Two Year Olds Love Shopping and Lines of Credit!

Since a post is long over-due, here's an essay I wrote for my WMST class about this toy called My Pretty Learning Purse made by Fisher Price 

     The aisles in toy stores are reflective of our culture’s ideas and assumptions of gender; girls and boys are separated by blue and pink and by action heroes and dolls. Our society views women and girls to be profoundly different than men and boys on some basis of biology. However, gender is not a biological imperative but rather a social one. Yet, companies create and market toys according to gendered assumptions.  A particular toy being marketed to children, specifically and obviously to girls, is comprised of a pink purse with a musical plastic zipper. I found this toy in my two-year old niece’s toy box. It is called My Pretty Learning Purse and is made by Fisher Price. The purse itself sports a smiling cartoon face on its front and is made from a soft material. The handle is labelled with numbers one through ten and allows the child to open the purse to retrieve the rest of the toy’s pink and purple accessories. These accessories consist of plastic cash, car keys, and jewellery as well as a fake tube of lipstick and a small mirror. The toy itself maintains stereotypes about gender, class and beauty.

            My Pretty Learning Purse assumes that girls are naturally inclined to love soft delicate colours and high-class lifestyles full of shopping and cosmetics. The toy fulfills rigid stereotypes based on the societal assumption that girls are just biologically hardwired to like “feminine” toys.  When selling and marketing toys such as this that exist within rigid dichotomies of boy-toys and girl-toys, the idea that gender is natural and fixed gets promoted to children. Teaching girls that they must fit into a narrow, Eurocentric and heterosexist view of femininity leads to society’s perpetuation of the lower status of women and girls. Children will likely assume that toys are separated by gender for a reason when they are bombarded with cultural products like this purse. Girls and boys are socially separated into two groups and toys that are mass-produced like this are reinforcing attempts to order society in a way that divides girls and boys at an early age. My Pretty Learning Purse restricts children’s full potentials by limiting their full exploration of interests that may or may not happen to cross the established gender boundaries.

This toy tries to bully young girls into believing that jewellery and makeup are of upmost importance in life. Such presumptions once again reinforce notions about how girls should behave or what girls should be interested in based on biologically determined factors. In addition, the level of exposure to pop culture is likely a main predictor for how gender myths become viewed as normal or natural in our society. Unfortunately, in today’s globalized world one cannot fathom a life that is not bombarded with some form of media. Pop culture is sending constant messages to remind the public to monitor their behaviour, and their children’s behaviour. They are reminded to examine their perceptions of themselves based on whether or not they are masculine or feminine enough. This toy, like many gendered toys, will only teach girls their socialized “place” in the world based on a patriarchal and andocentric view of reality. Why must we set up such boundaries for children, who are interested in exploring their world? Nevertheless, along with rigid gender role compliance, My Pretty Learning Purse also promotes an idea of class and status that falls directly in with notions of gender. 

            Two year olds do not typically drive cars or wear lipstick, so what about My Pretty Learning Purse is educational? The numbers on the handle could possibly satisfy the educational criteria of the toy, or perhaps the toddler will learn about responsible investments. Firstly, what is the basic purpose of a purse? According to everyone who carries a purse they are used to keep money, keys, and credit cards. Thus, the first class-related problem with this toy is that it assumes that everyone has pocket cash, a running car and a line of credit.  Not only does it assume this, but it presents an idea of economic normalcy to children; normalcy in its assumption that everyone has and that there are no have-nots. Children from low-income families or working class families may not understand or perceive any educational value in such a toy, nor should they have to. It is classist in that it assumes all families have a decent standard of living. This, like the gender component, naturalizes and normalizes one reality and ignores many others. It also maintains stereotypes of girls being dependent, money-hungry “gold diggers” who can’t help but nab a good sale. There may be some small indicator of financial independence within this toy, depending on how one looks at it, but the jewellery and lipstick really suggest stereotyping of women and girls. Furthermore, this purse illustrates the common image of the good girl.  The good girl is the popular girl – she fulfills her perceived roles in life, ones set up by a patriarchal society. The purse asserts that good girls are fashion-forward, middle-class and conventionally beautiful as deemed by Eurocentric views. The good girls are the ones who will carry credit cards and makeup and live happily ever after, according to the enforcers of gender roles. It should be no surprise then that the princess mentality, which has saturated the vocabulary of many young girls in the First World, is also reinforced by this pink purse of plastic wealth and status. The princess mentality assumes all girls are and should behave like princesses and be treated accordingly. The purse refuses to suggest any other reality that may or may not exist outside of the Eurocentric consumer culture that we live in. For instance, the jewellery in the purse is a pink bracelet, a prime indicator of heteronormativity and class-privilege; it does not and will not speak for all girls in the same way. Adult women who have jewellery are considered high-class and elegant in the West. Jewellery also indicates heternormativity by promoting middle-class perceptions of diamonds and commitment.  The only educational element is teaching girls how to be “normal” as deemed by our culture. This toy teaches girls to be feminine, heterosexual, beautiful, and middle class while simultaneously making it all appear natural and inevitable. Not only does My Pretty Learning Purse preserve gender roles and classism, it also promotes a standard of feminine and ideal beauty.

