Susie O’Brien on No Gender December: Help kids be all they can this Christmas
WHAT’S the big deal with suggesting parents should consider giving kids toys that don’t limit them into narrow stereotypes, asks Susie O’Brien.
Susie O'Brien
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WHY don’t we just let kids be kids?
This is the most common response to suggestions parents should give their children gender-neutral toys this Christmas.
But that’s exactly what such campaigners are trying to do.
They want kids to be free to get the toys they really want, not the toys parents think they should get because they are a boy or a girl.
The gendered nature of toys has become a hot issue again, with educational publisher The Good Education Group joining calls for No Gender December.
PARENTS URGED TO ‘BUY A BOY A BARBIE’ AS PART OF NO GENDER DECEMBER
CEO Chris Lester this week encouraged parents to consider gender-neutral toys as a way to move beyond stereotypes and help girls in particular develop better maths and science skills.
Since writing a news piece about it for Monday’s paper, I have received a torrent of emails from readers telling me I am a “deranged regressive blinded by ‘faith’ in Leftist causes” and am engaging in “social engineering”. “The world has gone mad and it is being assisted by people like you,” said another.
Buying gender-neutral toys is an idea that has been around for decades, so it’s hard to see why there is so much hysteria about it.
What’s the big deal with suggesting parents should consider giving kids toys that don’t limit them into narrow stereotypes?
A suggestion that a parent should “buy a boy a Barbie” doesn’t mean deliberately going out and giving a boy who wants a Matchbox car a Barbie instead. It merely means parents being open to the idea that a boy might want a doll rather than a car. It’s about doing away with old perceptions that limit the toys kids are given.
No Gender December has been around since 2014, when it hit the headlines primarily as a result of support from Greens Senator Larissa Waters.
“Out-dated stereotypes about girls and boys and men and women perpetuate gender inequality, which feeds into very serious problems such as domestic violence and the gender pay gap,” Waters said at the time.
I definitely wouldn’t take it that far. Buying toys for our children at Christmas should be a pleasurable activity, not something that’s linked to abuse.
Parents have enough to think about without being accused of perpetuating family violence thanks to the toys they buy their kids. However, I do think our kids deserve better than being given the same old boring gendered toys year after year.
It’s not about turning boys into girls or girls into boys or making all kids gender-free. It’s simply about not automatically giving girls toy kitchens and boys toy science kits just because that’s what we assume they want.
There is no doubt things are changing in the toy aisles. Most of the major retailers no longer have boys’ and girls’ toy sections, although toys remain resolutely gendered. It’s clear that toys are not keeping up with modern life.
These days boys do ballet and play netball, girls play AFL and soccer. Boys wear pink, girls wear blue. Women drive trucks and men cook food. Men look after children and women are scientists.
But you wouldn’t know it from the range of toys on offer, which mostly are marketed to either boys or girls. Lego, for instance, used to be gender-neutral, with all children encouraged to use their imagination to build whatever they wanted. However, since it has become a largely branded product it has become more aggressively male with star ships, cars and male action figures tailored towards boys.
And there’s the Lego Friends range, which has pieces in pink and purple, and includes kits for ice cream shops, beauty parlours and Cinderella carriages. It’s clearly marketed at girls.
Google “girls’ toys” and you get an outdated line-up of pink bikes, beauty accessories, and princess castle kits. Even non-gendered toys such as lap tops are hot pink, clearly denoting them as gendered objects, which is ridiculous.
A search for “boys’ toys” brings up balls, cranes and pirate ships. There are no beauty accessories, selfie microphones or dolls’ houses.
Ultimately, considering gender-neutral toys is not a form of social engineering, and it isn’t about trying to make all kids the same.
It’s about a practical common sense approach to choosing toys that opens up possibilities for kids and parents.
It’s a pity, then, that it’s often heaped in with some pretty extreme suggestions such as the move to abolishing “he” and “she” and instead bringing in “ze” as a gender-neutral pronoun. It’s a silly move suggested by the Oxford University student union which is unlikely to gain traction any time soon. Forget the more extreme gender warriors intent on removing gender altogether.
Rather, concentrate this Christmas on buying children toys they want rather than toys you think they should play with. Who knows? They may be extended and challenged in all sorts of exciting ways. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist
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