Gender101@Bowdoin: Barbie's Careers -
Last semester, during our Barbie discussion, a student mentioned how inspirational Barbie has been for young girls. The student’s main point - if I recall correctly - was that Barbie has taught girls that they can be whatever they want. So…I decided to do a bit of research into Barbie’s careers….
After reading this, I looked on Amazon for various Barbie computer games available for kids growing up in the computer age. Here is a quick summary of the results I uncovered:
Looking at both the computer games and dolls occupations list, I would definitely say that the list is a bit…limiting. There is a significantly higher number of games and occupations that are more stereotypically feminine, but there are also a couple of surprising careers, like detective, explorer, president, computer engineer, business executive, etc. Barbies are covering a wide range of careers that can be seen as very encouraging for young girls. Yes, some jobs such as professor, mathematician, or even scientist haven’t made it onto the list but on the whole I am encouraged. I am hoping that Mattel continues with this trend of expanding Barbie’s career choices to really demonstrate and teach girls that they can be whatever they want.
I’ve been teaching Gould’s “Baby X” story for several years now. Imagine my excitement when I came across this news story in May. Have you heard about or read about Baby Storm? Here’s another article where Kath & David (the parents) explain and defend their choice. Right here. What are your thoughts on raising a genderless child? Feel free to post some thoughts here. And let’s bring these thoughts into the classroom on Monday.
NOTE: to post your thoughts here, just click on the post and reblog it.
This reminds me of a story that a family friend told me. When the young daughter of a friend of theirs attended kindergarten, all she wanted to wear everyday to school as her Halloween princess costume. Every single day, no exceptions. Many kids and parents at the kindergarten thought it was weird that she refused to wear other outfits and even tried to get her to wear other clothes. The girl’s parents, however, didn’t care what their daughter wore and didn’t mind that their kid’s insistence on the princess outfit meant a doing laundry a few more times a week.
I find it fascinating how much society demands there to be a regulation of “normal” and “not normal.” I think the media’s interest in Storm’s biological sex (and subsequently gender identity) would be more likely to mess him/her up than the parents’ desire to keep Storm’s sex private. The constant pestering questions and pressure for Storm to identify him/herself might cause more of an identity crisis than if everyone calmly accepted the family’s decision for gender-neutral upbringing. I would be extremely interested to see how successful the family is in a few years’ time, and Storm’s perspective of the entire experience.