what the fuck?
In this frightening world, where a woman is a serious contender for the White House, Playskool offers a sweeter world, a better one, sort of a right wing fundamentalist's 1955 wet dream world where "Dreams Have Room to Grow!" Your very own Rose Petal Cottage. For little girls only, because "I Love When My Laundry Gets So Clean! Taking Care of my Home is a Dream, Dream, Dream!" By God, let's train up this next generation right. These uppity twats are getting completely out of hand. Let's put them right back where they belong: at home, doing the laundry, making muffins, what fucking bullshit.
Labels: fucked up toys for girls, rose petal cottage, wingnut wet dream
posted by BigAssBelle at 4:18 PM
26 Comments:
Dear Lord, Lynette. Please read the following article and weep:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/columnone/la-na-homemaking11oct11,1,3170211,full.story?coll=la-headlines-columnone
Oh Joe, as if I wasn't already feeling sick enough? that article . . . it makes me feel so, so sad. Ugh. What a waste. Fucking insane. But it makes sense, because I'm getting this feeling, from comments I hear out in the world, that we're stepping back, stepping back. I hear a lot more racist remarks from people these days. I think the rethugs are appealing to the basest of their base and the immigration craziness has everyone riled up. With us essentially having lost the Supreme Court, I don't know how far back we'll go, but I am convinced every right winger's dream is 1955.
Today Bush appointed a complete lunatic to head the agency responsible for family planning for the poor. She's AGAINST birth control. She's heading family planning. Am I losing my mind?? This nutcase says "insurance shouldn't cover contraceptives because fertility isn't a disease." WTF?? Can these wingnuts make up their fucking minds?? Just this week they've been all over the parents of a two year old because they had the baby when they were uninsured. So fertility isn't a disease, and we won't help you not get pregnant, but if you have a baby and need medical care, fuck you.
I just called my stepdaughter and told her I would kidnap my new granddaughter if she ever gets a fucking Rose Petal Cottage.
Lynette, I saw this commercial yesterday, too, and like you, I was appalled. But as much as I try to be the totally PC uncle to my nieces and nephews and buy as many non-gender specific toys for them as possible, the little runts are such cliches!!! My little niece wants nothing more than babydolls and carriages or anything that can remotely be construed as a purse and my nephew wants trucks, cars and sports equipment. And believe me, their parents come from the same PC stock as me--a lot of it's nature depsite the PC nurture...go figure.
In the 50s I craved a basketball and an Erector set. Instead I was awash in dolls and carriages. And that was ok, I loved my dolls. Playing with them didn't make me nurturing, though, or the slightest bit domestic. They were just toys. Played with rocks, too. Kids are versatile that way. They'll play with most anything.
Many of those Rose Petal Cottages will be abandoned by spring and in a few years their owners will be attached to a video game machine, maybe chasing soccer balls and dreaming of becoming lawyers.
And we have to call that progress. In the 1950s very few little girls even considered becoming lawyers. Maybe our generation fought for the right of that seminary twit to decide that she wants to spend her life fluffing doilies. It didn't occur to our mothers that there was a choice. For a trip back through time, catch a few episodes of Mad Men on AMC.
I have two nieces and two nephews. We can't really tell about the youngest yet (a boy), but the older boy and both girls are absolutely playing up to the gender roles that society has scripted for them. Which is okay -- I don't mind that my nieces are girly, but I would hate to think that girly will lead someday to subservient. Luckily, both girls are too old for the Rose Petal Fucking Cottage. Ugh.
Did you hear about the Barbie Liberation Army in San Francisco?
A few years back, they bought talking Barbies and G. I. Joes, and switched the voice boxes. Then they sneaked them back onto the store shelves.
Imagine the fun on Christmas morning when G. I. Joe said "Let's go shopping- will we ever have enough clothes?" and Barbie blurted out "Eat Lead!"
I saw that ad too and almost puked. i was sitting with my teen twin daughters and when it came on they looked at me, I looked at them, and we all just shook our heads. I guess I've done enough lecturing over the years that no words needed to be said.
I Love the "Don't ask, don't tell G.I. Joe!" and his friend, the "Alias" Barbie! I want me some of them.
Southern Baptistism isn't a religion, it's a cult. A really scary cult. Almost as scary as those Rose Petal Cottage commercials...
