Photo credits (l-r): girl from finito, laurie ♥, and cherry mary
As we don’t seem to be having much luck discussing the environmental and human costs we incur through our use of technology without everyone putting on her best Gloomy Face, whaddya say we turn those frowns upside down and talk about how gollygeewhiz cool it is when technology comes in pink?
PINK, I said! That’s right! Pink! “Pink,” as in, “pink is the new pink!”
Hmm. Tough crowd tonight.
Look, this is what happened: I couldn’t think of anything really good to do for Blog Against Sexism Day, all right? But then I had an email from a friend and she happened to mention the age-old question of why, when companies are trying to sell more products to women, the best many of those companies, especially the tech ones, can seem to come up with strategically is simply to make the same product available in pink.
Of course it isn’t that I have anything against pink; it’s that this seems like awfully one-note thinking. “What do women want?” “Pink stuff, I heard.” “Oh, okay.” And some women do like pink–have a browse of Flickr if you doubt that–but not all of us, which means that to my way of thinking it seems like the really smart thing for companies to do would be to first-number-one-before-anything-else get over the idea that there even exists a market called “women.”
There are young women, middle-aged women, and old women; stay-at-home moms, part-time-employed-outside-the-home moms, full-time-working moms, and women who are not moms at all; there are Latina, Caucasian, and Caribbean women; there are women who graduated high school, women with Ph.D’s, and women who cannot read. You get the picture? And I know that to an extent the marketers already narrow “women” down to “women who might buy our product,” but if that’s so, when will we ever get beyond the notion that if you just make it pink, we’ll buy it?
Tech companies, with the possible exception of Apple, seem especially bad about this, first because a lot of hardware is still ugly, designed more for function than form. But, second, if you are the sort of consumer who prizes function over form, you can’t help noticing that the pink gadgets don’t do anything different from their more utilitarian counterparts. Here is your gadget, exactly the same as the other ones, only it’s pink. We understand you may have different needs from this product, but rather than do any research to find out what those needs are, we just went with pink. It’s like being told you’re special, but not really. You’re not special-special, you’re pink special.
Is it just me? Am I underestimating the value of pink? Or are there other ways tech companies could be improving their sales to women without resorting to slapping (pink) lipstick on a pig? Because pink the color, I like well enough. I am less fond of Pink the Sexist Reminder in Everything I Try to Buy That I Am Different from Real People.
149 Responses to “Don’t Like Pink? We Also Have Mauve, Rose, and Blush”
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Maybe that’s because women buy pink things. I don’t think they’d do it again and again if it didn’t work.
The other day, my youngest male moppet found a tiny, mini screwdriver in an old bucket of LEGOS. It’s itty-bitty, and has a black handle. He asked me, “Mom! What’s this tiny strewdriver for?” I said, “It’s Barbie’s. She uses it to fix her Harley.” Moppet blinks. Tiny wisps of smoke exit his ears. Then he says, “But Mom, it’s not PINK.”
“Exactly.” I said, through gritted teeth. “And neither is her Harley, dammit.”
I refuse to buy anything that has been specially colored in a variation of pink to attract vaginas to purchase it, but my theory is that it makes all that scary man stuff seem less threatening to our delicate sensibilities. That, and when we say, “Oh, PINK is my favorite color!” the men can snort sophomorically because they’ve all heard that Aerosmith song.
It doesn’t need to be a pink hammer to be obnoxious, though.
(A 5-oz. hammer? What’s that good for, driving in thumbtacks an extra millimeter?)
ajw: My reaction to pink things is often “Hey! They thought about me!” which is so unusual it’s a pleasant surprise.
But damn, imagine if they considered women part of their market from the very beginning!
I consider myself fairly enlightened, but the only pink thing I would ever consider buying would be a life jacket on a sinking ship. I daresay most men feel that way.
I don’t understand why sellers of gender-neutral products like cell phones and laptops would cut themselves out of 50% of their potential market. But I’m sure they’ve had the concept market-tested to death.
I dispise pink, even though the first thing I wore was the pink blanket the nurse swaddled me in. Much more of a blue person, myself, as you can see by my handle. Of course, a hundred years ago, magazines were advising new mothers that “pink is for boys, being the stronger and more decided color. Blue, being a prettier and more delicate shade, is for girls.”
Fun fact; in Japan, porn movies are called pink movies, while in the West, they’re called “blue movies”.
I own that barbie on the left, it was the first barbie I ever received. I love it very much, because I adore barbie, because… um… because I dressed them up in star trek uniforms and cast them in plays? Because I was three at the time? Yeah, I got nothin’.
Someone observed recently (on this very blog, I think) that when product lines are released for women in pink and black, the black tends to go first. And then sell out, because of course women want pink, so they made more pink.
My first computer was a pink iMac (okay, they called it Strawberry, but that thing was pink, my friends), and my iPod shuffle is also pink.
Why, yes, I am gay. What?
This post makes me think of the comments about the wedding in “Steel Magnolias,” in which Julia Roberts primly says, “My colors are ‘blush’ and ‘bashful.” To which Sally Fiels replies, “They’re PINK and PINK,” and, later, “it looks like they hosed the inside of the church down with Pepto Bismol.”
Meanwhile, I whole-heartedly agree with this: “Because pink the color, I like well enough. I am less fond of Pink the Sexist Reminder in Everything I Try to Buy That I Am Different from Real People. ” Right on!
I’m guilty of liking the color pink. I blame too much Hello Kitty! >_
Just got back from Thailand, where even males can be seen riding the occasional pink motorbike. Not only that, they’re sometimes on the back of a bike while a female drives. The horror. Other places’ males just don’t have the horror of pink we have here in North America. A few years back in Toronto my girlfriend got a new bike, a men’s bike, which was on sale because it, like the women’s version, was white and hot pink. The women’s version was still $200, while the men’s was slashed to half that. Pink, pink… it’s so scarey!
Actually, lately I’ve seen more men wearing pink, and these guys tend to be frat guys.
BTW, on the motorcycle front, in the 70s or so manufacturers finally got the idea — one suspects they actually asked some women — to design some bikes with lower seats so a shorter person could touch the ground when they stopped. Guess what? Better sales. Who’d thought?
That’s obviously what you’ve talking about — there are design changes that can often be made that are helpful to women (often not just women) and these are just a tad more important than what color the item is.
“It doesn’t need to be a pink hammer to be obnoxious, though.”
Oh, man. Now I know what to get for Mother’s Day.
“Maybe that’s because women buy pink things. I don’t think they’d do it again and again if it didn’t work.”
Some women are more likely to buy things that are pink than things that are straight-up utilitarian, and some men are more likely to go for the pink model when purchasing a gift for a woman. I imagine the uptick in sales, however slight, is enough to justify keeping on with the “tried and true” method of turning things pink even if any other neutral color would do just as well. Why invest a bit of extra money or risk a bit of a flop when you can go with an old trope that no one can fault you for?
Beyond that, I’ve noticed a rather bizarre trend when it comes specifically to technology and pink–it seems to be some girl-gamers’ version of marking their territory. No, they’re not playing their brother/guy-friend’s DS. No, they didn’t cadge their boyfriend’s PSP. It is theirs. You can tell it’s theirs because it is fucking pink.
Ugh. Went shopping a few years ago for biking jerseys, and the choices were pink, purple, and pastel blue (blue with dreamy flowers).
I became furious (almost unreasonably so, wanting to toss the jerseys on the floor) and left. Eventually ordered a jersey online that was in a color of my choice (neon-please-don’t-hit-me-yellow).
