Thoughts about Princesses - Part 1

After awhile on a waiting list, I finally got the call from the library to pick up my reserved copy of Peggy Orenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter.

After reading commentary from many fellow bloggers and Mommies, I was super intrigued and knew I had to read it.

That said, I will preface with the fact that our house is not a princess-free zone. I don't have problems with princesses - or branded toys in general - as long as they are not the only toys in our house. I've really only started the book, so maybe I'll feel differently when I finish.

Early on in the book, Orenstein talks about they way toys, clothes, etc are now drenched in pink to make them "for girls." When I read this, I had to tie it to a blog because I had noticed a lot of this myself recently, and it was something I thought about writing about anyway.

Like princesses, I have no problem with pink. Miss Olive looks adorable dressed in pink, but she also looks just as cute in blue, red, yellow, green, black and any other color. She has a fair amount of pink in her wardrobe, but it is definitely NOT the dominant color. Not even close.

As for her toys, she has pink things, but they're sparse when looking at the big picture of all the toys taking over our house.

She has, among other things, a singing dog, shaped blocks for sorting, magnetic alphabet letters, and a toy laptop. Olivia's versions of all these toys are, for lack of a better description, rainbow colored - mainly primary reds, yellows, greens and blues. 

Until recently when shopping at Target, I never thought much about the colors of her toys. These items seemed gender neutral, not leaning toward one traditional gender role or the other, so I guess it made sense to me that their colors designated them as such.

But then, while shopping, I noticed a pink version of her Love to Play Puppy. "That's weird," I thought, but blew it off. 

Shortly after, I noticed at Meijer the pinkified version of her Baby's First Blocks.

I then started intentionally looking in toy aisles. Were companies really making toys pick just because girls are supposed to like pink?

After them finding pink and purple magnetic letters (really?), and - even more bothersome to be - multiple versions of pink toy laptops from VTech and LeapFrog (OK, so this one is purple, but close enough).

What gives? Are girls not supposed to play with things they don't look girly? Is it really necessary for a toy dog, blocks, the alphabet, a laptop and more to be "pretty" in order for us to want our daughters to have them? But boys toys just need to be smart or "learning toys," regardless of colors, to be deemed good?

I sure hope not. I'm glad our house has not become a pink nightmare just because we have a baby girl. I'm all for her playing with "girl" toys - babies, a kitchen, toy jewelry, etc. - just as long as she also has other toys to learn from - like her Spinnin' Speedway racecar track, her farm animal Jumperoo, and her Learning Table. 

It seems ridiculous to me to think that the Ladybug would or should like these things less because they're not pink. 

OK - done ranting.

Your thoughts ...

Would you prefer to buy a "girl" version of what would otherwise be a gender-neutral toy? 

What about getting the pinkified versions of toys for your son?

Does over-pinking our daughters teach them to see the world in a "be pink and delicate" kind of way?