The Big Picture: Pink Is Not The Problem

[El Comandante]

Ähm Bob, what is with all the very maskulin Villans in a lot of other movies? Wearing black suits or animal skins, or leading a school-spots team? I mean come on, it´s a fantasy world based on late roman decadence and a pre 1789 france. That was the whole idea.
This new hip denial of gender is kind of stupid, change is all good and stuff... but please also ask yourself why things where that way. That does not mean you have to go back into a cave!
Also when you defend the peopel that want to play with barbies and pink stuff, could you at least make one good word about boys /men that want to have the "normal" stuff. The way these diskussions are always going is turning so many people away from the whole topic (most of the maskulin, what a surprise). Equality will only happen with dialog and not a feminisem monolog.

Also Feminists don´t touch his Mario, he might bite ;-)!

 

[CymbaIine]

Good points all around

And while Hunger Games is also a matchup a la "Rich VS Poor" then its a really good point in how it displays those rich people: fops, effeminate men with makeup, people who are not rugged and manly and strong...

The problem I have with that is - vanity is objectively damaging and bad. Being fit is objectively healthy and good.

Honestly if you can explain how I am wrong I would be happy to hear it, I am trying to see the other side but just can't.

 

[cschraer]

Although this may have been posted earlier in the 75 other comments at time of posting. The symptom of the "pink aisle" you described would exist regardless of gender roles. I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that persons who like pink dolls will also like other pink dolls and probably pink stuff. Movies and other products are grouped together by type. Toys rely heavily on appearance and are grouped as such.

I do understand the point, but we must remember there are other reasons than gender roles that things are the way they are. It might be interesting if one day there were pink 'boys toys' in the aisle with the pink dolls, but that's a marketing question.

 

[trimanx123]

I'm never sure if that's something against gay people or just how Americans see the British.

All the villains have British voices you know.

Personally only scar comes across as even remotely gay.

Well, there's Ursula, who was modelled on the infamous Divine: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_(performer]

Make of that what you will.

But I think Bob's larger point was less about homosexuality (I think that was more NostalgiaChick's point on her video on Disney villains) than about the effeminate coding of many Disney villains. But, of course, Disney has a broad-ish palette of villains: Hades is a Jewish movie exec, Frollo is a sexually repressed Catholic with genocidal tendencies, Gaston is pretty much the worst aspects of bro-ness combined, the Coachman is the devil and Jafar is a vizier (has there ever been a non-evil vizier in... anything?).

Actually, now that I think about it, the female villains tend to slot easier into categories. They're either evil for the sake of it [Maleficent, Lady Tremaine (Cinderella)], vain [Cruella de Vil, The Queen (Snow White) and Mother Gothel (Tangled)] or viziers [Yzma (Emperor's New Groove)].

 

[wulf3n]

You had me going Bob. A rational thought out response to the knee jerk feminist reaction to the "Pink Aisle", I thought you might actually be learning to reason about your opinion, but when you labelled the "evil" aspects of Xerxes as feminine I realised how wrong I was.

 

[Osaka117]

Bob, you really should check out JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. A lot of the heroes and villains are somehow simultaneously macho and foppish at the same time. How is that possible? I have no idea, it's only one of the great mysteries behind Hirohiko Araki.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

So the most egregious societal act against women has gone from being denied the right to vote, to Xerxes having a nose ring. I think the battle for equality is coming to a close.

 

[themilo504]

I find it ironic that 300 uses gay as a shorthand for villain, look up ancient Spartan culture to know why.

it?s not like its impossible to buy girl toys as a boy,it?s like complaining that Mac Donald is marketing to people who like fast food.

the problem is not the pink aisle but the people who bully boys who buy girl toys.

 

[wulf3n]

Some of it has been covered in other posts, like the use of vanity as an example of a feminine trait.

This is what bugged me about Bobs video. He starts off toys don't have an inherent gender (to which I agree) but then goes on to say traits do (to which I disagree).

Traits themselves do not have a specific gender, sure stereotypes will often consists of a number of traits, but that does not make the trait itself belong to that stereotype and just because something else also exhibits the same trait does not make it fall under the same category as the stereotype.

Take the vanity example, the first story I'm aware of that uses vanity was that of Narcissus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)] and nothing in the story describes him as being feminine.

 

[faefrost]

Ummm? You might not have picked the best days to post this one Bob. No really, when the top of the Drudge Report has a major research study kind of clearly defining that in many ways Gender roles, or at least Gender Perceptions and thought processes are not artificial constructs and are in fact biological or if you prefer actual physiological constructs. As in THEY ARE HARDWIRED IN.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-hardwired-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-could-explain-why-men-are-better-at-map-reading-8978248.html

Gee, maybe just maybe there was something to the million dollars Lego spent in research to determine that in spite of what all the well meaning adults kept demanding of them, little girls do in fact play differently than little boys, and they do have distinctly different toy preferences.

 

[Piorn]

This video made me realize why we can have so many gender issues, while nobody is actually "sexist".

 

[El Comandante]

Gee, maybe just maybe there was something to the million dollars Lego spent in research to determine that in spite of what all the well meaning adults kept demanding of them, little girls do in fact play differently than little boys, and they do have distinctly different toy preferences.

Imposible! What should not exist, can not exist!
Burn this ... ähh witcher ... i guess, on the stacke.

