Quote:
Originally Posted by Words
EnderD,
I get what you are saying...kind of. Thing is, why all the fuss about these particular dolls? There are peeing dolls on the market, dolls with pacifiers, dolls that walk, dolls that talk, dolls that don't do anything...All of which could be seen as reinforcing the idea that most young girls will eventually be/want to be mothers.
I just think, to quote Martina, that it's weird that we think it's weird, because to me, that feels like it's us who are doing all the sexualizing.
Words
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I guess for me it's not just the fuss about these particular dolls, but the insinuation from the marketing for these particular dolls that breastfeeding is a "normal, natural thing" for
all girls to do, and that, therefore, they need dolls to "mimic mommy." Thing is, not all girls want this. Often the dolls we gender and give to children is in many instanced forced on them. In most cases the kids won't question it, and most will play with whatever's available to them. But breastfeeding dolls, or dolls where the marketing targets little girls specifically to be taught to fit traditional female gender roles...I have a problem with that, whether it's a breastfeeding doll or a kitchen set marketed to girls.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blush
Calling a woman's breasts "baby feeders" is gross. Almost as gross as the amount of money formula companies have spent and made convincing American women that their bodies are incapable of feeding their child.
It's not a gender role to encourage nurturing, it's a human trait we need to encourage in all of us. Nurturing doesn't make a child weak or passive.
It's adults that assign gender suitability to toys. A child playing with a baby doll is just that: a child playing with a baby doll. Why would we assume that a transgendered child would not play with a baby doll? The child chooses the toy, as the wand chooses the wizard.
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The problem is that the child does not always choose the toy. In most cases, the child doesn't. I kept my Barbies in their boxes in the closet untouched and paid no attention to them whatsoever and extended family members (thankfully my parents were a little smarter) kept getting me Barbie's. I'm definitely not an exception, I'm definitely not the only one who experienced this. Talk to a lot of folks on this very forum (whether butch, femme or trans) and many will tell you that they had the exact same experience. Talk to your local queer community, people assigned male at birth, whether cis or trans, who preferred to play with dolls but were yelled at for even trying. People assigned female at birth who would much rather be playing sports, but were yelled at or told they couldn't because "you're a girl, act like a girl." I'm not talking about "transgendered dolls" I'm talking about society frequently forcing gender stereotypes onto children.
All children. I'm talking about society telling girls or children assigned female at birth that they need to want to breastfeed, have children, be "nurturing" and play with toy kitchens.
Like it or not, encouraging nurturing in the case of dolls like this
is enforcing gender roles. The advertisements shared here are not asking little boys to breastfeed their dolls in order to "be like mommy," it's targeted to female children.
As far as encouraging nurturing, not all children want to grow up to be "nurturers." It's
not a human trait across the board. I'm not going to go and discourage a child who wants to play with that kind of doll from doing so, but neither do I want to see such heavy emphasis on "encouraging" children to be nurturing...especially when girls are so frequently the target.