When I was an impressionable young boy, they gave me GI Joes and I LOVED them. And I grew up big and strong and butch and decisive. Which was a big help when I had to decide between all those colors for my school projects when I was getting my Interior Design degree...
And of course I still have a major thing for a hot guy in a uniform...
So yeah, I guess the conditioning worked! : )
Well I don't know about everyone else, but when I saw the Rose Petal Cottage, I said:
"OMG! When Can I MOVE IN?!?"
Mama needs a Rose Petal Cottage! The color scheme was a little to bright for me, but WE ALL KNOW what a little wallpaper can do. The little washing machine? Precious. All I need is a cute little floral apron from Anthropolie', my kitten heels, and a martini and I'm purring for days...
uh, "too Bright". Mama needs alzheimer meds as well. :)
Oh, and Kusala? That article was very frightening indeed! It was also pretty fucking funny...laundry for Christ, studying "lively dinner conversation", and how to set a perfect table... Too pathetic. It's just as bizaare as the FLDS freaks. God, save me from your people...
there's an article in the UK Guardian predicting this will be the season's hot seller. the point of it all, supposedly, is to take kids back to simpler toys that engage the imagination rather than simply keeping them mesmerized by electronic garbage. i'm all for that. i think it's the accompanying song that offends me as much as anything with this rose petal cottage.
michael, i LOVED my EZ Bake Oven as a child, and i found it great fun to learn to sew and cook and all of that at my mama's knee. but i also had a microscope and a chemistry kit, a water quality sampling system that my dad put together for me. i was encouraged to explore my creativity, to read books that were outside the realm of traditional childrens' literature. i don't care if a kid picks a rose petal cottage over a machine gun, i just wish there were some little boys in this mix somewhere. why can't there be a boy in this commercial helping wash the dishes or rock the baby or whatever?
eric, i don't care if kids follow traditional gender roles if they're given other options too. the cottage is precious. the idea of a little house all close up is too cute not to entice just about any kid. i think it's the stupid song as much as anything.
hotspringsmama ~ i'm afraid of being pushed back to a time where we had no other options. my mother's generation ~ they were trapped in their homes and for many, it was a horror. dependent on men, incapable of any other kind of life by virtue of such limited choices. there was a right way to do things and those who stepped out of bounds were smacked down. lots of women stashed away in loony bins in that era.
jeff ~ i remember reading about the militant Barbie people and it just cracked me up. thanks for reminding me. :-)
elizabeth, you've cheered me with your story of your twins looking at you and shaking their heads. yay!
john!!! laugh of the day from this: And I grew up big and strong and butch and decisive. Which was a big help when I had to decide between all those colors for my school projects when I was getting my Interior Design degree...
and tater . . . this kills me: All I need is a cute little floral apron from Anthropolie', my kitten heels, and a martini and I'm purring for days...
only you, honey. so sweet.
and yes, that article. still haunting me this morning.
Hey lady..do you mind if I post this at Sirens?
Damn good post woman!
do it, dusty. i'll get with you later about my failings :(
Not just baptists...MORMONS just installed a new Woman's Auxiliary leader, Julie Beck, who, in her FIRST speech to members world wide in their world conference in Salt Lake-Oct, spewed out instructions for women to return to the exact drivel women were taught in the 50's. She criticiaed "childless women", "career women", et al. It's causing quite a stir among Mormon women, but Lynette, you are 100% right. The fundamentalists are dragging this country backwards, and NOT ENOUGH people are fighting them...since our supreme rulers ARE fundamentalists. Atheists, Homos, all secular humans will become targets. I tell ya, we need to open a commune and get ready !!! Thanks for the post, I was apalled at the toys....but Do agree his Hot Momma...they'll have those on e-bay by next spring. It is the human Momma training that teaches kids.
Sorry if that article is gonna be haunting you or making you more depressed! Haha! I'll find one about strong women to counteract it.
I hear what hotspringsmama is saying about "maybe feminists fought for the right of those Southern Baptist twits to choose whether they want to be June Cleaver" and I think even they mention that in the article. Along the lines of "isn't wonderful that we have the CHOICE to go to law school OR be subservient little 'obedient' women."
But I can't help feeling like that's a perversion of the feminist goal of opening up the world to women and giving them "choice." I think this has been a big intellectual debate for the last 20 or 30 years. What does "choice" mean? Some have taken it so far as saying things like "Women can now choose to be porn actresses or high-priced call girls, or dress like whores or work at Hooters or enter wet-Tshirt contests if they want to... isn't it great!?" It's a whole "sex-is-power-if-we're-the-ones-calling-the-shots" attitude, which I can respect in theory, but when you see it in the real world, there's still that yuck factor of young women who are still pressured more than ever to be anorexic, get boob jobs, wear hoochie-clothing, talk in squeaky voices, etc.