I like the colors pink and purple and think that dreamy flowers are swell, but I had no choice in the matter. What I wanted was a jersey that was bright - yellow, red, orange - so that I could be safe/safer on the roadways.
I will admit to being the mostly-proud owner of a pink iPod nano. On the other hand, I happen to be okay with the color pink, and I find the pink nano less offensive because I could have also chosen blue, green, gold, black, white, or silver — it wasn’t the “neutral” nano next to the “female” nano.
With that said, I definitely share the annoyance that anything marketed specifically to women just has to come in pink — chick lit anyone? Going down the chick lit aisle at Boarders is like taking a tour of the interior of bubblegum; if the wind is blowing just right, you can even *smell* it. Ugh.
I could say that the color pink is what you make of it — for me, it’s just one color of many that I find appealing depending on my mood — but when you have huge companies marketing things to women in pink only… bad.
When I was choosing my new cellphone a couple months ago, they had two options for the model that I wanted: the basic silver and pink. I found is extremely annoying that these were my only options. By limiting it to these options, it made the choice not just about color. In this context, getting the pink phone would be like making a statement about who I am. A pink phone gives an the impression that the owner is concerned about being “cute,” is materialistic and wants to be seen as a princess. These are broad and probably unfair generalizations, but that is often the impression that pink products give. I honestly doubted that I would be taken seriously as a professional if I got a pink phone.
One possibility, for tech products, at least, is that pink is the sign that the suits have completed their takeover of the company in question. Engineers of all genders are pretty good at making stuff that works for their customer base (albeit often really bad at understanding who their customer base might be). But I’ve heard the “let’s appeal to women, let’s make the product in pink” story from various geeks, followed by “That’s when I decided to find another job.)
(Yeah, of course, that raises the question of why people supposedly schooled entirely in how people in our modern culture make purchasing decisions should come up with such a stupid idea decade after decade. Make up your own punchline.)
I think the stereotype is that boys will go for whatever technology shit your consumer electronics purveyor throws at them, because their penises demand new, shiny gadgets at all times. Girls, on the other hand, aren’t so easily swayed as to adopt new gadgets for no reason, but if given a shallow reason, like having a new pink version of the same gadget, they’ll jump on board too, and therefore both halves of the market do their part to jack up the bottom line. So the gadget companies keep trotting out new things that their gadgets can do, even when they’re superfluous or stupid, to attract the boy-needs-gadget stereotype (which, while reductive and indicative of gullibility, is still a net-positive stereotype, with indicators of productivity and multi-tasking ability), and then they slap pink on it so that the women feel the need to keep up (which is both reductive and patronizing).
What galls me most about pink is the lack of awareness on the part of a lot of women that pink is a euphemism for pussy. At least, I suspect it’s a lack of awareness that lets Victoria’s Secret sell underpants with “PINK” written across the ass (at least write it along the mons, right?). Whenever I pass a VS store, I want to take any item with “PINK” on it, show it to the customers and say, “Do you know this company is mocking you?” Baffling.
As for marketing things with pink, though, or other girl-izations of traditionally masculine stuff (the “Do it Herself” toolkit, for example), I feel a fair bit of ambivalence. Many traditionally raised women let themselves be intimidated by the traditionally masculine stuff, like tools, and they feel paralyzed and humiliated by their lack of knowledge. Having an explicitly female-friendly entree to that world, and then once they get a knack for how things work, realize that they were silly to be so intimidated. Without that first baby step, they wouldn’t get that confidence and see that the Great and Powerful Oz is just some bald dude, and that the power was hers all along. So I think the “New and Improved Log for Girls!” marketing is silly, but so is our society. Not sure there’s a good answer yet.
How many pink birds are there? My limited ornithological knowledge tells me of two: flamingoes and roseate spoonbills. And let’s not forget that hilarious exchange between Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink) and Lawrence Tierney (Joe) in Reservoir Dogs!
My coworkers wondered why I rolled my eyes at “Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: for her”. It’s interesting to note that the “for her” and “for him” guides both list a Sony VAIO laptop - sure, the one they suggest “for her” is $1,000 cheaper and has different specs than one they suggest “for him” - but LOOK, the one “for her” has PRETTY COLORS on the outside. Oooh, shiny.
Don’t make me vomit into my pink barbie trash can.
And don’t get me started about the Roomba’s positioning on the “for her” list.
I think that limiting girls to pink and purple is a not so subtle way to restrict their self-expression and force them to conform to a much more limited array of choices than boys are allowed. Pink seemed much more optional for girls when I was growing up in the 1970’s.
We’ve conciously tried to weaken the ‘pink is for girls’ thing, and have developed some very successful strategies. My husband wears both pink and purple. We try to get so-called ‘girl toys’ (dolls, etc.) in colors other than pink and purple (not easy). Cabbage Patch kids have a lot of variety, but my son mostly nurtures his stuffed animals. For props, I’ve turned to the baby department, where there are bottles, little clothes, etc. in ‘girl’ ‘boy’ and gender neutral varieties. Children becoming indoctrinated at school seem to find feeding dolls to be a perfectly acceptable activity for a boy IF the bottle is blue and covered in pictures of cars and trucks. Also, Graco makes toy strollers, baby chairs, etc. in pale green. On the flip side, I seek out cars, trucks, etc. in pink and purple.
My son loves pink, but has been made very aware by his school friends that it is transgressive, so he mostly wears it at home or with very ‘boy’ themed t-shirts (sports or predatory animals). I live in a fairly liberal area, and I am amazed by the number of dirty looks I get when I take him out of the house wearing pink (always his choice).
The Onion: Michelin Introduces Tires for Women
I don’t know Mike, I’m staring at a Strawberry iMac right now and while not exactly red I wouldn’t call it pink either. Kind of a light purple. Unique enough, at least, to not scream pink. The pink iPods are seriously pink though.
And I just noticed… ALL of my computers are silver. When did that happen? MacPro, TiBook, Quicksilver G4 and even my Enlight Shuttle PC case! I used to just have a pile of beige crap on my desk.
There’s the pink-footed goose and the pink-headed duck, and the pink-necked green dove.
I just ordered some clove pinks for the herb garden out back, but they don’t just market those to women.
By the way, he said, meandering further off topic, the flower is where the color’s name comes from. The flower was named for its cerrated or “pinked” petals. Cf. “pinking shears.” What were we talking about again? Need more coffee.
I like my pink phone. It keeps my boys (I have 4 of them) from borrowing it.
speaking as a (slightly older) female gamer, I think in terms of girl gamers and pink it’s this:
“Yeah. I have all this pink glittery princess stuff and I will still frag your ass, punk.”
As far as male suits saying “this is what women want!”.. I give you the 1955 Dodge La Femme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_La_Femme1955
yeah.
Unde Mike, I have a strawberry Mac and a pink iPod. I bought the pink iPod on the same day I bought Mean Girls. It was a very special day. The very best vibrator I have ever owned is pink. I have a box of ridged condoms in my nightstand that are pink (and they glow in the dark so my partner can pretend he is Darth Vader sheathing his weapon).
Let’s not pile on pink. It is an innocent victim of craven marketing ploys (that apparently work, in my case).
I have a friend who “does” pink because she is in a male dominated field, and none of the guys will steal a pink pen, so she doesn’t have her pen absentmindedly stolen by someone who borrows it.
