At Boots, science is for boys and pink princess toys are for girls | Megan Peel | Science. Last summer, driving our firstborn girl home from hospital, the world outside the car window seemed suddenly strange and new: the trees greener; the road grittier; the blossom in the hedges fluffier. From out of the shell-shocked fug of my brain, the opening lines from Sylvia Plath's poem Child emerged unbidden: Your clear eye is the one beautiful thing I want to fill it with colour and ducks The zoo of the new Over the past 10 months, I have watched our daughter's clear eyes open to the world, and seen how voraciously they devour each new object they encounter. The black blur of our cat flashing past the window; a purple-hatted rag doll; a plastic workman's hammer; the car keys held in my mouth as I struggle to buckle her into her seat: all these things are met with an equal squeal of delight.
And yet I know this will not last. One day in the not too distant future, she will be standing in a shop and her clear eye will be filled not with "colour and ducks", but with a wall of pink. Chalk Talk: If anyone knows a gender-neutral pronoun, can he or she speak up? - Schools - Education. In Sweden, though, where he lives for a good part of the year, they do – bolstered by the efforts of a new children's publishing company. Olika, run by two women – Marie Tomicic and Karin Salmson – uses the word "hen" as a gender-neutral alternative to "han" (he) and "hon" (she). However, the word's usage use in the Swedish language first emerged in the daily newspaper of Uppsala in Sweden way back in 1966. Now Robert, who is aged 72 and has retired, would like to launch a campaign to give the English language its own gender-neutral pronoun (he suggests "hey" – "they" without the "t"), not least because he would like to see their children's books translated into the English language.
One has a "hen" as a main character, if you follow my gist. He approached the Oxford English Dictionary about his idea but was told it is merely reflecting new words that have come into the English language rather than creating them itself. "Hey" – that's not a bad idea! Gender-neutral isn’t new | Motivated Grammar. Gender-neutral language really burns some people’s beans. One common argument against gender-neutral language is that it’s something new. See, everyone was fine with generic he up until [insert some turning point usually in the 1960s or 1970s], which means concerns about gender neutrality in language are just manufactured complaints by “arrogant ideologues” or people over-concerned with “sensitivity”, and therefore ought to be ignored.
I have two thoughts on this argument. The first: so what? Society progresses, and over time we tend to realize that certain things we used to think were just fine weren’t. The fact that we didn’t see anything wrong with it before doesn’t mean we were right then and wrong now. Furthermore, women have gained power and prominence in many traditionally male-dominated areas, so even if gender-neutral language had been unnecessary in the past (e.g., when all Congressmen were men), that wouldn’t mean it’s a bad idea now. Freshmen. Mankind. He or she. Like this: 'Yo' Said What? : Code Switch.
The Code Switch team loves thinking, talking and hearing about language and linguistics — see our launch essay, "When Our Kids Own America," and "How Code-Switching Explains The World. " So we wanted to share this report from NPR's Arts Desk that's about the use of "yo" as a gender-neutral pronoun. Over the past few decades, we've made a lot of changes in the English language to make it more gender neutral. We say "police officer" instead of "policeman," and "people" instead of "mankind. " But there's one thing we can't seem to get right: pronouns. We know that if you say, "Every child has his monkey," it excludes girls.
So instead we might say, "Every child has their monkey," even though it's not grammatically correct. And "Every child has his or her monkey," is just clunky. But some kids in Baltimore have come up with a solution that has caught the attention of linguists. At the UMAR Boxing Gym, you hear the word "yo" a lot. "You know, like yo hit me ... yo took my stuff! Trans people, pronouns and language. In 1910, German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld published The Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress – the first investigation into the practice of wearing clothes designated for the “opposite” sex, and those who wanted to be the “opposite” sex or find space between “male” and “female”. With no recognised word to describe any of these positions or practices, Hirschfeld popularised “transvestite” from the Latin trans- (meaning “across”) and vestitus (“dressed”), variations on which had been used across Europe since the sixteenth century.
(Zagria’s Gender Variance Who’s Who provides a potted history here.) The sexological categorisation of gender-variant practices, and the new possibilities opened by scientific advances and changing attitudes throughout the twentieth century, posed a significant challenge to European languages, which had not previously been seriously demanded to accommodate areas between the two established sexes or genders. Say my name. When are you too old to call your other half boy/girlfriend, and what do you call them instead? We look at a very modern social dilemma J ennifer Aniston’s impending wedding to Justin Theroux is causing a great deal of relief in the celebrity media. But on gossip sites and in chatrooms, it is widely agreed that the English language has exhausted itself trying to document Jen’s string of — what? Beaux? Hunks? Of course, for most unmarried couples over the age of 17, describing the emotional bond between you and your live-in partner is problematic.
