontent with our toy options.

I was surprised to see the local Toys R Us going back to "Boy's Toys" and "Girl's Toys" aisles after years of product-specific marketing. Is this some bizarre reflection of the Xtianist gender divisiveness, perhaps? Or just a reflection of Latino culture, as that is the customer base for that store?

Speaking of Latino gender stuff, my mom was remarking a few days ago on how parents give their little boys very short haircuts (buzzcuts, crew cuts, that sort of thing); she doesn't like it and was wondering why they do it. I only partially facetiously said it was to be absolutely sure no one would mistake their little boys for little girls, because that would be terrible, and she was shocked, like she couldn't believe that could be someone's motivation. "Do you really think that's why?" she asked. I said I was mostly kidding, but that I thought something like that may well play a role.

92:Susan B Anthony There are lots of other Carolina Dog sites around the web, but I love the name

Good Pictures I would have difficulty at ten yards telling my male and female from these.

Interesting Characteristics of Carolina Dogs

Another site.

Ok. Never bought a dog in my life, and don't have papers. Certainly did not pay $1000 apiece. Pound dogs, found as a pair. But they meet the standards, physically and in personality, perfectly and match each other and there is no doubt they are Carolina dogs.

Sometimes you get lucky and life is good.

I just saw what happens to the girls who play with all of the fairy princess toys -- my mother just showed me the pictures from my cousin's debutante ball that occurred last week. They were insane.

101!

i was in a toy store today. My impression was that it divides as: dolls: warriors for boys, princesses for girls. Bikes: blue & pink. Balls and other sports paraphernalia, not sure if this genders but probably footballs for boys, and soccerballs or maybe jumpropes for girls. Girls don't have any equivalent to all the plastic swords and guns though. REally, that seems better, although swords are pretty fun. the main thing i noticed was how fucking tacky & cheap ever5ything was.

People still have debutante balls? I thought those went out with poodle skirts.

Girls don't have any equivalent to all the plastic swords and guns though.

Makeup and jewelry.

If you're finding tacky and cheap pink and black aisles, you're in the wrong toy store, people. Avoid the chains and patronize the independents; it's a win-win.

And if you're stuck, get the kids games.

I think people are mostly bemoaning the state of our society rather than their own personal gift-giving conundra. But I could be wrong.

Well, indeed. But I reserve the right to be slightly off-topic.

Anyway, I do think it's backlash, along with really gross heavy marketing decisions. I was thinking about it today, and how fucked up it is to essentially be selling toys that teach boys contempt for girls, and girls to be contemptible. I mean, as a society we generally *are* contemptuous of people who are narcissistically interested in their appearance above all else, and basically that's what most girls toys are about. It's frustrating that even fairly cool Disney heroines like Belle end up all "princessed" out. And the Bratz dolls, jesus fucking christ.

How do you feel about kindergarten buzzcuts?

PK's hair is down to his ass.

I don't care all that much about kids' hair, although personally I think buzzcutting a little boy's hair is a shame--after all, you've surely been all charmed by it growing, there's that whole "keeping the first haircut" thing, etc. And I think kids look adorable with the moppy Christopher Robin cuts. Then again, I don't generally like super short hair on adult men, either. Although at least if it's curly it looks okay, whereas the straight super-short look is just awful.

It's frustrating that even fairly cool Disney heroines like Belle end up all "princessed" out.

"I love to read... Cosmo!"

109: That's pretty much how my mom feels, actually.

whereas the straight super-short look is just awful.

But when guys start getting bald, super short is the option that tends to de-emphasize the baldness.

True.

Teofilo, please refrain from momming B.

79: I had a dislocation/torn meniscus w/ partial ACL tear that I got scoped, and a partially torn ACL on the other one that got scoped but not reconstructed. I agree that the injury itself is no fun (really no fun), and rehab isn't a picnic, but if you're young and have good PT it should be 100%. By 'no big deal' I think that 100% return is expected of the young in dislocation and ACL cases-- I would contrast to injuries that are a total crapshoot, namely nerve/disc-related ones. (I've also seen two full-blown ACLs on the same low-level team I play on recover fully+.)

I believe I endured more integrated suffering from the knee injuries than my blown disk, but would gladly trade another blow/reconstruction if you could make the at-any-given-moment-less-of-a-big-deal but-never-ending herniation go away. The common knee injuries are approaching the league of badly broken bones in their acuteness, is all I'm saying.

Now, nanobot cartilage, that shit needs to arrive, and SOON.

64: It's well known in baseball that if done young, the so-called "Tommy John" surgery can result in a stronger arm, and rarely a weaker one. While it hasn't reached the point where kids are faking injuries to get it, I don't think any young stud pitchers are emotionally destroyed when they're told they need it.

And, really, if your injury risk is super low, you're probably not at the bleeding edge of performance. Tradeoff, yo.

Girls don't have any equivalent to all the plastic swords and guns though.

Makeup and jewelry.

More like irons and vacuum cleaners. Gag.

"kindergarten buzzcuts..."

Nothing is cuter than when you see a little kid who tried to cut their own bangs a day or two ago.

Happy Holidays Eve, everyone! Frank Rich has an excellent op-ed piece in the NY Times today, which is unfortunately behind the pay wall; but if you have access to the physical edition or to Times Select, well, I recommend it heartily.

I never gave my girls Barbie crap, but didn't comment on it either. Their aunt was a Barbie maniac so they actually received quite a few. But they were indifferent to them, and seldom played with them. Their friend's father wouldn't let Barbie into the house, and so that's all she wanted to play with when she was with us. When my girls were 10 or so, they decided the Barbies needed butch hair cuts. Later the heads came off for some project or other. I say, just give girls good books, crafts, board games, costumes. real tools, sports gear, and don't make a big deal of it. Their friends will get what they get and the relatives will give what they give. Kids see what you do, not what you say.

