Kinder Eggs have decided to introduce a new 'Surprise' egg, one set is blue, the other pink. As you can guess the blue eggs are filled with racing cars and the pink eggs filled with dolls etc. They have been criticised beyond belief for this 'gender stereotyping', now they may be generalising creative play a little with these toys, but ultimately a child can choose whichever egg they desire. A little girl may want to race cars that day or a little boy may need a purple pony for his collection, it is not Kinder that has stereotyped gender but it is in fact fear in parents that their little boy or girl may pick the 'wrong' colour.
Gender stereotyping has always been and will always be a big part of our culture....and its ridiculous, especially in children. One of my favourite books of all time is 'Raising My Rainbow' by Lori Duron, its all things fabulous and not so fabulous about raising her gender creative son, who loves to play dress up and is in the constant company of a barbie, the book was stemmed from her blog written to initially reach out to other parents in the same situation. She highlights the underlying problem with gender creativity and that is 'If my son plays with barbies is he gay?', there thats it, it is that simple, in fact that is probably what is running through a mothers mind right now as her darling son chooses a pink kinder surprise egg at the local shop! Sex and gender are not to be confused, they are two separate entities.
Lori Duron's 'Raising My Rainbow' Blog is available at: http://raisingmyrainbow.com
Now I am not raising a gender creative child by any means, but I do work in the early years and I think that it is equally important for boys to play in the home corner as it is for girls to play with construction toys. How many of our fellow girls have been a 'Tom Boy' for some part of their lives, I know I did and I had a gang of other 'Tom Boys' to play with! But how many of us know guys that come out and say 'I had a fairy phase' or 'Yeah I loved barbies as a child', not many, if not none.
“I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music. They just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male.” Kurt Cobain.
The most important thing is to raise confident children, does it matter what toys they play with and what colour those toys are?
AN: There is no scientific link between gender-varient/gender-creative children and homosexuality.
