There was a discussion about gaming a day or so ago, and it mentioned “Barbies Horse Adventure”
Which lead me to remember a tumblr post about how girls played with Barbies as a kid. And “The Dead Pit”
https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/94rzhu/all_hail_the_dead_pit/
You have to read the entire thread, because it definitely puts paid to the idea of “sugar and spice and all things nice”…
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I thought it was hilarious
It is hilarious.
I had several Barbies. I don’t really know why or where they came from. But I always thought the stereotypical way of playing with them was boring as shit. Luckily I also had all four TMNTs plus extras, some MLPonies and a bunch of plastic dinosaurs. So my Barbies were always being kidnapped by dinosaurs and saved by turtles riding on ponies. Because, and I quote my socially awkward as fuck self, “you don’t know what to say” when you’re doing the stereotypical thing with tea parties and all that.
Yes, I realise how deeply heteronormative it is to have the “girls” be saved by the “boys”, don’t at me, I was 6.
Edit: I should probably mention that I’m a cis woman and those Barbies thus probably came from well-meaning relatives.
I remember this joke from the TV show “Dharma and Greg.”
Dharma was the adult daughter of two hippies. They were talking about toys and Dharma says that her parents wanted her to grow up without gender roles. All her toys were nongendered. Her favorites were her soccer ball “Barbie” and her dump truck “Ken.”
lol my childhood was the opposite, I had ALL the gendered stuff and ran around as a knight with a glowy sword one day and as a princess the next.
(Deep thoughts about the gender binary coming in, feel free to skip) Now I wonder if my parents would’ve objected in any way if I was a boy. There is after all a certain misogynistic notion that it’s fine for girls to be a bit boyish and “not like the other girls” because boy = good and male = standard. Whereas it’s degrading for a boy to be girlish in any way because girl = weak. … I don’t like thinking about my parents like that, they were just happy I was interested in all kinds of things.
I think it was Wanda Sykes [I have no original thoughts, I just repeat jokes] who made this joke.
A woman can wear a men’s suit with a tie and people will say she’s being fashion forward.
If a man wears a pink shirt he’s deeply suspicious.
I realise how deeply heteronormative it is to have the “girls” be saved by the “boys”
As an uncle to several exclusively female children, I have been struck by how hard the little girls push traditional gender roles during play time. I’ve never seen any of their parents support such a thing, but the second the dolls come out it’s “I’m a princess and you have to save me” or “Oh, what if you just saw that she’s a pretty girl and you want to marry her!” If I put short hair on a girl doll they become incensed. Playing the Life video game I had my girl character marry a girl and that did not go over well. Her mom told me “I explained same sex relationships to her so I don’t know where this is coming from.”
Of course this is overshadowed by the unhinged narratives they construct. After saving the princess from the tower, there is usually an episode of unspeakable horror I was unprepared for. One of them has this character she calls “Knife Baby”. It’s a life sized baby doll she has taped a knife to, and we have to take care of the baby because it’s a baby and too young to be tried for its crimes, but it constantly hungers for violence. We’ll walk it around in a stroller and slowly the other dolls will disappear until I notice and ask, then I learn “Oh Knife Baby has been killing the others and burying the bodies.” I thought we were just out for a nice walk.
Ha love this.
