Presents

[ladyofastolat]

Have any of the "hers" around here ever seen anything in the "For Her" section of a Christmas gift catalogue that they would actually want for Christmas? Am I totally out of synch with British womanhood in not longing for moisturiser or bubble bath or curling tongs? At least the men are allowed gadgets and toys, as well as aftershave. I saw one place that was advertising a gift of a magazine subscriptions, and the "for her" selection was entirely women's magazines, while the men were allowed computer games, films, cameras etc. Men are allowed to be interested in things and to do things. Women are only allowed to be interested in beauty and celebrity gossip. It is most annoying. Does it reflect reality, I wonder? I doubt it.

Though speaking of hims, a certain him I know has given me his Christmas list. It includes a full set of fourteenth century armour, an anvil (small), a halberd, a spear things, longsword wasters, and a gambeson. Aftershave would be easier to obtain.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I don't think we're gender neutral in this society. More so than 50 years ago, yes. More so than other cultures in the world? I don't have the necessary information. But it sometimes seems to me that we're getting less gender neutral by the year.

When I do library events, a hundred percent of the little girls turn up wearing pink, all covered with bows and ribbons. When I was 8, my friends and I all dressed in trousers and detested pink. We refused to do anything that seemed "girly", but I hardly ever meet a little girl nowadays who thinks like this. Children's books aimed at the 5 - 9 market are almost entirely "girls'" (pink covers, with fairies and princesses) or "boys'", with no overlap. It wasn't like that five years ago.

And ten years ago, there were a few women's magazines. Now there are millions of "women's" magazines, and lots of "men's" one, too. I've read lots of TV critics going on about how few TV dramas there are now for men - i.e. assuming that all drama is aimed either at women or men. I don't remember seeing that sort of thing being written five years ago.

One could argue that such things are trivial, and it's far more important to judge these things on the number of women in management roles, etc. But I think things like clothes, reading matter, films etc. can say a lot about how society views an issue. And until a man can go to work in a dress, without anyone thinking any less of him, I don't think we have a gender neutral society.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Hm, well your view of small-girlhood is certainly more up to date than mine.

I will, however, now admit that when I was about 6 (probably not 8) I would have loved pink frilly things, but I would never have had the nerve to admit it at the time, because that would have been seriously uncool.

I'm not sure the magazine market indicates anything other than very short-term trends.

The other day I sadly observed that where 10 years ago there would have been a choice of about 7 or 8 gardening magazines, all with interesting seeds or bulbs or something on the cover, there are now just a couple if you are lucky, and they are full of sad articles about the loss of allotments, the trend to ever smaller gardens, and fighting back against the trend for paving everything. I really, really hope that this is something we will see swing back the other way in the next 10 years or so.

There are far fewer Internet mags than there were, but that definitely doesn't indicate a decrease in interest: it's just that most of the stuff has gone online.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I think that's what's changed - that when we were 6, pink was "uncool" (or whatever word we used back then), but now it's "cool", for little girls. Though I suppose all that will have changed again in a few years. These things go in cycles.

Interesting point, too, about how some magazines have vanished because the content has all gone online. I wonder if, in a few years, printed magazines will cater purely for a rather narrow demographic - i.e. those who don't want to, or aren't able to, get their information online.