It is a PICTURES POST. This is not liable to be very interesting for those of you who can’t look at pics, shoo, go look at something else.
DID YOU KNOW that guys do not like crafts, baking, romances, celebrities, or adorable pictures of animals (this last must be a surprise to literally the entire Internet)? DID YOU KNOW that all guys love sports, science fiction, business books, and comics? I feel like they’re confused here about whether we’re shopping for Generic Geek Archetype (who is, of course, always male, all the girls are fake geek girls who hate comics and dress up as superheroines for no reason) or Generic Guy Archetype.
A lovely bit of retro-sexism found on Tumblr somewhere… sew lace on your boy’s shirt and then he’ll tuck it in! Because lacy shirts on guys are literally the most embarrassing thing EVER. (Also, is it just me, or is it really fucked to not allow kids to pick out their own outfits within reason? If dude doesn’t want lace on his shirt don’t put lace on his shirt, jeez.)
This is from Queer Secrets, a blog I highly recommend reading if you happen to be possessed of the mistaken opinion that queer people are any more sensible than straight people. (We’re not. We’re really, really not.) I would just like to point out that this is a classic example of the Nice Girl ™ in the wild and supports my contention that Nice Person ™ ing is not a behavior limited to any one gender. “I’m nice, and yet straight women refuse to date me! Clearly the fact that I am also a girl has nothing to do with this! It must be because all women like jerks! I am positively seething with resentment and entitlement.”
And a moment of awesome: a Swedish toy catalogue has gone gender-neutral! Fuck yeah, boys with dolls and dollhouses!
This could also happen in the US: a New Jersey teen is petitioning the CEO of Hasbro to feature boys in advertising of Easy-Bake Ovens. Over thirty thousand people have already signed. This is fucking awesome.
For Her: Celebrity Biographies
I can hardly even imagine the reaction I’d get if I bought someone a celebrity biography for Christmas.
That would probably depend a lot on who it’s a biography of. This book and this book would probably get totally different reactions. 😉
My mom was and is a very traditional mother somewhat in the June Cleaver mold. She would have been perfectly capable of sewing lace onto her sons’ shirts, but she would have scoffed at the idea and told you to take a hike if you suggested it to her. Instead, she would say that if you want your boys to tuck in their shirts, you order them to and don’t take any backtalk if they resist. She would say you shouldn’t have to resort to trickery or additional sewing work – they do it because you damn well let them… Read more »
^You’re confusing a ‘Nice Guy TM’ with a nice guy.
No, I’ve seen plenty of nice guys TM referred to without any mention of entitlement.
Since when do ALL “nice guy TM” ‘s have resentful or entitled attitudes?
With regards to the first image, I think that those lists are probably data-mined from customer wish lists. So, this means that these lists are based on what actual users of the site either want or are buying. This means there isn’t a smoke-filled room full of marketers saying “Men don’t like crafts because crafts are unmanly”.
Just what I was thinking. It looks like it’s come from Amazon, and if they are good at anything it’s knowing there market and working there data.
The first and second images are just examples of making issues where non exist. To complain about the second is to not understand society 40-50 years ago. To not understand what “normal” and “acceptable” dress was. This was a time when going out of the house without a hat and jacket was not acceptable and shirts were not worn un-tucked.
But but but! The first image may be data-mined from actual people’s purchases, but it doesn’t change the facts that: 1. It is a gendered list, implying that men and women never want the same sorts of thing. 2. When the desires of men and women differ, it’s generally because they were conditioned by society to like and want different things. This sort of sexism feedback loop has been addressed before: little girls want pink because we’ve conditioned them to want pink, and marketing analysts have found that little girls like pink, so they make pink products; these two tendencies… Read more »
I agree with the sentiment, but your argument is circular.
but…
feedback loops ARE circular…
The word “loop” does imply circularity, yes. A lot of cultural phenomena work that way, as it turns out. It’s not logical, but human beings are generally not rational creatures. We have those pesky emotions and hormones and suchlike.