Beyond Pink and Blue

My chapter entitled Beyond Pink and Blue focuses on a fourth grade class who become fired up about Pottery Barn's gender sterotypes.    The section starts off in Ms. Cooleys 4th grade class and how upset and offended they are because the  Pottery Barn magazine has categorized and sterotyped boys vs. girls.  Boys are blue and girls are everything pink.  Ms. Cooley had been teaching the students to locate sterotypes in their enviornment and work toward changing the attitudes of those involved as well as understanding how sterotypes are created and reinforced .  By the end of the school year they, as a class, had written letters to the president of Pottery Barn about their concerns, such as; boys not just girls should be depicted in the magazine playing with dolls and stuffed animals, and the boys rooms showed sports trophies and no books.  They were pleasantly surprised to receive a letter back from the President thanking them and stating that changes would occur in their magazine.  But as Ms. Cooley told them, change is slow so be patient. 

   What I enjoyed about this section of the book is how Ms. Cooleys class was able to distinguish the "cycles of oppression that creates and reinforces sterotypes".  Their passion about this injustice was refreshing.  Too often mainstream America, after seeing certain things over and over, come to believe that is the way it should be.  We become desensitized to the inequality and sterotypes in the media.  The chapter points out that consumers are surrounded by messages that reinforce these sterotypes (boys can't play with dolls was the example given).  But what is even more interesting is that the family, mom and dad, are victims of this sterotype saturation and come to believe that media and advertising know best.  There was a story in the section that told of a boy who wanted a doll, but he was teased by friends and FAMILY, because it wasn't seen in mainstream ads.  His family (parents) refused to buy their son a doll, only his grandmother came to his resuce and gave the boy what he deisred and was the only one not hung up on whats "normal".   Are we as consumers victims or are we willing accomplices who reinforce sterotypes in our society?

   The class also learned about the sterotypes of what is considered a "normal" family and how, in most literature, and media and advertisements, the "traditional" family still consists of a mom and dad as the head of the house.  The students were introduced to a couple of books that shattered the idea of what/ how a family is made up today.  This is still the slowest change to take place in media and advertising, the different ways families are made up today, be it 2 moms, or 2 dads, single parents or being raised by grandparents.  Me feelings toward this are mixed.  I am a single mom by choice.  I have always been  in favor of and a supporter of  the "traditional" family, mom and dad, but I unfortunatley did not meet my Mr. Right.  This is how I grew up and it worked very well.  It was all I was surrounded by growing up, friends in a 2 parent household.   There is something to be said for the traditional 2 parent household.  Is it my imagination or did America seem better when that was the norm?  We seem to be a very divided and segregated nation today constantly at odds with what is different.  I do understand why stores and businessess continue to depict what they sense is the "traditional' family, because that is what, I believe, mainstream America wants. 

   I recently received the summer 2012 Potter Barn kids book and am happy to see some changes, like books in the boys rooms and the boys actually reading them, but like Ms. Cooley told her students change is slow.  I'll prove it to you tomorrow.