Augh!

[doronjosama]

ldragoon pointed out the most Sexist Toys of 2007, and she linked to the Rose Petal Cottage commercial on YouTube.

Well, I just have to share: (in the cut)

Watch on YouTube

Gasp! A place of her own where she can dream, dream, dream... OF DOING LAUNDRY?! Are they fucking serious?! You have GOT to be shitting me. Because of course, a little girl only needs to dream about cleaning, baking, having babies and doing laundry. These commercials make me so mad, I want to punch every toy manufacturer in the world in the face.

Rose Petal Cottage... set your imagination FREE! (Provided you only imagine being a domestic...)

Commercials really influence kids a LOT, since they're so short they really catch the attention. Thank god there was a commercial out when I was a little girl that influenced me to think I could do anything and everything:

Watch on YouTube

Okay, sure, that probably wasn't the ACTUAL intent of the commercial, but that's the message I got. Make your own money! Take care of yourself! And oh yeah, you can still be sexy, too. Much better than that whole "you can imagine doing laundry!" bullshit. Bleah!

PS I think the idea of a playhouse for little kids is great, all kids like to pretend to be grownups and do grownup stuff like housekeeping, working, etc. What I have a problem with are these ads, which are sending a horribly sexist message. I also have an issue with the playhouse stuff being marketed solely as "little girl toys"- it's all pink and flowery and frilly, and deeply gender coded. I much prefer the old Little Tykes playhouse, which is red, yellow and blue, and gender neutral... because trust me, kids will play with any toys that are handy. This whole "these are for girls only/boys only" thing irks me deeply.

Comments

[redcoatcat.livejournal.com]

That REALLLY bothers me!
I agree if it was gender neutral, hey kids like doing adult things I know when I was a kid I thought the washing machine was endless fascinating.... Till I had to do my own laundry, then it sucked!

But message this has is all a little girl will ever want to do is spit out babies like a pez dispenser, decorate, bake and do household chores.
Where is Rose pedal Office for the Corporate girl, where she can throw a cell phone into the trash, move her desk around, look out her giant office window, and have a little photocopier/fax machine to kick when it doesn’t work?

=^,,^-