Target: Leading the Way Toward Gender Equality in Toys?

Target made a big splash recently by announcing their plans to remove gender labels from their toy and children's home goods aisles. I inwardly cheered when I saw the headline. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how big an impact those signs actually have. Don't get me wrong, I still applaud the decision, but I never even noticed that they had gender labels on the toy aisles until I saw that they were going to remove them. Toys were always obviously organized by gender, but I didn't recall the actual labels.

Photo by Jenny Livingston

So, will it make a difference? How many people actually read the signs when shopping for toys? Target isn't in control of the toy packaging or colors or any other aspect of the toys that make them gender specific. They could stop carrying toys that are marketed as gender specific, but that isn't very likely because it would eat into their profits. They could start mixing the different gendered toys together more, but that might be an organizational nightmare. 

Opponents suggest this move will make it more confusing when shopping for gifts, or argue that they want their children to play with toys based on their gender. While I do believe it's a parent's right to  decide what toys their children play with, the research seems to be pretty clear that the current state of gendered toys is not encouraging the development of well-rounded children. In their research, the NAEYC concluded "that girls’ toys were associated with physical attractiveness, nurturing, and domestic skill, whereas boys’ toys were rated as violent, competitive, exciting, and somewhat dangerous. The toys rated as most likely to be educational and to develop children’s physical, cognitive, artistic, and other skills were typically categorized as neutral or moderately masculine. We concluded that strongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys."

I recently read this opinion piece in the New York Times in which the author, Alice Robb, explained how the gender segregation of toys developed from the 1970s through the 1990s and my own childhood toy consumption made a lot more sense. My parents still have the Little People® dollhouse I used to play with as a child in the early 1980s and my daughter loves to play with it whenever she visits. 

   

Little People® dollhouse circa 1983
 Photos by Debbie Livingston

Flash forward thirty years and my daughter received a very different Little People® dollhouse for her birthday.

Little People® dollhouse 2015 Photo by Jenny Livingston

Granted, Little People® added a bathroom and some cutesy sound effects like a flushing toilet, ringing phone, and a few catchy tunes (the reader can decide whether these are actual improvements or not). The point is, nothing about the 1980's dollhouse codes it as female-only beyond the general idea that dollhouses themselves are for girls. The 2015 house, however, practically screams "FOR GIRLS ONLY!" Most people meandering down the toy aisle at Target do not need a sign to stop them from buying it for a boy. That being said, even the 4-year old boys at my daughter's birthday party were begging for us to open it so they could check it out, in case you needed any proof that gender specific colors is a learned behavior. 

After I got too old for my Little People® dollhouse in the mid-1980s, I graduated up to a Barbie™ dollhouse. Like practically every little girl of my generation, I was obsessed with Barbie™. And not Barbie™ with a career—did Barbie™ even have a career in the 1980s? Maybe as a fashion model, but if there was a doctor Barbie, no one in my circle of friends had it. No, I'm talking about pink corvette driving Malibu Barbie™. I even had Barbie's Dream House, which looked a lot like my daughter's dollhouse with a pink roof, white walls and lots of pink accents.

My mother still has some of her old Barbie™ dolls from the early 1960's and while I'm not claiming that era of Barbie™ was even remotely a feminist icon, there is an astounding lack of pink in my mother's Barbie™ collection. 

A few years ago, before I was even pregnant with my daughter, my mother and I sorted through my Barbie™ stash as she wanted to make room in her closets. Did I want to keep anything to pass on if I ever have a daughter, she asked me. My gut reaction was, of course! I wanted to keep all of it! This was my childhood we were talking about. Plus, these dolls could be worth something some day. 

I paused before responding. My next thought was, would I want to encourage my daughter to play with Barbie™ as I did? And the answer was, no. Not that I would refuse to let my daughter play with Barbie™, for all her unrealistic body shape and highly sexualized clothes, at least modern Barbie™ dolls have some career options beyond marrying Ken. I have other dolls based in history and literature to pass down to my daughter, but I ended up tossing all of the Barbie™ dolls.

