This reminds me of my recent trip to Toys R Us to find a present for my 7 yr old cousin. i was appalled, but not really surprised to find small model kitchens and cleaning sets (brooms, vacuums, dusters, and irons) all marketed towards little girls in pretty pink packaging with something along the lines of 'now you can be an amiable little housewife with no other aspirations other than to cook and clean for your husband :) :) :)'

sickening. and its ingrained at such a young age *sigh*. im glad i rejected barbies and played with transformers and lego when i was a little girl.

Well, I don't think any little girl will want to kiss a frog. So the prince, most likely, will have to remain a nice pet for the girl's amusement. :)

My roommate and I were just scoffing at this commercial during Heroes! It's so absurd, it's almost like a parody.

I'm not sure if it's this ad for the Rose Petal Dream Cottage or the other one without the singing that contains the line about her stretching her imagination while showing the little girl doing laundry. But soon after this ad, there was an ad for this block set with a little table on which to build - a little boy was playing with the multicolor blocks and, according to the voiceover, exploring his imagination. Interesting.

When my brother was younger, he wanted a toy kitchen and vacuum and Power Ranger action figures. I loved my Barbies and everything pink, but I was also really into building forts in the woods. The little three year old boy I watch now just got a toy kitchen and toy tool set for his birthday, and he loves both. I wish toy makers would realize that their toys don't have to be aimed at only one gender in order to sell.

Just imagine if these type of toys were marketed toward boys. Oh man, we'd never hear the end of it and all the feminists would get blamed for attempted brainwashing of young boys. Oh yes, homosexuals would get blamed too in some sort of conspiracy to turn boys gay (because if your a male who likes to clean and cook that somehow makes you "gay.")

I don't know what's wrong with toy makers right now. I had a bunch of the fisherprice house stuff when I was little (kitchen set, vacuum cleaner, etc) and I they were always in bright bold colors with both girls and boys playing with them on the ads I saw for them. What's up with all the pastel and flowers? And the house overflowing with housework stuff... it just feels like something I'd see in a parody skit.

When I was little, $200 bought a much bigger (and more durable) toy house.

Inflation over the past 20 years aside, the shaping of children into decidedly gendered beings as early as possible doesn't seem to have changed that much. If it isn't the manufacturer making Barbie say "math is hard!", it's the adult who believes that a girl needs a doll and a boy needs a toy gun.

Anyhow, the lily princess cottage whatever the hell is creepy.

What I don't get with sweet lily castle is why it still has a baby bed in it. It's suppose to have a dress up fairy tale focus, so why keep the cradle and such? There aren't even many fairy tales that have babies in them are there? I mean as a semi-major part of the story. The only one I can think of is Rumpelstiltskin.

And it wasn't fisher-price I remember, it's little tikes. Their products are still all marketed towards both sexes, the sports sets, kitchen sets, and workshop sets. In fact they're practically the only company I've seen that are, sadly. I did a quick look on amazon.

I will always maintain that Legos are the best toys for kids of any gender.

Wow. These are so egregiously sexist you do have to wonder if they're even playing it straight.

I bought my SO's little half sister Duplos for Xmas.
And Totoro another year. Sure there's female cooking but the father stays at home all day, and the other "Caretaker" character is a grandmother who is (gasp) not related to the family!!
Then I bought her a musical instrument set the next time around.

Pink is so creepy sometimes.

lenady_s: "What's up with all the pastel and flowers?"

So when girls puke all over these awful 'play sets', it blends in.

":I had a bunch of the fisherprice house stuff when I was little (kitchen set, vacuum cleaner, etc) and I they were always in bright bold colors with both girls and boys playing with them on the ads I saw for them."

same. and i guess it was little tykes but same diff. my sister and i had a kitchen set thing and it was like white and green mostly i think and not super girly. we never would have liked it if it was pink, dollars to donuts.

anyway i played with barbies too, but i really liked not just dressing them up, but making them act out stories. my barbies were always like, rockstars or journalists or international spies. and ok, they had great (in my twisted 80s madonna-infected mind) outfits and fun hair and all that, but the main thing was that barbie was grown up and fabulous and ken NEVER got to drive the ferrari. so yeah, barbie and probably dolls generally aren't entirely dangerous, depending on how they're used. beauty standards is a whole other kettle of fish though, i realize.

what i never liked at all was playing with baby dolls. i just didn't see what on earth i was supposed to do with them.

