Pink is a social construct. A hundred years ago blue was considered a feminine color due to its associations with the sky, water, and Mary, where as pink was considered to be light red, a manly color associated with blood and war and passion.

That said, preschoolers are really into gender roles and social constructs. They'll often say things like, "Girls can't be doctors" even if their pediatrician is a lady. This is developmentally normal. Kids are learning to categorize, and they see the world in black and white. They are not as nuanced as adults are.

There are plenty of good books about Princesses if you want to go beyond the chivilric theme of damsel in distress.

The Paperbag Princess, Dove Isabeau, etc.

The other thing your friend could do is involve the kid in making the Princess dress, in planning and choosing fabric and helping cut and pin. Even three-year-olds can pin things. Learning a skill is good at any age.

Or they could get old cardboard boxes and paint them to look like stone and build a castle.

Maybe your friend would feel better if she used the Princess thing to teach arts and crafts.

When my daughter was very very small, she was the little pink princess. When she turned 10, she started to go tomboy, she loves science, hiking, outdoor activities. She wanted an archery set and she wants me to buy her a gun when she gets old enough to go to shooting ranges (a pink gun with my little pony characters on it, but a gun)

The idea that she is in some way oppressed by her desires or pigeonholed into a fixed place in life has never occured to her. She wants to go to Butler University as an Astronomy major and write books on the side.

She's never heard of feminism, doesn't need feminism, and when she starts learning about it when we get into modern history, she'll probably laugh at a lot of what started coming out from the 60s on.

It boggles my mind that any parent thinks about how to raise children from an anythingist perspective. Let your kids like what they like and encourage them to learn and explore, its the great irony of feminism that it tries to do to children the very thing it claims to oppose, to force children into roles whether they want those roles or not.

Like most of what passes for feminist 'thought' its deficient and moronic and oppresses itself far more effectively than any purported patriarchy they claim to revile.

I know that I've posted this here before; a friend of mine, the most anti-Barbie there is, told me she couldn't deny her daughter Barbie. She just couldn't. Being a mother was more important than any "ideology" she has. Her daughter loves Barbie and isn't denied that pleasure; but, my friend says that she feels guilty about it. (I really don't get some ideologies at all; what is there to feel guilty about?)

However, she really is a good person; just a little batty with her ideas sometimes. For example, she kept getting take-out coffee (usually from Starbucks) and then when she got home she would pour the coffee from the styrofoam cup into a ceramic mug as she felt it was more "ecological" to drink from the re-usable mug. That was what she did until I pointed out to her that in reality she was being more "un-ecological" as the styrofoam cup has already been "wasted" and now she also has an additional mug to wash. LOL! she said, now she just uses whatever cup the coffee comes in.

Given how she is open-minded I will share that "what if your son wants . ." story. I think she is going to have a good laugh and hopefully stop feeling guilty about letting her daughter play with Barbies. She is something of a mindless liberal feminist; but, at least she is willing to see other's viewpoints now and then.

Regardless of one's politics, I think a great idea for ALL parents is to tell kids that, aside from when adults ask: "What would would you like for your birthday" or "would you like a small treat," kids should be made to understand that whenever THEY ask for something that isn't for the whole family (e.g., not all parents like playing video games), THEY will pay for it. Same goes for an ice cream cone, etc.

If kids want to spend all their allowance/earnings on Barbies and toy guns (not the kind that look like real ones, for obvious reasons) let them. Chances are, they'll learn to ration their money according to their various enthusiasms - once they get over the horror of having the only parent who doesn't fork over on demand.

About female doctors: Sometimes little kids just don't quite understand the meaning of a word - though what NicoleK described is different from what I'm thinking of. Namely, when I was little, I thought "nurse" meant "woman doctor."

And finally, of course girls shouldn't be denied the joy of wearing dresses, pink or otherwise. However, that should not be an excuse to let them handicap themselves by, say, wearing dresses when certain tasks related to learning life skills demand the wearing of more practical clothing. We all need to learn skills we don't necessarily enjoy and should not be allowed to argue "I shouldn't have to learn this and/or it cramps my style." (Same goes for boys who may want to keep their clothes clean but shudder at the thought of wearing aprons or hairnets while cooking - or at the thought of learning to cook at all.)

I find it interesting that everyone is concerned with "gender oppression" for girls but not for boys.