How else am I supposed to know if I’m buying a “girls” phone/ipod/laptop etc. What if I bought something that was for girls and then all my friends would make fun of me. Having this stuff in pink heps me to know that I’m still a man and not of “those” people. You know who I mean. ;->
Everyone just saw the pink PS2 didn’t they?
Rob-
yikes–it is..relentlessly pink. I’d find it really distracting, actually ^^;;;;
When I dropped out of college, I had to accept a position as dishwasher at a local restaurant with a lounge. A female bartender asked me to move a keg of beer so she could hook it up. This was not a task assigned to dishwahers, but properly assigned to the much higher compensated bartenders. I refused to help this woman because of my feminism, which I prefer to consider as sexual liberation for all.
I remember being at a hardware store because I decided I wanted to paint my room — and while I’m waiting for the … paint guy… to shake my… cans…
um, yeah. Anyhow, I’m hanging out near the color swatches and a family rolls up with their maybe 6-year-daughter and tells her to pick a color to paint her room. Immediately, she grabs the most bubble-gummy, Barbie-colored pink swatch and makes a sound to indicate that the decision has been made. I sort of died a little.
Fortunately, I think the current pink craze is just that — I mean, Victoria Secret’s “Pink” line isn’t going to be around forever, and all the little six-year-old princesses out there are going to turn thirteen someday and decide that pink is “for kids” and paint the rooms eggplant. Then, when they’re twenty-five and freaking out because college is haaaarrrrddd they’re going to start gobbling up pink again because it will satisfy their regressive desire for a simpler time when they were a princess and life was easy.
Of course, the cycles could be just perfectly spaced so that pink is going to be around forever.
Remind me, which color is the adult male color again?
I own a pink Nintendo DS because I did not the other colors it came it (black, white and blue- I have enough black, white and blue stuff already).
Also, it feels more appropriate to play “Pheonix Wright” on a pink DS.
I used to run around Japan in screaming hot-pink fuschia suits and high heels. My feeling is: heck, I already stick out like a sore thumb, I’m female, a gaijin–why not go all the way?
In whatever my next position is, if I have to do any negotiating, I’ll pull out the feminine stuff, charm them off their feet, then hit them over the head.
Japan has these cute little lavender backhoes used everywhere for construction.
Nicole,
Unless you have an OBJECTION! to pink.
Maybe my pink-vision is off, because I thought it was close to white. It was the PS2 Sakura or something, wasn’t it? And cherry blossoms are so-light-pink-they’re-white.
Personally, I prefer graphite or silver to any other colors for gadgets. I was irritated that Nintendo released the DS in black in the US less than a month after I bought mine.
My youngest sister got petted and spoilt a lot as a child (four years between her and my next sis, plus she had a big cloud of curly blonde hair which strangers would always comment on) and I sort of suspect her “pink” thing is a way of allaying a fear of growing up and giving that up– she may be smart, sarky and hyper-competent at everything she turns her hand to, but she’s still cute and adorable, dammit! And it probably works quite well as a strategy to make her appear non-threatening despite the fact that she’s competitive and highly inteliigent under the facade of slightly ditzy (another such strategy I think) smiliness.
I believe that would be either grey or navy, Weeze. We men are quite lucky.
I also wouldn’t let Apple off the hook on this. My girlfriend had a Pink iPod Nano before moving onto a teal one. I’m still surprised she didn’t get magenta, because she does actually pink, but I guess she doesn’t think Magenta’s quite the same thing. She would have gotten the red Nano but prefers a warrenty to a dull sense of vaugely helping the world in some way that Puff Diddy approves of.
There is a market for pink things. The sad thing is that so many corporations think this is the extend of the effort needed to market to women. Women are generally very important consumers. Much more important than men in a lot of key areas. They should be the immediate target for a lot of merchandise. Not just relegated to.. “Now in pink!” promotions 6 months after launch.
Regarding pink being a feminine colour:
It hasn’t always been this way. Prior to the 1940’s, pink was considered a boy’s colour, because it was a warm colour close to red, which was considered an fierce, aggressive colour. Blue was a girl’s colour because it was consider soft, subdued and cool. Blue was also associated with the virgin Mary, true lovers, and faithful servants.
Sources:
“If you like the color note on the little one’s garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.” [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]
“There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is pertier for the girl.” [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]
In other words, we probably adopted pink as a feminine colour BECAUSE it was originally considered more masculine. And as soon it was widely accepted as feminine, it stopped being considered masculine.
And I refuse to buy pink products. They make me feel condescended to.
Oh, lord. I’ve never liked pink much. I wear it now because I actually look good in it, and I’ll buy things that are not, um, agressively pink. But I will not buy anything that is pink and exclusively marketed towards women other than tampons and clothing.
Buy a set of Barbara K tools instead of the pink crap. They’re designed with women’s bodies in mind and have no pink in sight. Sometimes gender-specific is good
http://www.barbarak.com/shopping.php
Oh God, Nicole, why did you have to mention Phoenix Write!?! Now I’m just too giggly.
Oh God, Nicole, why did you have to mention Phoenix Write!?! Now I’m just too giggly.
(if I double-posted, I’m sorry)
Okay, the pink issue hit a button with me. When I was six years old, I asked my mom for a ten speed. A BOY’S ten speed, I emphasized, because the frame is sturdier. She bought me a boy’s ten speed. A LAVENDER boy’s ten speed, marketed to girls. It took me nearly a year before I would ride it, I was so embarrassed to have a lavender ten speed.
I rejected everything girlie and pink and pretty, consciously and conscientiously, in my quest for tomboyhood. I picked up snakes, rode my pony bareback, caught frogs and released them, read books while perched in the top of cherry trees (and *gasp* Science Fiction books, too), and wore jeans and tees whenever possible.
I steered clear of pink and lavender and frills clear through adolescence and most of my adulthood, until I hit my late thirties, when all of a sudden I realized I liked pink and purple, I liked being a girlie girl occasionally, and I was okay with it.
I have a pink RAZR phone, several purple outfits and pink tops, and I used to have a set of flower handled tools (very pretty) until my pro-feminist tool using husband realized his buddies wouldn’t steal them and took them to work with him.
It goes the other way too. If you look at “regular” i.e., men’s tools in the hardware department…why are they all black, red and orange? Why do they all now have such aggressive design? Everything is styled to look like a Harley, actually, whereas if you see older tools, they’re relatively low-key, in neutral colors like brown or dull red.
There’s a sort of one-two-punch going on here; men and women are convinced they like or don’t like certain things based on their gender. Then products are marketed to fit those gender roles (even though the products themselves are exactly the same underneath their cosmetic design). Seeing said products on the shelves, men and women feel a surge of recognition…hey, that’s for me! Whereas before a hammer was a plain tool, now it’s an assertion of masculine identity…basically, it’s an *accessory* as much as a tool.
It’s very clever, and it works; I’ve even felt it work on me, conditioned like all other women to avoid things that are black, rugged, metallic and vaguely dangerous, but that pink sparkly things are ok and safe.
This discussion randomly reminds me of a story my husband told me of a summer job working in a sporting goods store. This dad brought his son in for shoes and after a long time they found the shoe they wanted and my husband had to go back to the store room to get it in his size. After much searching he finally found it - in the women’s shoes section. So he brought it back, the kid tried it on, they loved it and were all set to buy it when my husband, without thinking it through, offhandedly mentioned “do you know that is a women’s shoe?” The father went apoplectic, saying “how dare you let my son try on a woman’s shoe?” He then proceded to try to get my husband fired. It was like women’s shoes have cooties or something? Or they will turn his son gay? I don’t know. The story totally cracks me up.
