Snips and Snails

I've noticed a disgusting trend has been growing since the 1920s:

EVERYTHING that is intended for girls is in pink or pastels

EVERYTHING that is intended for boys is in blue or primary colors.

Nursery items are in taupes and grays.

I find this disgusting because YEARS of child development research by Franklin and Zenter* has shown that ALL babies prefer PRIMARY colors.

That would be Red, Blue, and Yellow (though Green is allowable because it's a primary light hue).

In fact, it's critical for proper brain development to have primary colors.  Pastels and gray hues do not allow for the infant brain to develop properly.

SO WHY DO PEOPLE BUY THESE DRAB COLORS FOR THEIR BABIES!?

and more to the point:

Why do you force a girl to have pink and pastels instead of primary colors?!?

There is actual research by these famous developmental scientists showing that babies who are exposed to primary colors learn faster and read faster.  Those who are given pastels do not engage in the world well and have difficultly learning the basics.

So, basically, society is setting up women, well, girls, to fail by preventing them from having the enriching childhood that boys are given.  I find this particularly sickening because girls learn faster and develop faster than boys.

They also, statistically, out live boys.

But, believe it or not, I frankly don't care what gender your child is- I think you should be looking for the best opportunities that you can give them.  The most enriching toys, the most promising educational option...

In this line of thinking, I purchased a knock off of Lego Duplo blocks called Mega Bloks.  They work almost as well as Duplos- same bright primary colors and most of the same shapes.  There are cute little pictures of toddlers (two boys and a girl) playing with the blocks on the packaging.

Then I opened up the packaging.

There are four toy figurines that come with the set.  While one could hardly say that Duplos are gender specific toys, ALL FOUR OF THE FIGURES ARE MALE.

I find this disturbing.

But what I found more disturbing was that there is actually a "girls" set of these Mega Bloks- they are pink and purple.

Oh Joy!  Just think of the monochromatic shapes we can make.

Now, I didn't purchase the "girls" set because the whole idea is LAME!  My sister has Duplos as a kid and they were the primary colors.  The thought of only presenting toys in pinks and purples to my kid because she's a girl really upsets me.  So, again, while I didn't purchase the "girls" set of Mega Bloks, I'm just betting that all of the figurines in that set are female.

I have to really smack this company and this toy for the obvious gender bias that they're perpetuating with these blocks.  But I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Any educational toy manufacturer ought to be ashamed of using misspelled words in its product title.


*Franklin, A., Bevis, L., Ling, Y., & Hurlbert, A. (2010). Biological components of color preference
in infancy. Developmental Science, 21, 346–354.
Franklin, A., Pitchford, N., Hart, L., Davies, I. R., Clausse, S., & Jennings, S. (2008). Salience of
primary and secondary colours in infancy. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 26,
471–483.Zentner,
 M. R. (2001). Preferences for colours and colour-emotion combinations in early
childhood. Developmental Science, 4, 389–398