Filth. That's my opinion of this "toy" and its marketing scheme.

Children are parked in front of the T.V. as young as one year old. They absorb all of the binary gender propoganda being pumped into them from all quarters.

And gender essentialists can still stand, unblushing, before the world and assert that gender roles are "biological" and "evolutionary" and that "women are natural nurturers and homemakers."

Forget the Axis of Evil; we have dastardly evildoers in our very living rooms. Advertising, media and entertainment's aggressive advancement of gender roles fits my definition of "evil."

I don't even know how I keep from screaming sometimes.

All, all the furniture a girl ever needs: a baby crib, stove and washer dryer combo...

Don't get me wrong, I had a play kitchen as a kid- but it was white and yellow and I played there WITH MY BROTHER. And there were boys and girls on the packaging. It was just supposed to be pretend, not a gender training center for the housewives of tomorrow.

There is a channel called Sprout on cable that shows programs from PBS. This is now one of the commercials they play. Yeah, now my kid cannot even watch Sesame Street without being bombarded with sexist advertising! I thought the disposable diaper ads were bad enough (we use cloth), but this crap?

In addition to this I was planning on building my daughter a play kitchen for her birthday this year because she had a really good time pretending to eat and drink from plastic cups at a friend's house. So I thought for her birthday I would ask people to buy her kitchen related toys. Now I am second guessing all of this. What if people buy her pretty pink vacuums or even worse actually buy her the darn rose petal cottage! I could totally see someone in her dad's family doing that!

My kitchen set had a fake brick wall and I remember the "sink" being red... and my microwave was an old one that didn't work anymore. I played with Barbies... I LOVED Barbie. Now that I'm older, I see that some of my self image issues as a young child could be attributed to my devotion to such a distorted doll...

... but a lot of my Barbies were lesbians. Anyone else?

I don't have kids yet, but I can't imagine trying to force them into gender roles. I think the more creative outlets (lots of paints, instruments, etc) is the best way to go. Yes, this includes Legos :)

I was tolerable of the play set until the laundry machine came into play.

I heard a lot of these places are getting foreclosed on.

@norbizness

ROFL!

Well, I remember, at that age, begging for a fake washing machine for some reason (not much you can do except stick stuff in it. I think I covered mine in glitter).

Other than that, play homes and such sets are things I associate with doctors' offices and the like... and from my memory... The one at the dentist was actually a big unisex kitchen (had more things than my kitchen at home!), and there was a teeny sorta house playset at the shoe store that was more garden oriented.

Sure, kids love to play house, but don't the kids normally decide for themselves what their house "needs?" Through toys, we encourage the things our kids imagine.

I think it's healthy for sons and daughters to emulate their parents who have to do chores such as wash laundry, take care of a younger sibling, cook food, etc.

However, it is problematic when parents only encourage such necessary household work (play?) with their daughters.

All genders need to be encouraged to do chores. It trains them for the "real" world, where mommy/daddy won't be there to do these things for them.

I agree with AnyGirl. I think it's common and healthy for little kids to play with the tools of grown-up chores (seriously, age eight is probably the last time I thought cleaning was fun!). Just last week, I saw a little boy at the store, whose mom told him he could pick a toy for himself, choose a rake.

What's not healthy but is unfortunately common is for toys to be marketed to one gender or the other. I think you're way better able to grow into a well-rounded, healthy adult if you play with a wide variety of toys.

And my play kitchen was yellow! And my Barbies were usually of the early-90s "career girl" variety--journalist, rock star, CEO. Ken existed to wear Barbie's evening gowns. And I loved my baby dolls and toy cars. And it makes me sad that there are parents who would discourage a lot of that in their children.

Did anyone notice the Dodge truck commercial followed by the Macy's commercial with Clinton Kelly that also aired during Heroes?

The Dodge commercial was for some competition they're doing with manly men who drive Dodge trucks. Because they're manly and manly men need the biggest, most bad ass truck money can buy. And they need to off road it, in a competition with other manly men, to prove how manly they are. (http://www.dodge.com/en/2009/ram_1500/ramchallenge/?bid=1758118&adid=207946583&pid=30092821&KWNM=dodge%20commercial&KWID=146195929)

I've seen the Macy's ad many times. A woman is going to speed dating or on a blind date or somewhere looking for a man but looks to 'frumpy' to make a good impression. So Clinton Kelly makes her over at Macy's cause she can get everything there: shoes, bag, dress, and even perfume from Jessica Simpson.