I always love these discussions about the gender significance of pink, because while I merely think it’s an okay color (I much prefer red or black), my uber-geek husband is pink crazy.
Absolutely true: He wears his hair in a ponytail, and wrote letters, on more than one occasion, to the Goody’s company (they make the ponytail holder things) that it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t buy an all-pink set of ponytail holders. When he did buy other colors, just to get the 3 or 4 pink ones that came on the card, he’d either throw the others away or give them to me.
I don’t think I can build my dream computer — something steampunk with virulent green liquid-coolant system and brass pipe fittings, the bastard love child of the clerical terminals in Brazil and the thing Lain built in the eponymous anime series.
So I’ll probably just do something with a black case, a nice big plexiglas window, and lots of blue LED and cold cathode lights.
Geekery out of the way, I’m kind of appalled at how good I look in pink. It’s terrifying.
“If we make it pink, they will buy it.” Well, I’m just waiting for everything to be made in lime green, and then my world will be a happy, happy place.
Re. raising feminist children:
IT’S SO FUCKING HARD.
One little 3.5-yr old girl friend of my son flatly refused to play with Lego until her mum found a set that included pinks and purples.
Two little girls in my son’s preschool are firmly into pink clothes (lucky for them, a lot of choices exist). One of them refuses to respond to anything but the name, “Princess Kat.”
We, as feminist mothers, collectively WEEP for our girls.
(My boy, irritatingly, is obsessed with trucks, cars and construction equipment. However, on our monthly treat visit to McDonald’s (i.e. I really, really wanted some fries), he chose the “My Little Pony” pink horse Happy Meal toy instead of the white-and-grey “Transformers” robot toy. Proud Mommy!)
rootietoot said:
“I like my pink phone. It keeps my boys (I have 4 of them) from borrowing it.”
I noticed several other comments regarding this. Note: If it’s “pink and girly”, the guys won’t “borrow” it and we’ll be able to find it when *we* need it.
I like to think that women buy these pink gadgets, doodads, and tools because they know their men would rather chew their arms off than be seen wielding a pink hammer. How else can we keep their grubby (but lovable) mitts off our stuff?!
Personally, I avoid pink mostly because I look like crap in it (it makes me look like my liver is dying - sallow, sallow, sallow).
Odanu -
*eyes grow huge and round* YOU HAD A PONY???
(had an emergency at work and couldn’t finish). The bottom line is that I don’t mind pink as a choice, but I mind it terribly as the ONLY choice.
lol yes, I had a pony. I grew up on a farm.
Mighty Ponygirl:
So that is my problem? You know, it really explains a lot. I have been taking some really difficult graduate courses, and my desire for pink things has increased exponentially.
>ponders this while changing the batteries in her pink vibrator
preying mantis: One of my best friends from elementary school (I live in the same area I grew up… I have a lot of friends from early childhood still around) has a pink DS. He’s a pretty masculine looking guy, works in a warehouse, and carries a pokemon backpack housing his pink DS. I found it pretty funny. Everybody assumes he’s borrowing his sister’s or something.
magickitty: I’ve got a baby girl. My wife and I didn’t want to know ahead of time if we were having a boy or girl, so we bought all gender neutral colours for baby clothes. It was great.
Then the baby was born, and we were inundated with pink. Being very frugal and not liking to waste good clothing, we are kinda forced by our consciences to over-ride our distaste and dress her in pink quite frequently. Everything we buy for her ourselves is gender neutral, but sadly that’s the minority.
The bright spot is that she’s going to inherit all my old lego (a very sizable collection) and wooden train set. Hopefully she’ll like playing with them.
Boadicea, me too,. I have so little color as it is, that a little bit of anything with a red hue makes me look like I have a terminal disease. That being said, I went and checked around the house for things that I have in pink. Coupla pink disposable razors is about the extent of things that are “for women,” and that’s because they happened to be cheaper at the time I bought them. Only one pink article of clothing, an old skateboarding shirt from HS, with a male skateboarder pictured on the back. A couple of things that were gifts. And my cat’s collar, but only because her nose is so perfectly pink that it matches and is quite cute. Some lotions, but I buy those based on smell, and the scents I like tend to be assodiated with the color pink, and of course when actually used, they’re colorless.
I’ve always liked black, various shades of grey and silver, and greens. Of course, the real beauty in having the exact same item in both pink and black is that they can trick you into buying two of the exact same item. This hammer is pink, it must be designed for women’s hands! No, it wasn’t cast in the exact same mold as the one my guy already has two of, no, it’s special.
With respect to all the other “fashion colors” that gadgets are getting painted nowadays, my boyfriend was complaining the other day that they’re all female-oriented colors, the oranges, turquoises, greens, etc. Somehow, he’s internalized the message that all bright colors are female-oriented. I really have no idea where that one came from, though of course I’ve been speculating.
I’ve got a pink vibe, too, but that was independent of the color and more just due to my liking that model/it being recommended by the website proprietress.
That’s not pink. That’s Nantucket Red.
Lisa. Yes, that is your problem. Please send me a check for $150. :p
LOL Ponygirl.
Can I send you $50 and throw in a pink vibrator?
Also, as a gamer and comp sci engineer and a geek, I get *soooooo* damn frustrated at all of the “But how do we market to women???” stuff you hear from designers and developers and slashdot folks. Because it’s really *not* that hard.
Just get rid of the things we play your games *in spite of*.
I mean, I’m jaded. I play fighting games, for example, and I’ve learned to just roll my eyes at the lack of normal costumes and the fact that every last female (well, ok, Ivy comes close to an exception) is of the small, quick, and not-hard-hitting variety, because I’d rather just play the damn game and I’ve learned to tune it out.
But there are lots of women I know who might be interested in playing, but are just wigged out by boobie jigglage. It’s like giant bouncing signs that say “you’re not the target audience here”.
Same with scantily-clad flag wavers in classic racing games. Same with strippers in Duke Nukem or GTA or even Morrowind, for god’s sake.
The women that play these games, including me, play them *in spite of* these things. I sincerely doubt that *Morrowind* gained sales among men (or lesbians) for including a strip club in an out-of-the-way town, or that adding just one non-sexualized female character would make Soul Calibur less appealing, but these games have most definitely annoyed women who would like to play them, and annoying your customer base is almost never a wise decision.
Uh, is it used?
Also, the Stranger, whenever I get upset by the problem of women in Video Games, I play Beyond Good and Evil, and I feel better. Then I cry because of what happens to Uncle Pigman.
Oh, and if slashdot runs another discussion on female-centered games like “Girl’s Night Out Solitaire” (omfgwtfpinkandmartinisand*solitaire*????) or if I walk into another EB Games and pass the “Games for Girls! Yay! Teh Pinkness!” stand ONE MORE TIME…. there will be two types of heads on the floor.
Hmmmm, haven’t played that, actually. I may yoink it; they’re turning off the internet over spring break next week, and I’ll need stuff to replace the time spent out on the aether….
Concerned Parent: my poor sister’s daughter also got bagfuls and bagfuls of hand-me-down pink clothes from everyone. We weep, we weep. On the other hand, just try finding an inexpensive pair of boy’s jeans without an embroidered dump truck on them.
On tools: I hope and wish that one day I might find a mini-orbital sander that I can hold comfortably in the palm of my hand. Sure, with X% less sanding surface, the job might take longer, but at least I won’t have to put my hand in traction afterward.
And Chris, a 5-oz hammer is very useful to me for putting together shadow boxes, assembling picture frames, and whacking walnuts.