“When we first met, we. Why should married women change their names? Let men change theirs | Jill Filipovic. Excuse me while I play the cranky feminist for a minute, but I'm disheartened every time I sign into Facebook and see a list of female names I don't recognize. You got married, congratulations! But why, in 2013, does getting married mean giving up the most basic marker of your identity? And if family unity is so important, why don't men ever change their names? On one level, I get it: people are really hard on married women who don't change their names. Ten percent of the American public still thinks that keeping your name means you aren't dedicated to your marriage. But that's not what you usually hear. It may be the case that in your marriage, he did have a better last name.
Not that I'm unsympathetic to the women out there who have difficult or unfortunate last names. Your name is your identity. Men rarely define themselves relationally. Of course, there's also power in a name change. Fortunately, feminists succeeded in shifting the law and the culture of marriage. Hamleys' baby steps towards gender equality. In the 70s, guns were for boys and dolls were for girls. Animals, transport and building-simulation were unisex, and if you really wanted to test the limits of female objectification, you could get a severed head with retractable hair. That was called a Girl's World. Oh what a world. Our hippy parents did not know they were born. The form for children now is a gender essentialism so extreme that feminist mothers spend their whole lives (ironically) pink with fury. This is why even parents who aren't that interested in gender politics still object: it's the narrowness of it all, the very extreme versions of masculinity and femininity that this consumer world represents.
OK, nobody wake up the politburo, they have this under control: they were not pressured, they decided on their own. Not that much has changed, if I'm honest: even if the third floor signage is no longer pink, that doesn't make a huge amount of difference when all the toys are pink. Barclays has pinked up its new ad – how lazy and depressing. The father stands wearily by, as his daughter points at a series of things for him to buy for her. First, she wants the pink doll. No, actually she wants the pink bike. Strike that, the pink car. Then, of course, a pink house. Even ignoring both the conspicuous absence of Mum in the new Barclays ad, and the uncomfortable sense of materialism (if my kids were as ungrateful as that, they would get a telling-off, not a new pony), it's disappointing to see an advert that conforms so rigidly to a dangerous stereotype: the daughter in the ad is a Veruca Salt-esque little madam who wants a new toy, wants it now and – worst of all – wants it all in pink.
Yes, the advert is intended to be humorous, and, yes, it is far from the most harmful thing in a world full of Bratz Dolls and Kardashians. Be it through nature, nurture or a combination of both, any parent will tell you that it is incredibly difficult to stop boys and girls conforming to gender stereotypes. Barclays Family Springboard Mortgage. Word Cloud: How Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces Gender Stereotypes | The Achilles Effect. Preamble (Added April 12, 2011). Thanks so much to everyone who has weighed in on this post. I am adding this preamble to address two main points of criticism that I should have discussed in the original post. First, there is the point that the ads use vocabulary to reflect the nature of the toys and not necessarily gender, that regardless of the target audience a toy about fighting will naturally include words about battling while a toy like an Easy Bake Oven will not.
While this is absolutely true, my intention here was to use the toy vocabulary to show the nature of the toys marketed predominantly to boys. This leads to the second question/criticism: how did I determine which toys were “boys’ toys”? I would also like to stress that this was a simple exercise, not a rigorously researched academic study. With that background information in mind, I invite you to read the original, unedited post below. –Crystal A few caveats: Now the girls’ list, also available in full size at Wordle: Using toys for both boys, girls may be good for kids. While there isn't one set of directions for picking out a good toy, experts suggest looking at age and interest. What are the ABCs of finding a good toy for a child? Experts stress that a child's age and interests should come before gender. The debate over gender-specific toys was stirred again recently after toymaker Hasbro said it will start selling its classic Easy-Bake oven in gender-neutral colors.
The oven will debut Feb. 10-13 at the New York Toy Fair; it will be in stores in the fall. Hasbro's announcement followed news stories about McKenna Pope, a 13-year-old girl from Garfield, N.J., who started a petition asking the toymaker to redesign the oven in other colors. She found it only in pink and purple, but wanted to buy it for her 4-year-old brother for Christmas.