In most homes, it's fine for a girl to wear pants or a dress/skirt. In most homes it is NOT fine for a boy to wear a skirt or dress. Yet, nobody is concerned about the matriarchy prohibiting boys from wearing skirts. Of course, that's probably because it's boys preventing boys from wearing skirts (social pressure). As bitchy as girls can be, even a fully nerd such as myself got no flak from non-nerd girls for all the science classes I took (or even the Latin I took). How many boys would have that social freedom with regards to a sewing or "Home Ec" class?

Yet, nobody is concerned about the matriarchy prohibiting boys from wearing skirts. Of course, that's probably because it's boys preventing boys from wearing skirts (social pressure).
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Given what you just said, why assume it's women who are to blame for that in the first place?

After all, in an age of fewer fathers, chances are that kids spend more time with other kids than with their busy mothers anyway.

Shannon: "How many boys would have that social freedom with regards to a sewing or "Home Ec" class?"

Good point; I'd like to point out that my mother made sure that my brothers and I knew how to do our own laundry, sewing, cooking, etc.

"You're the one playing the sport; so, you can wash your own dirty sports clothes."

or even:

"Everyone should know how to cook simple things, sew a button on, etc."

And when it came to doing yard work:

"well girls you enjoy the yard too. So, there is no reason for you to NOT help rake leaves, dig weeds out of the flower garden, etc."

To this day, I still suck at sewing on buttons; but, at least I know how and in a pinch will. For my first apartment, living on my own, I bought drapes on sale that were too long so I sewed them up to be shorter myself. I didn't feel any less of a man for doing so, just glad that I saved money by buying them on sale.

Being brought up that way I was rather surprised when I would be in someone else's home and see that their families did, in fact, divide chores by gender.

I always thought it was so unfair when high school female friends of mine would have to bake brownies or cookies for their brother's school clubs. I remember being really shocked to learn that my one friend's sister had to do HIS laundry. And he really had no clue how to operate the washing machine! He was really shocked when I showed him how to use the washer to "spin dry" our bathing suits to help them dry quicker on the line after swimming.

It makes me wonder if such nonsense started by parents doesn't lead to "gender wars" later in life for folks brought up that way.

Good article. I particularly like her pointing out that some assigned gender roles (boys and weapons, girls and homemaking)are represented worldwide. I now feel the need to try to find somewhere where this isn't the case.

And this: "In other words, the plasticized gender role expectations we find in the toy aisles of Target may be like the end of a telephone game where the start is our evolutionary history and our genes."

But in the end, for me, it comes down to this: A lot of us apparently just don't have enough to worry about.

Gender be damned. From Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Larry buys a birthday gift for a young boy who's somewhat effeminate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBmw_dvhnpk

I have a 4-year-old daughter and a 14-month-old son. They are complete and utter polar opposites. In EVERYTHING. You name it. My son is tall. My daughter is short. My daughter hates food. My son will eat anything you give him. My daughter has loved books since she could sit up. My son throws books. And on and on and on.

I love, love, love, having kids of both genders. I love my fashion-forward Princess of Pink and her rough, tough, ox of a brother.

It will be really interesting in the next few years, as my son really seems to adore his sister. I wonder if he will grow up playing with Barbies and wearing dresses just to be like her.

From an evolutionary perspective, Nature is a lazy -ass bitch. If men and women are supposed to be the same, there wouldn't BE men and women. There would be only one gender. So obviously we are meant to have different roles in life.

Really, Shannon? Most feminist households are all about letting boys wear dresses and play with dolls.

But you're right, in society at large boys and men have less choices than girls and women.

lenona,

My matriarchy comment was made to parallel the "patriarchy" comments coming from modern feminism. What I always hear from feminists is that the "patriarchy" is to blame - without any reason other than we can't blame women for women's problems. So, I was turning the question around to see how absurd it sounded.

NicoleK,

Yes, I'm sure they are (or modern feminist ones are anyway), but those kids still exist in society at large. My point was more that it is obvious what social pressures will play out on a guy who shows up to school in a dress regularly. None of the feminists seem to notice how much social pressure women assert on each other. The assumption is that it's all men's fault, and I was seeking to point out how much people of one's own gender can be influencing.

Let them chew on this:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Thought experiment: If gender is just a social construct, and there's no difference between the sexes except a few bits of flesh, then why would anyone bother with sex-change surgery? Surely the person afterwards is just the same as they were before.

Nice Heinlein reference! I tried to raise both my boys by that principle.

Nice Heinlein reference! I tried to raise both my boys by that principle.

To Shannon:

Personally, I'm in favor of avoiding, not just cliches, but many nouns in general, when debating. Doing so forces others to listen more closely.

E.g., if I were ever to use either noun, I would preface it with "a" and not "the." But again, I'd try not to use either noun in the first place.