Name three things that are wrong with this commercial.
My three:
1. She asks the bear to "try her muffin".
2. Doing laundry equals using her imagination.
3. A place for "her dream to have room to grow" includes a washer, dryer, oven, and bassinet.Where is her three piece suit, blackberry, and assistant?
Thanks Hendog.
Edit-- There is a new faster paced version of this commercial without the voice over.
4 comments:
Ok, bears eating muffins aside, that's the kind of toy I'd have wanted as a child. Even as a kindergartener, I recall gender fucking. I always wanted to play the mommy when we played house. Not because I felt more comfortable in the female role or because I felt like I was in the wrong skin, but because I felt it was unfair that only women got to play the role of mommy.
And yet as an adult, I take pride and joy in doing laundry, baking muffins for bears, cooking, rearranging furniture, and keeping house.
When I worked for a summer at Toys R Us, I recalled the most jarring toy I had ever experienced. I referred to it as "teen pregnancy barbie". It was only available in the black barbie coloring and featured barbie at work in McDonalds with her "kid sister" watching her work. I was rather appalled. Another jarring moment was when a black grandmother came to the store demanding a black toy for her grandchild that we did not have in stock. I questioned what difference the dye on the doll made to the child and she accused me of not understanding.
And some would suggest that these roles aren't ingrained in us from birth...
I know what you are saying. I played with a kitchen set just like this one. And I know that feminism (my version) is about having a choice to work or to be at home or to do both. I think the thing that pisses me off about this is that it is a purpetuation of the way a woman "should" be (read 1950s housewife that Betty Friedan was writing about).
Children's toys in general ingrain gender from birth. Think about the moms that put pink bows on babies so that we know that the ambigious little person is a girl. I feel that there is a great deal of social pressure to fulfill gender roles from birth
I'm at work so I couldn't watch the clip with sound but I did see this commercial on tv and was disgusted.
It makes it look like doing laundry is fun. I know Xaniath said he takes pride in doing the laundry, but really how fun is it? I see this commercial as a big set back for womyn. I mean we know that laundry is not fun and we're not total fuckups if we hate doing laundry but little girls all across America may, when they grow up, feel like if they hate laundry then they're a failure as a woman.
I see this commercial as major backlash. They're confining the female to the home.
But I must say, that I'm glad she was offering her muffin to a bear and not a boy! And the bear is wearing a pink ribbon!! The little girl is a total lipstick lesbian!!! Ahahaha!
I can see the creativity in decorating, cooking and baking, but doing laundry? I do laundry because it needs to be done, not because it sparks my imagination.
My Rose Petal Cottage would have a workout room where I can do my yoga, Pilates, and belly dancing. And it would have multi-media room where I can watch an episode of "American Idol" and then rush to my laptop to write my witty re-caps.
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