STORY: Unisex Easy-Bake oven on the way Researchers agree with Pope that toys should be inclusive of boys and girls. Emily W. Play also can contribute to the development of practical skills. -- Expands creativity -- Is safe. BiC Cristal for Her - Black (Box of 20): Amazon.co.uk: Office Products. Too feeble for unisex? Try a lady product | Kate Murray-Browne. We all know that being a woman requires specialist material. For instance, your vagina needs its own deodorant, stylist, and stick-on jewels just to get it through the day. We need hundreds of things men don't, like lipgloss and Veet, and we're used to that now. But recently, there seems to have been some quite amazing ingenuity in producing special lady products where we all thought a unisex one would do. Victoria Pendleton has created "the first all-female bike range" for Halfords; Cadbury have just released Crispello, a chocolate bar specifically for women; Bic recently launched a range of pens "for her" (provoking some very scathing, very funny comments on its Amazon page), and London Transport produced (and then swiftly revoked) a leaflet called Tube Tips for Women.
Nowadays, you can go on women-only bike rides or to women-only gyms, and, if you can't control your alcohol intake all by yourself, there are women-only drinks available. Honda Fit's Pink Car Made Just For Ladies. Honda First there was the "Bic for Her" pen. Then there was the Fujitsu "Floral Kiss" lady-computer (complete with a built-in scrapbooking app and bedazzled keyboard!). Honda just took things to the next level by producing the Honda Fit "She's" — a pink car made specifically for women that's marketed as "adult cute. " The $17,500 car, currently only being sold in Japan, has loads of lady-friendly features. Apart from pink aesthetics and a dainty heart to replace the apostrophe in "She's," design features include: A windshield that helps prevent wrinkles, and a "plasmacluster" air conditioning system that Honda says will improve skin quality.
If you don't like the pink tone, don't worry. While cars like the Volkswagen Jetta have often been stereotyped as a more female-friendly car (there's even a Tumblr called "Hot Girl. The vintage cars, complete complete with hat, purse, and lipstick storage space, came in colors ranging from "Dusty Rose" to "Pigeon Gray. " Here's what the car looks like: Max ePad Femme – the tablet for women that's hard to swallow | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett.
The Max ePad Femme – 'one downside is that it doesn’t seem to include a driving simulator.' You know that when even the Daily Mail calls a product sexist then you're onto a winner. Yep, just when you thought Bic for Her had finally done one on behalf of all ladyproducts, a new one comes along: the (Max) ePad Femme. It may sound like a sanitary towel, but it's actually an electronic tablet for chicks, being as it is "less complicated" than the iPad, a device even babies and puppies seem able to use with ease (as I write, six-year-olds the country over are running up bills on their parents' iTunes, or, if you're my little brother, using Dad's eBay account to bid on Bob the Builder merchandise).
Yet women are a different question entirely. The marketeers behind most ladyproducts seem to have gone for one of two strategies. As such, the (Max) ePad Femme has a lovely pink background and nice big buttons for those with the learning difficulties so frequently associated with our gender. Russell Howard's good news - Bic pens for women. Krystina_marieM : Can't believe what I'm seeing... Are dolls houses for boys or girls? And how do we talk about them? Should boys and girls be taught the same subjects? Do we view the world through ‘male’ or ‘female’ eyes? Do hidden messages in society concerning our gender reflect in the language we use to evaluate our experiences? This is what James Mackay and Jean Parkinson set out to investigate in their study of 87 trainee teachers in South Africa who built and electrically wired a dolls house as a class assignment.
The students who made up the study were divided into four groups - disadvantaged females, disadvantaged males, advantaged females and advantaged males. Their written reflections on the assignment were analysed using the grammatical APPRAISAL framework, which allows analysis of expression of emotion (AFFECT), assessment of behaviour (JUDGMENT) and assessment of processes (APPRECIATION). From their analysis of the written assignments a picture emerged of a class divided along gender lines rather than according to educational background. Mackay, James and Parkinson, Jean 2009.' 'Slut dropping' and 'Pimps and Hoes' - the sexual politics of freshers' week - Comment - Voices.
Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg attacks gender stereotypes at work | Business. Sexist stereotypes dominate front pages of British newspapers, research finds | Media. Feminist Language. Sexist Terms - and alternatives. Marjorie Rhodes, Ph.D.: How Generic Language Leads Children to Develop Social Stereotypes. Ella Henderson - is feminism a dirty word for popstars? Casual sexism from politicians is no joke. How women make the front page in Britain: get the full data | News. Yes, Page 3 is bad for women. But so are the photos in OK! magazine - Comment - Voices. Representing gender in children's reading materials. The battle against 'sexist' sci-fi and fantasy book covers. Caroline Frost: Does 'Call The Midwife' Fail The Sexism Test... For Men? Hoodies strike fear in British cinema | Film.
Skivers v strivers: the argument that pollutes people's minds | Politics.