The last time this came up, I found my favoritest Pink Princess toy ever: behold the Disney Princess Remote Controlled Car.
I’m more of a purple girl than a pink girl, though I do have a few pink items. I love my Jansport sling bag in pink bubbles. If I ever bought a Nano, I’d probably go for green, because I’m on a big green kick right now.
Though I do have a bright pink silk dress that I look totally hawt in.
Hell yes. I liked Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but that was definitely a game for which I had to setblaminglobe=off. Why can’t I just chainsaw people to death without running a porn studio, huh?
It’s not as if the marketing teams at these companies are comprised entirely of men. It’s not as if the focus groups are comprised entirely of men. Large companies do not launch products that haven’t tested well.
Don’t overthink pink. It’s not an insult, or a judgment. It’s just a color. Be mindful of projecting onto it.
ZOMG Get that game if you can find it. It’s out for all console platforms and PC (though I think PC is a little buggy). You might be able to get it off of eBay if you can’t find it used anywhere. I try not to be so gung ho about game titles, but just about every gamer forum will list BG&E as a favorite when polled.
Funny you should bring this up, because yesterday I became really peeved trying to buy new tennis shoes. I’m a huge U of L fan so I wanted a red/white/black combination. Only one pair of women’s shoes in the entire department had these colors. My other options were white/sky blue, grey/lavender, white/pink, etc. Every damn one was pastels. I hate pastels.
A quick glance in the men’s department boasted nothing but red/white/black combinations. I’d never noticed how gendered tennis shoes are.
“On tools: I hope and wish that one day I might find a mini-orbital sander that I can hold comfortably in the palm of my hand. Sure, with X% less sanding surface, the job might take longer, but at least I won’t have to put my hand in traction afterward.
And Chris, a 5-oz hammer is very useful to me for putting together shadow boxes, assembling picture frames, and whacking walnuts. “
When oh when will we learn to stop being such a handist society? Big or small, left or right, light or dark, why can’t all hands be accepted for what they are instead of being judged based on arbitrary criteria taken from the handiarchy?…
Seconding the recommendation for Beyond Good and Evil. It is a game with much awesomeness. Kya: Dark Lineage is also very good — the PC is black, has dreadlocks, and is on a quest to save her big brother what got kidnapped by the Bad Guys. Both are PS2 games. On the PC side of things, The Longest Journey is amazingly good. Features include a female PC, no dying (dying isn’t even possible), a damned fine story, and hours of mouseclicky goodness.
The only breast animations I’ve noticed in World of Warcraft are on the undead women, and they’re just really floppy. It’s kind of terrifying, but it makes sense (of a sort) that zombies wouldn’t have high firm boobies.
Moira, since I’ve totally derailed this thread already — I have to admit, when I saw your name I was wracking my brain trying to remember why it was so familiar and then I realized that the head of the Thieve’s Guild in NWN2 is named Moire.
I haven’t even bought NWN2. My poor desktop would choke and die if I tried to run it. But I loved NWN, especially the dwarf rogue woman in the expansion.
Most people recognize my name from Peter Pan. “My name is Wendy Moira Angela Darling. What’s yours?”
I don’t know why but the first thing I thought of after reading this post was the first episode of Dynaman, specifically when Dr. Ho is handing out the Dyna-team’s special Gadget Watchestm. He hands out red, black, blue, and yellow watches to the four male members of the team; when he gets to the token female he says “girls like pink!” She says “No, I hate pink!” Dr. Ho replies “too bad, but it is the only color I have left so you are Dyna Pink!”
Then there’s the naming scene in Reservoir Dogs…
Did you have to run the pron studio in GTA: Vice City? I thought those missions were optional.
And emjaybee is right that there are some counterparts for men, though I think generally they aren’t looked at as gender specialization. I think its just regarded as that’s the way hammers should look. One notable excpetion, though, is the KitchenAid Mixer which used to be available with a hot rod paint scheme with a flame design. It isn’t anymore, but I gather there is an active market for flame decals for KitchenAid mixers. I know Alton Brown has one on “Good Eats”.
I just bought a new tool from the craft store which punches holes and sets eyelets and snaps. I noted after I bought it that it is a somewhat heavy intimidating looking tool, but that it has a deep rose-pink handle that has the words “We R Memory Keepers” (the name of the company, I think), on it. There is something about this that I find deeply disturbing for some reason.]
I wonder if the company that made it was afraid that women wouldn’t but it if it didn’t look “girly” enough.
Curse them for not coming out with NWN2 for Mac. A plague on both their houses! Though that one does fall for the “breasts on armour for the women” which irritates the hell out of me.
My wife owns a very shiny set of gothic plate armour (she used to do heavy fighting in the SCA). Despite the lack of protruding boobs on the chestplate, she manages. That’s one thing Morrowind got right, anyway.
That, too. Last year for my birthday I ordered two pairs of Saucony shoes, one for my boyfriend and one for me. Same model, but his being the man’s shoe meant it came with gold and black trim. Now I love gold and black, love love love, but the women’s shoe didn’t have that option. It came in blue and blue. I mean, periwinkle and navy, or something. I admit it wasn’t pink, but the message was the same: “Women like softer, gentler colors.”
Well, no, I don’t. I like gold and black.
Beyond that, I’ve noticed a rather bizarre trend when it comes specifically to technology and pink–it seems to be some girl-gamers’ version of marking their territory. No, they’re not playing their brother/guy-friend’s DS. No, they didn’t cadge their boyfriend’s PSP. It is theirs. You can tell it’s theirs because it is fucking pink.
That is pretty much why my DS is pink. And probably why my sister always picks the name “Bubbles” when she’s playing FPS games against other people. I don’t normally like pink, but for some reason when I’m doing something that “girls don’t do” like gaming, I want to be extra feminine doing it (within reason), and it seems like a lot of my fellow gamers feel similarly.
If I can get tools pink and/or flowery, I usually buy them that way, because the likelihood of them accidently wandering off with one of my coworkers (not on purpose, you do tend to just stick borrowed tools in your back pocket and forget about them a lot of the time). No one wants a screwdriver with a horrible floral print on it. NO ONE.
Also, the female dwarves in WoW need to embrace the sports bra. If you think the undead ladies flop, you ain’t seen the dwarf ladies run.
This is 100% true, but I feel icky making any exceptions for Ivy because of the straightlaced-by-day/leather-dominatrix-by-night shtick they’ve got her on. Not because there’s anything wrong with BDSM, but because they couldn’t possibly have had her kick ass just in the sailor suit, nooooo. And don’t even get me STARTED on Taki’s breasts.
However, nothing will ever be as bad as Dark Alliance insofar as gratuitously jiggling breasts go.
(Postscript: the strip club in Morrowind didn’t bother me at all. I wonder why that is? hmmm.) *goes off to reflect*
Ekf mentions the “Do It Herself” toolkit - a well-meaning aunt gave me one of those (it was pale blue, though, not pink) as a high school graduation present. And towels. Thoughtful, yes, but I wanted to die when I saw “Do It Herself” stamped on the case, rather than “Household Toolkit,” which is what my other toolset (black and red) said. The awful blue set did at least have a regular wooden-handled hammer in it, while the black and red set had one of those pint-sized hammers in it (which I eventually bent, somehow).
I ended up giving the Do It Herself kit to my ex when I moved out, cause he didn’t have his own set of tools, and he was far too amused with the concept for me to NOT give it to him.
