Barbie Vs. Hotwheels: Who Decides These Gender Lines For Our Children?

Barbie Vs. Hotwheels, Blue Vs. Pink, Soccer Balls Vs. Fairy Wings…who decides what belongs to whom, and how are our children picking this up these gender lines so easily?

A few months back, the elder munchkin of the house declared, ”We do not play with girls…they are the Barbie gang.” Horrified by his statement the detective in me was curious to find out all the details of this case.

All I could think was… Really! 6 yr olds having their so-called gangs?

Upon asking him further I got to know that the self proclaimed kings had named their gang Hotwheels as that was what matched their personalities – fast, furious (well this generation is) and trendy. Why Barbie for the girls? Well, they always talk about them and play with dolls, they wear Pink which is so not done and have Barbie cakes for their birthdays, came the answer bang on…

Like any other mother, I also gave my piece of gyaan and tried to enlighten the Hotwheeler about gender equality, the importance of co-playing and wrapped up the discussion feeling great about myself.

Little did I know that one day I will have a daughter of my own and the above incident would leave a mark somewhere to an extent that I would want to write about it.

Let’s analyse this together. On my baby shower, the cake said ”Pink or Blue, We are waiting for you”. Hey! No offence to my lovely friends who had put this all together but the journey on the pink or blue track starts right here.

Every evening when I look down the window and see children playing, I can see just a few girls playing cricket or soccer with the boys. So the question is, who feeds their mind with what games to play and with whom? Now come on, don’t we tell them bursting with joy that they have got a new friend of the same gender when someone shifts into the same apartment as yours and you figure out that they have a son of the same age as yours or a daughter who can be your daughter’s new bestie?

Now why pink for girls and blue for boys? Don’t little girls look pretty in a powder blue dress or a black dress? Have we ever tried making our boys wear pink to see whether they also look cute and handsome in it? Pink gets tagged with femininity and compassion and blue tags itself so well with strength and power that sometimes, the pink completely vanishes from the blue, making it black forever.

So while shopping we make sure that we do not leave aside any pretty pink dress or a pink bow for our daughters or dare buy a pink tee or pink pants for our sonny boys. The pretty fairy pink fairy wings that every girl wants to wear on her birthday gets attached to her forever and spreads out further when she grows up to be a wife or mother, giving her loads of responsibilities for free but the blue in our boys sometimes changes and gives them the feeling that they are born only to do the ‘white collar jobs’ whether it is at home or the workplace. Do we still want this state of things for the next generation?

Give it a thought, it’s all in our minds…all this and more while I am busy choosing the colour for dressing up Jr.

Image via Pixabay

First published at author’s blog.

Shano Singh

A mother of two munchkins, I took a sanyaas from the corporate long back but

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