http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dXlAjCU8G4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVgHrV9H-8k
Let me know what you think.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Rose Petal Cottage
Piper shared this advertisement for Rose Petal Cottage with me today and I was horrified with how blatantly this product reinforces patriarchal values. The little girl is limited to her "box" and doing her domestic duties. You'll have to cut and paste the following links from YouTube.
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Wow. Just wow. I have to admit, though, that I had a similar playhouse set-up. I think children go through a hyper gendered time, and maybe all we can do it help them revise the dominant narrative. I mean, part of my kind of liked that here was no husband in the Rose Petal Cottage. :)
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ReplyDeleteThere was no husband because part of the dream coming true is that he is working a killer job that allows him to pay for the Rose Petal Cottage and all its cool appliances. I mean, are we stuck in the 1950s or what?
ReplyDeleteIt would be awesome if they could market the house alongside a little heels/pearls/vacuum outfit.
ReplyDeleteShould there be a station wagon in the driveway too?
ReplyDeleteYou guys are entertaining!
ReplyDeleteHere's my take, as a parent of a girly-girl and a boy's boy. (Although I will also note that my daughter has a kick-a--, take-no- prisoners way of confronting the world, and my son cried many tears over the kitten boiling scene in _The Lamplighter_.) Kids are experimenting through play with social constructions of gender identity. They're figuring out what it means to be a boy or girl in our culture. It's important for them to figure this out. Later on, they'll figure out their attitudes toward those gender roles--whether to reject them, inhabit them, or revise them. I think (hope) that what they play or play with has little outcome on what attitudes toward gender they eventually will have. I longed to be a cheerleader when I was little, had a toy iron and ironing board, etc. and I don't know that it harmed me in the long run. (Well, maybe a little.) And I'm willing to grant that I'm completely wrong on this, by the way--I was very impressed by the little girl in the video Amanda posted who could define "feminism." My daughter couldn't, so I'm probably failing as a parent. But my son is highly offended at "Bikini Girl" on American Idol (and the girl he "likes" at school is the smartest girl in the class!), so maybe I'm doing something right?