Nothing is cuter than when you see a little kid who tried to cut their own bangs a day or two ago.

Nothing? What about said kid, sitting in a little red wagon, cuddling a speckled puppy?

That's just saccharine.

personally I think buzzcutting a little boy's hair is a shame

Personally, for the most part I don't care either way. OTOH, I heard a story a while back on NPR about treatments for lice, and the lengths parents will go to to get rid of them. My reaction was pretty much, "Just shave their damn heads and be done with it."

My mom gave us buzzcuts because it was cheap. Even cheaper, I suppose, would've been not cutting our hair at all (unfortunately not an option at the Catholic school we attended).

teo: you phrased the issue as it if's a predominantly Latino phenomenon at your mom's school. Is this the case?

For a grown-up version of this same phenomenon, witness Maxim radio vs. Cosmo">http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/Page&c=Channel&cid=1138308146011">Cosmo radio. Maxim: music, sex, football, video games, comedy, the occasional celebrity interview. Cosmo: men, men, beauty (to snag a man), fitness (to snag a man), astrology (to snag a man) sex and men. The Maxim hosts get described by their interests; the Cosmo hosts don't. Cosmo doesn't even get its own URL.

Given the demographics of the community, everything at my mom's school is a predominantly Latino phenomenon.

125: I kinda figured.

OT: "Frosty the Snowman"—a song to help kids deal with the loss of a loved one? This passage just struck me as particularly bittersweet:

Frosty the Snowman knew the sun was hot that day, / so he said, " Let's run and we'll have some fun now before I melt away."

I've always thought that part of the song was interesting. Frosty's awareness of his own mortality adds an oddly realistic element to the magical story.

Nicely put, teo. Of course, he'll be "back again one day," so maybe it's just a subtle effort to undercut the Christian holiday with Hindu reincarnation theology. Um, maybe.

One of the other interesting things about the song is that it has little if anything to do with Christmas, actually. It's more just a winter story.

To expand a bit on the haircut thing, it does seem to be a primarily Hispanic phenomenon; I don't think I've ever seen little Anglo boys with those very short haircuts. In fact, as I've thought about it I've realized that Hispanic men tend to wear their hair shorter than Anglo men in general.

More appropriate for the Mineshaft, I would note that Let's run and we'll have some fun now before I melt away." and back again one day are also consistent with a song about erectile dysfunction.

[insert pa-rump-ah-pump-um reference]

129: Sure, but lots of other Christmas songs are pretty secular, too: "Jingle Bells," a bunch of the Santa ones, "White Christmas" ('cause it happens to be on right now). My understanding is that the whole Santa thing got big only around the '30s/'40s when retailers jumped on board (cf. Rudolph, created by a guy in the employ of Monkey Ward's).

(No comment on the short-haired-Latino thing; I don't have enough data to agree or disagree.)

True, but most of them at least mention the holiday. I'd say "Frosty" goes more in the "winter songs repackaged as Christmas carols" category with "Jingle Bells" and "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland."

133: Interesting. I had never thought of a separate category of "winter songs," but I definitely see what you're saying.

Loosely related: "Greensleeves," done instrumentally, is probably my favorite holiday tune.

129 - the cropped hair for boys is incredibly common here (southern England, but seems to be a UK-wide thing as far as I can tell). My son is 6, and doesn't have a shaved head (because he doesn't want it that short, although his father has a grade 2 every few weeks), but I'd say at least 80% of the boys his age we see and know have very very short hair.

"Greensleeves," done instrumentally, is probably my favorite holiday tune.

The onl reason "Greensleeves" done instrumentally fits into the holiday rubric is that the song being performed is "What Child is This".

(I like that song a lot, both sets of lyrics are cool with me.)

136: Oh, I know. I like that song a lot. That was my point, though not well-explicated. I thought teo was highlighting an interesting Christmas/non-Christmas winter song difference. "Greensleeves" occupies a very interesting place. Depending on when you hear it, it means different things.

That What Child is this/Greensleeves tune is great. More Christmas songs should be in minor keys.

On that note, I just got to open my Christmas Eve present, which was the Sufjan Christmas Box Set! Oh, I am so happy. And listening to it.

I just got to "What child is this, anyway?", in which Mr. Stevens fortunately does not actually append "anyway" to the signature line. He does harmonies so masterfully, much of the time, I think that's what makes the music.

According to this article, women's wages started stagnating in the mid-90s, right around the time that the pretty princessification of the toy store started. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

The Christmas/winter song distinction may be more salient to non-Christians.

So you do the right thing and buy your daughter a nice blue soccer uniform with nary a sexist stereotype in sight. That's good, right? Not so fast.

I spent the evening hanging around with some folks and their 5-year-old daughter, who was only too happy to show off her Barbies to me. She seemed much more enthusiastica about the fact that they were her Barbies than that they were her Barbies. Her 1-year-old cousin seemed mercifully free of gender stereotypes to date, however.

I just remembered the old Simpsons episode where Lisa teams up with a toy designer and makes a feminist doll to compete with the Barbie-esque Malibu Stacy doll.

At the end of the show, a wave of girls surges into the toy store and buys... Malibu Stacy dolls. But one girl buys Lisa's doll.

Lisa says, "If we only reached that one girl, it was all worth it." And the toy designer mutters, "Yeah, if she buys five million of those dolls."