There has been a lot of discussion lately in the “mommy” blog world about the way companies insert gender into their products and marketing. It prompted me to draw a cartoon about this.
Just recently, almost 50,000 thousand people signed a petition to,“Tell LEGO to stop selling out girls!” From Ms. Magazine, to The Wall Street Journal, to MCAF guest mommy blogger, Jessica Gottlieb, and Non-Toxic Kids; many consider the marketing campaign a “slap in the face” to girls.
I love doing cartoons with children talking because one can say a lot by putting words in kids’ mouths. Pink vs. blue; princesses vs. soldiers. It feels as though everyone is either/or, and subtlety is not something that exists. We are put into categories by the advertisers, and this can be observed in the media targeted at young children. The little girl speaking in this cartoon is already a victim of the marketers, whereas the little boy is not. He just happens to like pink, which he will soon find out is not “acceptable” for a little boy. He also appears to understand that not polluting is important—does that have a gender stereotype? Perhaps marketers are working on that as we speak.