Yeah… I like the changes they’ve made to Taki’s move set in SC3, but the fact that they’ve completely eliminated her one costume that, despite the large amount of unprotected leg, actually looked useful for fighting…. meh. Also, Ivy’s wedgie in the dom costume just looks ouchie. Not to mention the heels. Then again, I want her sword.
Never played Dark Alliance, but I think the one DOA trailer that Ctrl-Alt-Del and a few masculonormative game review sites actually agreed was waaaaaaaaaaay over the top was the bounciest I’d seen. Of course, this isn’t mentioning any H-games…. damn, I took 2.5 years of college japanese, and I like a lot of anime as well as games, but j-pop culture comes out with some weeeeeeeeeird stuff sometimes…
And my mom had one of those blue Do It Herself kits, which weirded me out when I saw it. I think that was from some weird moment of “despite the ten bazillion tools I have, I can’t find something immediately so I’m going to buy a replacement” followed by an “ooo, pretty”. Note: This behavior is completely due to my mother’s insanity and should not be extrapolated to Class Woman. She is an entity unique unto herself, and, much as I love her, thank any gods or goddesses that may happen to exist.
When I was a kid, I told people my favorite color was purple b/c I hated pink but somehow felt the need to appease folks by liking the “other” girly color. One day I realized that I never liked purple either. I like blue. And green. And orange. Pink is fugly.
While we’re on the subject of colors, can we talk about women’s sneakers?
I love purple. Does that call my manhood into question?…
If I may be so crude, I believe it suits a ‘manhood’ perfectly…
Have they considered playing “fun craft time” with fabric dyes? I imagine a pink shirt dyed with any number of colors could look pretty cool. Just remember that RIT dyes suck ass (and not in a good way, neither).
I thought Dremel has some sort of attachment that was like a mini-orbital. I bought some crazy-ass Craftsman took that’s like a Dremel mixed with a small router and “cutting tool” and various other features, so I haven’t kept up with the Dremel innovations too much, but I thought they had that when I looked at buying the Craftsman deal.
The thing I love about shopping for tools is that my uses for tools are generally not in the field as how men use the same tools. I want to mix concrete — why? I want to make pretty stepping stones with a mold I bought. I want a soldering iron — why? I want to attach silver wires together for a crystal beaded tiara. Staple gun? Upholstering a found industrial cable spool to make a foofy, tassled tuffet. Good times.
‘Course not, Mike. It’s hard not to project with colors, but I’ve got no animosity towards either of them. Towards the people who think one or another is appropriate b/c of what a person’s got going on in their shorts, yeah. But not the colors themselves. It was weird…gradually I realized I had been telling people my favorite color was purple for years…yet I didn’t own anything purple. It made me think, “Why was I doing this?!” in the way that only a self-embarrassed teenager can.
Ekf mentions the “Do It Herselfâ€? toolkit - a well-meaning aunt gave me one of those (it was pale blue, though, not pink) as a high school graduation present. And towels. Thoughtful, yes, but I wanted to die when I saw “Do It Herselfâ€? stamped on the case …
I actually voluntarily bought that for myself many years ago. It was the best value for what you got inside, and the powder-blue thing didn’t bother me.
Although my husband did make a point of teasing me yesterday that he was forced — FORCED! — to use the Do-It-Herself hammer because it was closest to the top of the toolbox. (I’m not even sure where the carrying case apparatus is at this point.)
Yeah. He didn’t get a lot of sympathy. :-p
On tools: I hope and wish that one day I might find a mini-orbital sander that I can hold comfortably in the palm of my hand. Sure, with X% less sanding surface, the job might take longer, but at least I won’t have to put my hand in traction afterward.
Could you use a mouse sander? The only woodworking I do is putting my Ikea bookshelves together, so it’s just a stab in the dark.
The most nightmarish was when a certain upscale kitchen wares store put out its electric mixers and everything else (spatulas, hot mitts, aprons, dish towels, ceramic bowls) in pale pink. I had the vision that someone might actually set up their bridal registry to receive a completely equipped kitchen in pink.
I have no idea how many of these pink mixers actually sold.
I absolutely and completely cannot abide pink. Never have, never will. Want to persuade me to buy something, make it in black and silver and rich emerald green, then you’re in with a chance…
Sara: Yes, but if it was a hello kitty PIRATE motif, it’d be cool
I seem to recall Jessica of Go Fug Yourself got one as a birthday present and raved about it. I have to confess, I thought they were kind of cute myself. But a fire-engine red one I’d like even better. Or all chrome. Yeah, it’s a bitch to keep shiny, but still so badass-looking.
It’s true. I lust for a standing KitchenAid mixer.
Joules, I love emerald green.
That came up upthread, but feel free to keep going. I’m going to go out on a limb here and bet you’re not exactly pining for a sweet pair of pink Skechers, am I right?
Oh yeah, I skipped that. But the fact that it was even IN there–gah!
Ponygirl:
Jesus, you want a new one? Damn yer finicky.
Time for me to go and groove on some PopSugar gossip, I know nothing about gaming. Last “game” I played was Space Invaders on Atari, lol.
wow- mandolin, i owned that barbie too. i mini-flipped-out when i saw it because i’d just remembered about it the other day. the stars on her dress glowed in the dark, and the fluffy thing on her parasol came off and could be used as a scrunchie or bracelet, and i put it on my wrist when i went with my mom to a haunted house at my school’s halloween fair when i was six, because i thought that if it was too dark the glow in the dark stars would be like a night light and make it not so scary. of course it didn’t emit that much light and i was still totally kinda-scared-but-embarrassed-to-say-so.
then i thought how weird it was that at one point a barbie was my favorite toy, and i remembered how i never did ask for barbies in the first place but once relatives had given me a couple of them as a shot in the dark at “what little girls want”, they just kept giving me barbies for years, assuming that since i had them i must really like them and want more, and so on ad infinitum. about six gift-years of my life went to mattel co.
and, speaking of pink (the actual topic), to this day you can always find the barbie/dolls etc section really fucking easily by just scanning across the vastness of toys-r-us for the one painfully bright pink aisle.
As far as the colour itself goes, I don’t mind deep, bright pinks (I tend to decorate in a Bollywood palette) but I don’t like the colour on myself.
But. I bought my first ever pink garment, a t-shirt, about three years ago. I blame pregnancy hormones for that one. And I bout a pair of pink velour Converse Chucks last fall, because they were ridiculously on sale and lined with sky blue. I blame mid-life crisis.
ekf: I’ll keep the dye party in mind for when I visit my un-crafty sister at Easter. That would rock!
I also have a fake dremel but find it unsatisfactory for sanding. (But I got the drill-press set up - it rocks the house!)
Mnemosyne: I will now go and maim my husband for hiding the fact that mouse sanders exist. Pardon me.
Gaming: I’m not so much into games on computers as I’m worried I wouldn’t pull myself away, but I used to do quite a bit of AD&D. I bought dice, books… miniatures? No. The miniatures were all dressed in plunge-neckline, high slit robes for the female magic users, and glorified underwear for thieves and fighters. I am determined to get myself Art Clay (a metallic clay that can be fired to become solid metal) and make characters who look like they can survive a dungeon crawl one of these days.
Small hammers with floral motifs: got one. And 6 screwdrivers that nest inside it. Why? Because I needed to temper wire for making jewelry, and a big hammer would scuff up the finish on the wire. The girly hammer is larger than a proper jeweler’s hammer, which means I can get in more power and do the job faster, and can even nail stuff onto a wall if I want. I didn’t buy it for cuteness, but because it’s the right tool for my needs.