Having these two ads run side by side made it all the more noticeable to me how gender stereotyped they are. I also thought it was interesting that these two ads and the Rose Petal Cottage ad played during the same hour of television. I guess the Heroes audience must be rather varied.

brainwashing little girls into submissive women!!!

NICE!!!!!

MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!

Magic Cabin is a good place for more gender-neutral play sets, doll houses, dolls, and other toys. I have gotten my son cleaning tools there and I am tempted to get the kitchen set as he loves to play house. However, I am a little afraid the realistic toys will stifle his imagination. He can use a box as a sink/washing machine/time machine/dinosaur now. I don't think a $200 piece of wood can compete.

dhsredhead,

I think that's a great gift! Unfortunately, IMO, the gender roles indoctrination in this society is so intensive, so relentless, and begins so early in life (see my post above), that I would steer clear of providing my daughter with a domestic playground, just as I might not offer my son a "workshop" or "tool" plaything, either. They're going to get more than enough of the same from TV, movies, ads, and peers who have been given the Rose Petal Cottage and brag about it.

Here is my idea for what I would build my daughter (If I had the skills to build anything, which I don't):

--a castle with a drawbridge (and an imaginary moat!)
-- a tiny mini-stable with stalls that you can put a toy horse in (include brushes to groom the toy)
--a coffee shop (this would allow her to play with cups and saucers and such as she wants to, but without the domestic labor backdrop that she will inevitably get from 137 other sources around her).
--an office with a little desk, paper, pens (okay, and crayons), a toy phone, a toy computer screen.
-- a chemist's shop with various (plastic, of course) containers and liquids for mixing
-- a sorceress' workshop--same as the chemist shop only with a fantasy aesthetic

I want to make clear that I have nothing against girls playing with domestic things per se or boys playing with car, scientific or "building" things per se. I myself love cooking and gardening and cook for my (male) partner (he also cooks for me a lot too, though).

But, I don't think the toy I make for my daughter needs to become 1 of 137 domestic-themed messages being aggressively targeted towards her. Ditto the toy I make my boy becoming 1 of 137 building- or car-themed messages being agressively targeted towards him.

The past couple of posts totally remind me of two of my absolute favorite toys as a child (for which my family still teases me): the boxes my mom's dishes came in and the "Ms. JessicaF." name plaque for my desk. nestra's point is well-made: children will play with anything, and the less rigidly defined a toy is, the more use (and imagination) a child will get from it.

I think the other commercial is even worse. where the voice over states that a girl can "entertain her imagination" and then it shows a little girl doing laundry. How does doing simulated domestic work foster a sense of imagination? What, just because she is not actually cleaning the clothes makes it imaginary? I think this also offends women's sense of imagination.

Warning: Any development of magical powers after spending time in Magic Cabin is purely coincidental.

Well, the cottage was charming, but that muffin didn't look very appetizing.

Thank god my parents let me do what i wanted when i was little and didn't insist I play with "girl" things. I had my share of dolls, but I was big into Ninja Turtles, k-nex, cars, transformers and legos. This commercial would be laughable if it didnt makes me want to cry myself to sleep. My daughter (if I should have one) will NOT EVER play with something that can be equated to chores.

Also, Tonka is freaking notorious for this kind of gender targetting crap. Lets remember ladies "boys are different"

Honestly I think these appeals are to parents who feel feeding these societal roles to their children is just so cute.

My niece is 3 1/2 years old and is already an absolute "girly girl." She adores the color pink (especially for clothes), she can't get enough princess dresses to wear (complete with wigs), and I fear the day when she starts longing for toys of this nature.

I long to be her favorite feminist aunt who brings a new perspective to any situation and I feel this is even more important b/c her parents are pretty traditional in their gender role assignments.

I don't know how to try to expand her interest outside of the traditional box that it is already being shaped into. It is doubly difficult to do this considering I'd like to engage her in a way that doesn't require buying her new things constantly.

Any suggestions would be helpful :)

@okra - I love the coffee shop idea! That would have been great: cooking *and* playing shop *and* feeding vile things to tolerant adults.