I felt a familiar pang of disgust and anger when I saw this picture that a friend uploaded on Twitter earlier today. She was disappointed because the Kinder ‘surprise’ she got when she opted for the ‘girl’ toy was as stereotypical as it gets – a pink hair-clip and a butterfly ring. What ensued thereafter was a heated discussion on why the ‘boy’ toy included tanks and assemble-it-yourself Transformers, and how folks consciously refused to opt for the ‘girlie’ toys.
I notice here a two-pronged problem. But I’ll get to that in just a bit; first a #throwback to, if my math serves me correctly, a seven year old incident.
A few years ago, I visited a large multinational toy store. There I realised… perhaps for the first time really took a close look and realised… a clear gender-based segregation of toys and games. It bothered me enough to approach this gentleman, who I was told was the store manager, and to whom I relayed my misgivings. To no one’s surprise, I was dismissed off hand. I then sent several emails to this multinational chain, requesting some sort of an explanation that could rationally explain to me the purpose of this specific demarcation between the boy and girl zones. If you think they were answered, you’re even more naive than I was at the time.
Flash forward to 2017 – the same chain has diversified across markets, and it’s structure remains absolutely unchanged; Barbie dolls adorn the girl-section, while Iron Man and Star Wars figurines are proudly displayed in the boy-segment.
This brings me to the two-pronged problem I alluded to a short while ago – first, the allocation of gender to specific kinds of toys, and second, the perception that ‘girlie’ toys are, for lack of another word, uncool. Being born with a vagina automatically requires me to like dressy dolls and DIY jewellery sets, while having a penis seems to be the necessary qualification for enjoying race tracks and robots.
This genderisation of toys, I believe, is one of the first steps in ingraining from an early age a concept of siloed physical sex-based gender identification. It serves as one of the many environmental influences that effectively take away the choice to identify one’s self with a gender that may or may not align with one’s birth sex… and it is never too early (or too late) to make that choice! What begins with toys eventually manifests in preconceived adult gender roles – who works in the kitchen, who changes a baby’s diaper, who is the primary breadwinner, who pays the cheque at the end of a date… the list is endless.
Some folks claim to consider this as a female-centric issue – that the girl child ought to be able choose to play with what she likes – teddy bears and tanks alike. “She’s a tomboy; she hates those girlie dress-up dolls!” First, calling her a tom”boy” is NOT a compliment. Second, why the condescension associated with “girlie” toys? Twenty years ago, a certain famous American sitcom showcased the insecurities of a father when his toddler chose to play with a Barbie instead of a GI Joe! Reason – the toddler was born a boy. It is a shame that in over two decades, we haven’t progressed much.
Whisper, through its #likeagirl campaign, helped break through conventional usages of verb-ing like a girl and gave them a positive twist. Vogue India attempted a similar feat with #startwiththeboys by reminding everyone that “ladke rote nahi” (boys don’t cry) is severely problematic. It is high time we joined the movement as a global collective, and changed the narrative – to be pro-choice and anti-condescension, to shared adult responsibilities and roles… to truly be human.
Aachaar-Vichaar 