Pink: I do sometimes buy pink clothes, especially of the fuschia, or hot-bright variety, because it does look good on me and goes well with hot yellow and turquoise bright blue, colors suitable for California’s unbearably hot summers. I do not have any pink that isn’t on clothes, tissue boxes (when you need a Kleenex, you want to see the box), or book covers (I have a few mystery genre books in pink, I think). It isn’t a selling point for me.
I told people my favorite color was blue when I was a girl. I may have been right, because everyone says how much they love the royal blue drapes I chose, but I’m keener on black, really.
Beyond Good and Evil for the gamecube is considered the best version and the one the game developer liked the most.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/11/jade-is-latina-asian-black-who-knows/ is an article you should read. Kinda funny since the female character Jade is based on a swarmy French actress who voices the character in the French language version.
Beyond Good and Evil you will have to search around for a new copy the game did poorly in sales even though it got critical acclaim from reviewers.
Here is the thing Ponygirl a lot of Nintendo platform games don’t have the sexism of females you have encountered. Loads of puzzle games for the DS should keep you entertained.
The pink model DS lite came out in Japan when they released Talking Navi which is a cookbook application for the DS. It along with the pink ds lite were bought up by huge numbers of women.
You may want to read the reviews at gamespot or ign as well as read the previews of upcoming DS and wii games. You may be surprised at how many games a woman would actually want to buy and play.
The wii and DS make the controller learning a nonfactor.
Now that this thread has drifted to gaming - I’ve posted before that I used to play Ultima Online in its early days. One of the great things about UO was the fact that you could dress your character how you liked. If you double-clicked on a character, up came a paperdoll which let you drag and drop different outfits to put them on. Men could wear women’s clothes, and vice versa. More than that, you could dye your clothes how you liked, and later they added the ability to dye leather and make colored metallic items such as armor,too. It was a very versatile system, and I don’t know that it’s been equalled since.
While the standard women’s clothing in UO was reasonably tasteful, the armor (and remember, this is a faux-medieval fantasy game) for women was pr0n-tastically bad. It was the usual skimpy metal bikinis that I suspect a 14 year-old boy must have designed. You could often tell who the guys were playing female characters, because they’d doll up in that pr0n-wear, and then begin or end every other sentence in conversation with “honey” and other exagerated femininity. Women, if they played female characters at all, tended to dress in full chainmail or plate when it came to armor. What woman wants to think about getting stabbed in her exposed tummy or thighs?
One memorable thing during my time there was the RL guy in our guild who cross-dressed in-game. He was fearless in dungeons, and…wore a blue dress everywhere, even over his armor. When he quit the game, we put his dress in our guild’s museum.
Regarding NWN :
I’m boycotting NWN2 until they make it run on Macintosh and Linux. Besides, the original NWN has far more content after five years, anyway. Some of the best clothing was made by Lisa at DLA. Anyone who still plays should download her clothing hakpaks. They’re excellent.
The one marketing thing I couldn’t stand was a few years ago when ski companies were just starting to make women-specific models. Atomic made them pink with daisies on them. Aside from the fact that they were a horrible ski, the graphics made most of the female testers shudder.
It’s kind of odd. I’m a guy and i’ll happily wear pink tops or shirts but I would never buy a tech item in pink. I tend to prefer black or silver or graphite for that stuff.
Also,
Also, it feels more appropriate to play “Pheonix Wright� on a pink DS.
Unless you have an OBJECTION! to pink.
Oh God, Nicole, why did you have to mention Phoenix Write!?! Now I’m just too giggly.
What the HELL?! A Phoenix Wright discussion? On Pandagon? It’s more likely than you think! LOL
I fucking hate pink and the implication behind it - women are little girls and we’ll be happy to have our iPod matching the jewels on our phones and the pouch’s collar. Perhaps we can twirl our blond hair and smile vacantly at the corporate rep. I know many women who like pink and I’ve no problem with that. Personal choice is what I’m advocating for.
Fucking manufacturers that think pink is the default colour for women, need to expand the palette a tad, and I don’t mean mauve, rose or blush. I fancy some gunmental grey, black, and every shade of blue!
Pink doesn’t suit me. I find that primary colours and black and white do.
I hate pink. Always have. So did my sister. Her ballet costumes were never pink: blue, green, red, or sometimes black, but never pink.
(Of course, this is the girl who, for her 15th birthday, got a wood lathe as a present…)
I hear ya, Stranger. As a male sometimes-gamer, I find the idea that I would want to play “Dead Or Alive: Beach Volleyball” because of digital bouncing boobies…condescending. And I know that it’s offputting to female gamers. To say nothing of GTA: Vice City…
I’ve had an idea in my head for a computer game using a female character who is, among other things, dressed sensibly. But I am not a very good artist, and my programming time is limited.
I’ve always been immoderately fond of blue, and I’m not sure why. Could it be due to the ocean or the sky? Outdoors on most days half or more of my visual field is blue.
I feel weird if I’m not wearing jeans, and I consider myself skyclad in a light blue shirt. (Were I actually skyclad I’d be predominantly pink.) I’ve been driving blue cars for over twenty years. I’m a third- or fifth-generation Democrat in a blue state.
For all I know, though, I’d look good in pink. I did buy a pink dress shirt in London, where they’re considered stylish, but it requires ironing. Another pink shirt, heavy cotton with a buttoned-down collar, was a favorite for years and collected a few compliments.
I’m not a fan of the blues. My hair and eyes are brown, as are my shoes and my leather jackets. I’ve never cared for blue ink. Black, though, is the antithesis of individualism, pure self-abnegation, strictly for formal attire.
Well, tootired — now you’ve done it. You’re talking to a bona fide Nintendo Fangirl.
While Nintendo has done a lot to keep the genre on life support, the fact is that there just aren’t a lot of platformers being made anymore. New platformers are pretty much limited to the handhelds.
One of the reason I like the Nintendo so much is because the sexism in the in-house studio is toned down. You still have Peach and Zelda, but even within those two “pink princess” characters Nintendo has done a lot to grow and evolve the characters (mostly, I’m thinking of Zelda. Did you know that in Super Princess Peach, one of Peach’s super powers was crying? Seriously. She’d cry a shower of water and it would make plants grow so that she could climb up them). They still suffer from marketing disconnect — One of the most popular game series for girls and women is the Zelda series, where you play a dude running around waving (literally, with the Wii) a sword around, and yet the majority of marketing to women that Nintendo does is for Nintendogs and Animal Crossing — which are more “Sim” games that the game industry has decided is the only sort of title that girls like.
Would rant more, but I’ll be late for work.
Oh, but Flewellyn, we totally DID say something of GTA: Vice City.
More chainsaw, less porn. That’s what I’m talking about.
I like Sim games, I admit it. But what galled me is when someone upthread mentioned that if you don’t like the popular titles, take heart, because Nintendo makes a lot of “puzzle games.”
PUZZLE GAMES. Because women don’t like ass-kicking games, at all, ever.
Get me the I Blame The Patriarchy game, is what I say: Twisty and Stingray kill a bunch of evil knobs with flaming tacos and poisoned vichyssoise. I’m so there. I will leave it to you capable nerds to work out the roleplaying aspects.
KitchenAid fans - the stand mixer comes in a gorgeous cobalt blue.