 

[CymbaIine]

Ummm? You might not have picked the best days to post this one Bob. No really, when the top of the Drudge Report has a major research study kind of clearly defining that in many ways Gender roles, or at least Gender Perceptions and thought processes are not artificial constructs and are in fact biological or if you prefer actual physiological constructs. As in THEY ARE HARDWIRED IN.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-hardwired-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-could-explain-why-men-are-better-at-map-reading-8978248.html

Gee, maybe just maybe there was something to the million dollars Lego spent in research to determine that in spite of what all the well meaning adults kept demanding of them, little girls do in fact play differently than little boys, and they do have distinctly different toy preferences.

That's not at all what that study says. Honestly. Read it again.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Wait wait, gender a social construct? I thought it was more something based on the fact that some of us humans have plugs and some of us have outlets (or inlets, as the matter may be). Also something with hormones. I mean, yes, social interpretations on what either sex should do, look like and be like were constructed, but that does not change the very fact that sexes are, by their very nature, at least for the vast majority of Homo Sapiens, a binary thing. You cannot socio-construct that away.

The trick about gender equality is not baselining everyone. The trick is to acknowledge each gender's strengths and let everyone pursue them to their fullest and on socially equal footing. At the same time, however, you need to acknowledge that there *are* physical/biological, even behavioural/hormonal differences, and those won't go away.

Of course, that wasn't the main topic of the episode, and I agree that "the pink aisle" is certainly a leftover thing from a bygone era that will inevitably disappear sooner rather than later, but the broader context the question is presented in here goes a bit too far overboard with its generalizations (as Bob likes to do).

Another disclaimer: I'm European, which puts me outside of Bob's target group as I have noticed in several videos.

 

[Phasmal]

I completely agree.
Growing up liking things like games and other traditionally `masculine` hobbies, I was always sort of put in the `Tomboy` category. I sort of fell into that trap of thinking because I liked X I shouldn't like Y unless I want to be defined by it.
It's stupid to define someone by the things they enjoy.
It's perfectly okay to like making cakes and stomping zombies and there's nothing conflicting about that.

I like pink (prefer purple though), and I also like stuff that people have randomly decided are `men's things`.

 

[Lightknight]

I see several others have already pointed out the problem of believing that gender roles and identity are purely constructs and not biological. But I'm throwing my hat in as well.

There is some real binary differences between sexes and even genders. For example, the very notion of trangenderism indicates the idea of genders that are binary and are typically attributed to one sex or another. Hence why it's notworthy at all to say that a sexually male individual is born with the gender identity that is typically assigned to sexually female individuals. To dismiss the idea of stable gender identities and differences between the two would be to not only trivialize trangendered individuals but would also dismiss countless experiments that generally establish differences in genders/sexes even when accounting for gender role influences.

There simply IS girl stuff and boy stuff. There IS a difference between genders and sexes. It isn't just some amount of time before it goes away unless gender culture eventually results in forcing people to pretend like there aren't differences which is the same coin but different side where the problem is concerned.

The problem society has faced is one of extremely firm boxing of what is one or the other and how it has resulted in social rejection of things not fitting into the arbitrary box. So it's a mistake to be too rigid where guys must like X and girls must like Y. But it's also a mistake to say that girls don't honestly trend towards liking Y on their own more than guys typically trend to like y on their own. Doing that doesn't only trivilize girls who do follow the norm of their sex as Bob pointed out but also fails to recognize possible differences.

Testosterone and Estrogen are a hell of a thing. They really do generally impact certain things in agreggate. And that's key. A girl can absolutely like manly things. Hell, my wife hates makeup and loves FPS games even more than I do. But norms are what drive business. The pink aisle exists not because of some guy in the sky trying to force gender roles on society. They exist because a lot of girls like those things. I would argue that there is a biological factor encouraging those things at play in addition to gender roles.

Success in allowing less rigid parameters for what guys and girls can like is a good thing. But failing to acknowledge trends and differences in the name of liberality is flawed and inhibits our ability to celebrate our differences and rely on the strengths that one group has more of on average than another and vice versa.

 

[MetalMagpie]

So, the main idea is that trying to break down gender stereotypes can be damaging to gays? Or, more specifically, men who show feminine characteristics? Damn, I think we should have started this cultural overhaul centuries ago, nowadays you can't fix anything without someone else getting screwed over.

I think the main idea is that attacking dolls and "pink stuff" is a bad way to break down gender stereotypes. Campaigns against gender stereotyping have a tendency to focus on getting girls interested in "boy things" and disregard the idea that boys might also benefit from being interested in "girl things". I've come across articles that really sneer at traditionally "girly" toys (such as dolls and playhouses), which is very unfair to all the people who do actually like that stuff!

His added point on the end is that it's potentially damaging to always portray "empowering female role-models" as essentially quite "masculine" characters (and conversely villains as quite "feminine" characters). It can send the message that traditionally "masculine" traits (such as physical prowess and a stern expression) are "good" traits and traditionally "feminine" traits (such as sensitivity and pride in appearance) are "bad" or "weak" traits.

TL;DR
- Telling girls that they must only play with dolls is bad.
- Telling girls that playing with dolls makes them weak and/or stupid is also bad.
- Telling girls that they are free to play with whatever the hell they want is good.

 

[Xanarch]

What's manly, what's feminine? Depends on the decade and who you're asking. The only thing that really matters is the definition of the person asking the question, and the answer they come up with only really matters to that selfsame person. Bit of a tautology, perhaps.

?If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.?

 

[Draconalis]

snip

I ran out of time, so I couldn't read the whole thing, but the mention of natural tendencies is certainly a point I was going to make.

Thanks for making it for me so I can get to running off to my EDH games.