It's now a couple of weeks after my daughter's second birthday and I am beginning to realize the extent of the battle that lies ahead of me for my daughter. As there seems to be no rapid end in sight to the hyper gendered toys and I recognize that she will be bombarded with media telling her what she should like and who she should be, it's up to me to make sure she is exposed to a balance of toys and activities so grows into a well rounded human being fully capable of deciding for herself what she likes and who she wants to be. If pink ends up being her favorite color, it's fine with me as long as it's because she really does love it and not because she has been told girls love pink. 

The good news is my daughter has me and my husband for parents. I was obsessed with pink and Malibu Barbie™, but my parents made sure to balance that influence with more educational activities and I grew into the feminist mom that I am today, ready to do the same for my daughter.

Thank you, Target, for making your toy aisle signage gender neutral. I hope you next step is to ask what else you can do to help.

The Best Medical Specialists you've Probably Never Heard of

I had a very natural and very traumatic childbirth thanks to my daughter's beautifully round, and horrifyingly large, head. I say horrifying because I am a small framed woman and to this day I can't believe I didn't end up with a c-section. In fact, one of my lactation consultants took one look at my daughter and just assumed she was a c-section baby. No cone-head there! After months of recovery from my layers of stitches, I was still having pain. The midwives at my OB's office assured me everything was normal and gave me the same advice to do my kegels and massage that they give everyone. It didn't help. I talked to my General practitioner and was told virtually the same thing. A year had passed and one midwife went as far as to tell me some couples just find other ways to connect. . . for the rest of their lives. This comment did not go over well with my husband when I related it, as you can imagine.

It wasn't until a therapist referred me to a pelvic floor specialist, sometimes called urogynecologist (although not all pelvic floor specialists are a type of gynecologist), that I finally got the help I needed. "Physical pain is not a mental illness," the therapist told me. And she was right.

Never heard of a Pelvic Floor Specialist? You are not alone. Pelvic floor specialists can be hard to find if, like me, you do not live in a major metropolitan area. Luckily there was one, and only one, in my area, and the therapist I talked to had her contact info. These specialists seem to be the best kept secret in the medical community and I don't know why except that it appears even most doctors aren't aware that they exist.

You might ask how a pelvic floor specialist different than an obstetrician or gynecologist. Don't they already specialize in your lady parts? Well, yes and no. Regular obstetricians and gynecologists specialize in your reproductive organs, everything from your Fallopian tubes to your cervix, as well as pregnancy and birth if they are an OB. Your pelvic floor, which is a structure made up of muscles, ligaments, nerves and connective tissues that supports pelvic organs and assists in the control of their functions, they don't seem to really know much about unless they have specialized in it.

That's where the pelvic floor specialists come in. They do tests to distinguish muscle pain from nerve pain or inflammation. They know facts like the number one cause of vaginal pain is birth control pills (you have never heard that before, right? I sure didn't!). 

I went into my appointment expecting to find out I had nerve damage and would need surgery, but come to find out, my problem was merely an extreme case of tight muscles from the trauma of delivery. Mere massage wasn't going to fix it, and kegels definitely weren't helping. I needed physical therapy. Seriously. Big cities apparently have actual physical therapists for your lady parts, but unless I wanted to drive four hours each way several days a week, I had to do it myself with the help of a wonderful painkiller that insurance would not cover, but was still totally worth the $200 for a one-month supply, and a vaginal dilator, I spent a couple months doing daily physical therapy et voila! Almost as good as new.

So spread the word to all your women friends. Pelvic Floor Specialists shouldn't be the yetis of the medical community. I have run into so many women out there who have had experiences similar to mine. There is help, albeit hard to come by. My only hope is that one day our country will value women's vaginal health enough that such medications are covered by our medical insurance, but that is a discussion for another blog.

