GENDER ROLES OR GENDER RULES?

For most of their lives Khyri and Kielle have been gender neutral. It started when we had their baby showers. Since the Hubs and I didn't find out if our children were going to be male or female, we had gender neutral parties. Everything was yellow, orange, and green.

Growing up, I was a tomboy and into "boy" things like little league and bugs. I don't want my children to grow up in boxes labeled "girl" and "boy". As my munchkins are getting older, it is getting more difficult to shield them from the bounds of society's gender roles. Our first hurdle - overcoming assigned colors.

I tell people all the time that I like shopping for boys clothes more than girls clothes. I like the variety of colors that are offered for boys clothing. Think about it - boy clothing comes in blue, red, green, brown, orange, gray, black, etc. What colors do you see when you buy girls clothing? Pink, pink, and more pink. Every now and then you'll see lavender or yellow strewn about, but mostly you see pink. Why are girls limited to one color? It would be different if all of the boys' clothing was blue and all of the girls' clothing was pink. Then at least both genders would be limited to one color, but this is not the case. Girls are limited to pink and boys have a whole rainbow, minus pink and lavender, to wear.

I know this is a leap, but to me this is a subtle social construct that influences or rather limits the potential for girls. Just looking at clothing options little girls are nudged to believe that they can only wear one or two specific colors. I'm no psychologist or child development specialist, but how does that affect what they think is possible for their career choices? If Kielle is only shown pink does this discourage her from trying on blue or gray? Will she feel that she is somehow sub-par because she doesn't fit into the color construct if her favorite colors are actually red and blue? As she grows up, will she believe that women can only have certain careers?

As I searched the Toys R Us page putting together the munchkins wishlist for Christmas, I noticed that a lot of toys now are coming in 'girl' and 'boy' colors.  I found this to be confusing. Why is there a need for a pink laptop? Why can't girls use the green laptop? Is green now only a boys color? Do they type different letters? Is emphasis being put on the laptop being pretty and not functional?

Most of the boy toys come in primary colors. Now supposedly primary colors are the first colors that the human eye begins to distinguish as an infant grows. So by creating pastel or "girl" colored infant toys are we setting little girls back from the beginning? My good friend bought Khyri a huge set of Mega Bloks for his first Chirstmas. The ones we have are primary colored, but I also noticed that they sell pastel colors. Kielle plays with the primary colored blocks with no problem.

Now I'm saying that there doesn't need to be variety. I'm all for different color choices and more options. I just don't think that there should be gender specific options based on something as simple as color. If the easels below were designed differently because girls are shorter during their toddler years or something of that nature I'd be ok, but to simply change the color of the easels doesn't make sense to me.

A friend of mine did point out that pink toys are now being made because there is a demand for them. She said that these toys may actually encourage girls to play with toys other than dolls since legos, tonka, trucks, etc. come in pink. I understand this position, but to me I think you need to look at the beginning of the issue. Pink toys are needed because girls are conditioned to believe that pink toys are for girls. If girls are not conditioned to believe these things, then the need for 'separate but equal' colored toys would not be necessary. Children truly are born colorblind. They have no preconceived notions about colors. It is the society, mostly marketers, that create this construct for young girls from the very beginning.

Is there an assumption that the 'girl' colors are softer and therefor inferior or should young girls accept this color construct and redefine it themselves? In my opinion, the color pink brings along with it a notion of not as serious, not as strong, and not as educational as the traditional 'boy' colors. Thinking about redefining the color pink led me to think why don't colleges have 'girl' colors? There is no university that has pink as a school color. Even the all female colleges have use traditionally 'male' colors. I guess my concern is that I don't want Kielle to feel like she can only wear pink and only do 'girl' things and for Khyri to be limited to boy things. I applaud my parents for encouraging me to experience any and everything whether it was 'girlish' or 'boyish' *shout out to Tom's Pizzeria Sharks (my little league baseball team)* Me and the hubby will try to make sure that the munchkins are not completely swayed by color rules and supposed gender roles. It is going to be an uphill battle though for sure.

So, is there something there? I don't know. I believe that for toys the primary colors should be the universal colors for learning and fun. For clothing I want to start a clothing store for little girls called "Everything But Pink" hahahahahha. As for the Christmas wishlist, I'm looking at the doctor's kits below and will probably lean towards getting the 'serious' one in primary green. Will Kielle play with it if its not pink? I don't know for sure, but my guess is yes - a toy is a toy.