Anyway, I'll stop my rant now. One other thing I would recommend though is reading through the 100+ reader comments attached to that article. Some are a hoot, and some want to make you just strangle the wingnuts!
Oh, and I'll be right there with Tater right there in the kitchen baking delicious desserts (hell with the muffins, little girl... we gotta get you a recipe for chocolate soufflé!). I SO wanted an Easy-Bake oven when I was a child, and I remember loving my playmate's Barbie Dream Home when I was in kindergarten. Reminds me, y'all MUST see the Belgian movie "My Life in Pink" (Ma Vie en Rose) if you haven't already. So bittersweet to the point of tears for many of us. Go on now, put it on all of your rental lists, everyone!
Joe, I had forgotten what a wonderful movie that was - I remember watching it (twice) on a flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong; I was so moved by the sweet ache and the sense of true "family" it portrayed. Not that "family" image put out by the fundamentalists or by Ben and the Boys at the Vactican who have seen fit to appoint an American Cardinal who covered up sex abuse cases in his diocese but a loving group of people who for all their faults care about and for each other.
Got to get me a copy of that.
Late to the party but yeah...what everyone else said!
Mark and I had this conversation this weekend when he told me about the new leader of the LDS Women's Auxiliary. It's scary enough that so many of these women adhere to the Mormon ideal of 'barefoot & pregnant" but to have the Women's Auxiliary leader get all heavy handed with the few that are trying to hold down a job to help pay for and educate their numerous children is just short of criminal.
Damn, that Rose Petal Cottage is bigger than our New York place.
That commericial wanted me to puke.
Back when I was a young'n, I begged, begged my parents for a Barbie Make-up Head. I ended up with a G.I. Joe, complete with fuzzy beard and masturbastion grip to play with instead. I'm not going to tell you what he did with/to Ken.
Sorry bad English - "made me want to puke." It's Friday and I want to leave work okay?
If that washer/dryer actually worked, I'd buy it to have in my apartment. It would just about fit.
What I find encouraging is that in each of the instances quoted here, it stirs up controversy WITHIN the consituency. At least people are thinking even when they're told not to.
Late to the party, as usual..
Well the smart folks have made with the insightful comments so I can only say that when I saw the commercial I was speechless, and Miss Thing turns to me and says "Please tell me this is some kind of parody, right Mom? Right??" She shakes her head and as she walks away she pipes up and asks "So, ya think they have a version with an optional pool boy?"
Someone in product development has spent too much time playing in the way back machine..
ditto all the smart folks' comments. And Tater, you're killing me, here.
I'm hurling over that rose petal cottage along with others.
My kids do like Elizabeth's -- they see this shit and point it out. Thankgawd. However, I must say that yes, my kids did go for the gender toys. The girls had a pink playhouse in the yard, and loved dolls. Teen Demon loved her Little Tykes kitchen and My Little Pony. Male Offspring loved trucks and 'dozers. BUT, the son also played in the playhouse, wore tutus and fake pearls playing dressup with his sisters, the girls had boy dolls and played cars with Male Offspring. But they did get sucked into the gender role crap.
I guess I'm saying those things can still be fun, as abhorrent as they seem to me, and kids can still come out ok on the other side. My kids all recognize that crap today, so I think if parents point it out all along, there can be balance.
But yeah, who develops this shit? Ah, there's the question.
I have to admit I found it all cloying as hell but you know that someones teddy or doll it going to wind up either in the washer or the oven. Face it, little girls tend to love dolls and pink. Little boys (even me when I was a tot, believe it or not) love toy trucks and cars. So later on I soooo wanted an easy bake oven and I mean Barbie was so cool because there were all those clothes. The good news is that kids just love to play, and the things might be intended as ovens and washer dryers, but with a childs imagination they can become anything.
As for the Southern Baptist Female Drone team, hey if that's what they want, you aren't going to change them. There are too many women out there in the work force for things to go back. It's just wishful thinking on their part.
What's even scarier than the designers and marketing people who thought up this detestful product is that there will be a market for this toy.
Aaarghh! Welcome to the stone age.
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