            With the rise of popular culture, girls are becoming continuously ambushed by images and unrealistic beauty standards. First of all, the language used in the title of the toy is vital for analysis. The title uses language that is crucial to ideas of gender and beauty.  The term “pretty” generally refers to a feminine, soft and nearly fragile assessment of beauty. Prettiness in our society translates into pink clothing and red-stained lips. Our culture lends the idea that pretty girls are light-skinned, wear clean and fashionable clothes and can afford jewellery.  Beauty, like gender and class, is a social grouping to some extent. The West tends to see those who are conventionally beautiful to be somehow superior to others or more deserving of opportunities. My Pretty Learning Purse wants girls to look pretty by giving them a plastic tube of lipstick and a mirror to practice with. Lipstick was invented by patriarchal forces to cause a woman’s lips to resemble a flushed vulva – or so the story goes. Lipstick was always a staple in the early days of Western capitalism as a sign of femininity. Femininity is seen as a sign of heterosexuality, which keeps women from looking “deviant” or like lesbians, who are wrongly perceived to be the antagonists of femininity and beauty. Young girls are told to dress pretty and wear makeup to attract boys and maintain an image of compliance with the status quo. Giving a child a lipstick tube shows them that women wear lipstick and other makeup, it is just a fact of life, it is normal. It also, like everything else, draws on class. Lipstick is a mass-consumed product, an unhealthy one at that, and likely is not of the same importance in other parts of the world. The mirror provided in the purse will assist girls on maintaining their beauty rituals, to make sure their lipstick is perfected and their hair looks acceptable. Girls are taught to constantly check their bodies for imperfections, possibly leading to body image problems and obsessions with bodily “perfection.” The pairing of a mirror and fake lipstick suggests that this toy is not intended to educate a child about money or lines of credit, but rather to reinforce stereotypes about gender, class and beauty.

Women and girls, as the social construction goes, are biologically fragile and subordinate. If a woman or girl does not fit the petite, feminine, light-skinned, and middle class criteria, they fail to meet the requirements for being treated like a human being. Fortunately, to save girls the trouble, large companies have created pseudo-educational toys to make sure girls never fail to learn about their position in society. These companies are attempting to teach girls to recognize that their sole purpose in life is to find and keep a husband. Girls are told act in strictly feminine ways and play with feminine toys like My Pretty Learning Purse to make sure they remain compliant, conventionally beautiful and heterosexual. A girl playing with “boy-toys” is seen as a “tomboy” and thus becomes a threat to the status quo. My Pretty Learning Purse is not a toy intended for real educational value; a few numbers and a zipper do not cover the real learning that goes into purse. The real learning happens from the social stereotypes that made this purse possible in the first place. Gender is taught to everyone and this purse aids in that education. Girls play with pink and purple toys, princess, dolls, and tea sets. They are assumed to be biologically inclined towards these items because they are girls. They learn stereotypes about class when they play with this purse. They learn that making lots of money and owning expensive things will increase their happiness and popularity. It teaches them that all other kids come from middle-class or upper middle-class families, own cars and have credit cards. The purse implies that girls are inclined to wear makeup and be overly conscious of their appearances. Boys are not provided with pocket mirrors or tubes of lipstick in their toys because boys are assumed to be hard-wired for playing with toy guns, going fishing or playing sports. This toy simply declares that all of these social constructions are true and inescapable. Girls learn that women carry purses so they can carry the items they need to maintain their place in society on a daily basis. Fortunately, the soothing music bellowing from the plastic zipper will ease the parent’s mind, fooling them into believing their child is learning how to be a responsible consumer.  In reality, this toy and others like it will teach girls that there is one “normal” way of life. You can only be truly happy and “normal” if you live within a high socioeconomic class, own lots of possessions, have feminine characteristics and appearances as well as light-skin and a husband. What better message to teach girls then to limit themselves to rigid gender boxes that are classist and sexist, that teach a girl that the most important things are shopping, status, beauty, male approval and pink fluffy things. After all, girls are just born that way.