Good-bye Gilbert Blythe

His death didn't make a huge splash in the media, not like bigger actors. But for many of us born in the 70s and 80s, the passing of Jonathan Crombie felt like the death of our first love. He will forever be Gilbert Blythe in my mind, and despite the downright horrible screenplay (in my opinion) for the final Anne of Green Gables series, I can't help but be sad that he will never be given a chance to reprise the role.

From the very first chapter of Anne of Green Gables, I was obsessed. I went on to read just about everything Lucy Maud Montgomery ever published and getting to visit Prince Edward Island in the midst of reading the Anne of Green Gables trilogy was one of the biggest highlights of my young life. I wanted to be Anne Shirley, to be at the top of my class, to marry my childhood sweetheart, to live in the beautiful gardens and houses she always seemed to inhabit, to have that one bosom friend. In Anne I recognized my own drive for perfection, that same deep seeded certainty of right and wrong that drove our loved ones crazy. But she also had an imagination and confidence I could only envy, especially since those were some of the traits Gilbert loved best about her.

As I look back now, I am glad Gilbert was my first crush and can only hope my own daughter finds, if not Gilbert, someone as safe as Gilbert to invest her heart in for the first time. Besides being a only a character in a book, Gilbert was safe. Smart, funny, loyal, and forgiving, Gilbert accepted Anne for who she was and never tried to change her. He supported her dreams and waited patiently for her even when she rejected him. He can't be blamed if he wasn't perfect (who is?), but he came pretty close.

If you consider that Anne of Green Gables was first published in 1908, Gilbert is pretty remarkable in his feminist tendencies. After all, he encouraged Anne's education and both her teaching and her writing careers in a time when women were expected to stay home and take care of their homes unless they didn't have a man to provide for them. This more equal relationship is one of the many ways the series has remained relevant through the years.

Jonathan Crombie, I will miss you. You brought Gilbert off the page and into the flesh, and for that, I will forever be grateful.

The Sexism of Sesame Street

My daughter is finally getting to the age where she is starting to watch television. I am convinced that until recently, when I thought it was time to introduce her to some children's programming to her, she thought the only thing the television showed was sports, my husband's passion. The first thing I pulled up to show my daughter was Sesame Street on Netflix.


Before I go any further, I want to be clear that I love Sesame Street. As a mom, it's one of the few toddler friendly shows that doesn't either grate on my nerves or bore me. And yet, I have a bone to pick with the show. Less than a quarter of its muppets are female, and certainly none of the most beloved ones are. 
Last week my toddler daughter recently decided she wanted to pick out the diaper she wanted to wear. We looked at all the characters they featured: Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Ernie. It then dawned on me that every single muppet featured on them was male. I couldn't help but recall the furor over the lack of Black Widow marketing from Marvel and wondered why is no one upset about Sesame Street? This is a show geared toward children as they first become consumers of media, heralded as the gold standard of children's programming, and it's basically sidelining 50% of of its viewers. Is it a case of the age-old thinking that girls are willing to consume male-centric media, but not the reverse? The same thinking that leads movie studios to pour money into male-centric big-box office movies and "chick flicks" have to fight to be produced?

I stewed on it and then thought, I can't be the only one who has noticed this. Sure enough, Bitch Magazine featured an article about it . . . way back in 2009 and PopMatters brought it up even farther back in 2006. For the most part though, I found very little evidence of fury I myself have begun to feel. 

Sesame Street seems to be trying to rectify their failings, introducing three female muppets since 2006, starting with Abby Cadabby. But I couldn't name any of these characters before my search and they certainly haven't established themselves in America's hearts like their classic male counterparts. They aren't exactly Miss Piggy, who was recently honored with a Sackler Center First Award from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Miss Piggy, it seems, is an anomaly in the muppet world, where even on her own franchise, The Muppets, she is all alone in a sea of male muppets.

Seseme Street, if by some miracle you are reading this, help a mommy out and give my daughter some better female muppets to watch!