Archive for category: Daily Dose of Fail

Linkhopping through an Apartment Therapy post on the subject, I came across a campaign called Pink Stinks that “challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls’ lives.” I liked the angle that the AT post took in describing the culture of pink as something where design choices are making a huge impact on cognitive development:

…this pinkification [is] a harmful social commentary on how our shopping choices for girls are severely limited in color; when we limit their choices we limit their thinking. We give girls a small world to belong to, a world consisting of princesses, fairies and butterflies. The [Pink Stinks founders] believe that a world of pink devalues what girls may really want which is choices. Even the non-princess activities are turning pink: globes, clocks, books…all of which, again, create a small visual world for girls.

There’s a good article in the Guardian about them as well.

The thing is, I like pink. I do! And I think “Pink Stinks” is an unfortunate name (probably chosen for catchy, rhyme-y reasons) because, no, pink doesn’t stink, pink is an awesome colour. But that’s a choice I’ve largely grown into as an adult and not one that was forced on me by my parents, my peers, or disturbing marketing trends, etc. You’ve probably all seen those classic board games that have now been rebranded “for girls” because everything comes in pink boxes with new “girlified” playing pieces, etc. (Because, you know, Monopoly is so much less fun for girls when they’re forced to play as the thimble or top hat instead of flip flops or purses.) I encountered magnetic words with girls and boys versions and guess which version is significantly more awesome. Just… ugh.

As a fabulous contrast, they posted on their blog a great Lego ad from the 1980s. It is awesome because a) it features a girl playing with an architecture/engineering/omgscience toy, and b) there is no presence of limited ideas of how we have typically defined girlhood in the west for the last couple of decades. I know a lot of people who are heavily pregnant right now and so there’s much discussion on how difficult it is to find gender-neutral baby items — and I don’t mean yellow and green stuff, I mean fabulous bright colours that are not meant strictly for boys. I keep encountering this in textile design, even, when I’m buying fabric: so many colourways are marketed as being solely for boys and it boggles my mind. I’m 98% done a quilt that I’ve made for myself out of some awesome dinosaur fabric that could easily be for a boy or girl if the fabric line wasn’t actually and quite literally called “Oh Boy!”. FOR. REAL. Obviously anything designed “for” boys can be used by any child, but it’s the intent behind the design that is the problem.

One of my coworkers was telling me about her brother-in-law who would frequently buy his young daughter toy dump trucks and hard hats and things like that. I told her I thought it was awesome that he wasn’t putting pre-conceived gender-based limits on the kinds of toys he let his children play with. She said that he was bitterly disappointed that he didn’t have a son and that this was the manifestation of his denial. I wanted to punch him in the face through space and time.

I am rambly because I am irate.