One reason why I, as a geeky-type, do not play video games is the fact that they are majorly marketed to men. I’m sorry, but as a fairly kick-ass woman, I don’t take kindly to only getting to choose amongst “girl who looks like teenager with medium-sized boobs in short skirt”, “girl who looks like bondage madame with big boobs in shorter skirt” and “girl who looks nice with a mean kick also with big boobs in a short skirt”. I really don’t like that at all. Mortal Kombat had a few ok female-types to use- the kick-as ones in long skirty-pantsy thingies with metal fans- but they still all have big jiggly boobs. I do not want to be sympathizing with exercise-boob-pain like I end up doing. (”ouch! that was a huge boob jiggle! why doesn’t she wear a sports bra?”)
Also, the RPG games are almost ubiquitously about CONQUEST! DEFEAT! KILLING! and I don’t really get off on that stuff.
That said, I would wholeheartedly play “I Blame The Patriarchy”, but only if we got to create our own avatars, and I could make my woman avatar have ridiculously short hair (as I actually sport).
Pink is so 1960’s femininity. I had a love of pink when i was very little, that I then subsumed when I realized that people thought pink was only a girly-girl’s color, and what people actually thought of girly-girls. I was about 7 at the time, and I started hating the color and I never wore it again until about 3 years ago. I have a liking now for pale pinks, like cherry blossom, but only because they look good with my complexion.
But my favoritest color in the whole world? Bright-ass turquoise! It’s the best of blue and green, all mashed together?
Also: Pink things for women unanimously reminds me that I have a pink vulva area. I imagine that’s the signal men are supposed to get too.
yeah, that sort of tweaked me too. Puzzle games tend to be more popular with older gamers (although Old Grandma Hardcore would take me to the cleaners for saying that).
The sick thing about it is that it’s not like there’s a dearth of research about women gamers. Game studios have a lot of data telling them there are a lot of women gamers out there, that they like shoorters and rpgs and real-time strategy games. They like it when they have the option of playing a female character but not having a woman option isn’t a dealbreaker. One consistent turn-off for female gamers was having the only woman option be a stereotypical male fantasy of a woman. There are plenty of women in the industry, and yet the game studios choose to ignore this data and continue as if the real analog stick was the penis.
I find the Western obsession with pink=girls and blue=boys even stranger after living in Japan for so long. Men wear pink all the time and no one is teased, it’s simply an acceptable color for men. While many products marketed to women in Japan are pink, there are various other colors as well.
Pink must sell or they wouldn’t keep doing it but being a person who hates pink this just irks me. How about red? I always wonder why Nike won’t make women’s running shoes with red on them?! Why are they always lavender or pink or something!? >.
I almost hate to admit it, but I like sim games. I bought Harvest Moon DS and Nintendogs when I got my DS. I also picked up Trace Memory (used) and played it, but it was kind of boring. I don’t have the patience to play RPGs (unlike my husband, who spent 160 hours of Final Fantasy 12).
Then again, I also like playing Tekken.
There’s nothing wrong with Sim games, like there’s nothing wrong with pink. But if you’re being told that the only type of game you should be interested in is a Sim game, and that’s what you play, there’s something wrong with that.
I played Animal Crossing a little bit and lost interest quickly. I work all day so that I can pay my rent: I don’t want to play a game where you work so that you can pay a mortgage.
I did get it for my niece for Christmas — mostly because there is a degree of autonomy in the game that is really appealing to kids: they can decorate their rooms any way they want, they are responsible for themselves in the game, they have responsibilities, but they can have fun, and the world really does change and evolve around them in a non-scary way.
Okay, I admit it. I’m a World of Warcraft player. Came from Final Fantasy XI, and prior to that, pen and pencil D&D, since 1979, all three editions. In pen and pencil D&D, every single time I have had a male GM, my character has been raped. Do with that what you will. That’s why I’m the GM now.
World of Warcraft has armor all the way from “how the hell is THAT supposed to protect you” to Power Ranger lookalike suits, and the models are the same or very similar for males and females. Sexism of course still exists, but hell, I’m a guild officer, and if you don’t tow the guild line (which is “no -isms allowed, including homophobia, sexism, and racism”) I can boot your ass… and our guild is one of the larger and more popular ones on our server, so being booted is actually a pretty big deal.
Yeah, I know. I’m not much of a gamer to begin with, so I like things I can play for half an hour or an hour and put down until I feel like it again. (Harvest Moon is an exception, though; I haven’t played since I started my job, because I know I’ll just play all day.)
Speaking of Phoenix Wright, pink pajamas can actually be quite stylish.
*done hijacking thread*
It’s true. I lust for a standing KitchenAid mixer.
You WHORE-I want one of those so badly I could scream.
Also, as a gamer, a techie, etc, I play puzzle games AND action games.
But I hate Lara Croft. I don’t need this bouncy rack business.
[…] What a Chauvanistic Pig - Well yesterday was apparently Blog Against Sexism Day, and being the man that I am… I totally missed it, until I caught this nice litle article on Pandagon about why Corporations seem to think the only thing they need to do to market a product towards women (epecially technology items) is Make them PINK. Ladie’s forgive me, I have only been a true fighter for women’s causes for 6 years now (opps my daughter reminds me that it is ALMOST 7) and I am still a little slow on the uptake. (I wonder if this will get me another “Your an Alan Alda Femenist” comment. I wonder if anybody can really explain to me what it means?) […]
“PUZZLE GAMES. Because women don’t like ass-kicking games, at all, ever.”
You misunderstand me. I meant games that appeal to all including women. Puzzle games laregly are sexless and are considered fun by all and can be gotten into by all.
Animal Crossing was originally designed for teenage males and early adult males however Nintendo’s research showed the game franchise was being largely bought by teenage girls and adult women. So they marketed the DS version that way since well they were trying to get more women into gaming.
Hence why Nintendogs put a lot of adverts into women and teen magazines with the result that Nintendogs and DS sales increased dramatically.
Would the sales of Nintendogs and the DS been as high among women if they had not targeted those women and teen girl magazines with ads researched to be effective to women? No they would not have been. By targeting in such a manner to women Nintendo opened up video gaming to a lot of women who would traditionaly refuse to buy or even play a video game.
“The sick thing about it is that it’s not like there’s a dearth of research about women gamers.”
There is a dearth of women game programmers. Most game programmers are white males or Japanese males. Hence why a lot of black males in videogames tend not to be the main character or be considered to have any redeming values.
Crackdown for the xbox 360 had a radicaly different cover for the US and Japan. Among other changes the US cover showed a black male lead character Japanese had the lead character being white.
“One consistent turn-off for female gamers was having the only woman option be a stereotypical male fantasy of a woman.”
Men still comprise the majority of the hardcore game base the base that buys most of the shooter games as well as the fighting games. Men if they were to play a female typically chose the sterotyped image because if they have to stare at that image to the male mind it better be the masturbatory image rather then plain Jane.
“Also, the RPG games are almost ubiquitously about CONQUEST! DEFEAT! KILLING! and I don’t really get off on that stuff.”
You need to look more is all I can say.
Harvest Moon comes to mind.
“of the most popular game series for girls and women is the Zelda series, where you play a dude running around waving (literally, with the Wii)”
Never seen any sort of data that would verify that.
“one of Peach’s super powers was crying? Seriously. She’d cry a shower of water and it would make plants grow so that she could climb up them). ”
Well consider the game a more active tonque in cheek role for the kidnapped princess. You did see the commericals for the game right?
“New platformers are pretty much limited to the handhelds. ”
I wasn’t talking about platforms but the nintendo franchises in general. As for platformers get the paper mario games one on the gamecube and the sequel on the wii and Mario Galaxy for the wii.
Metroid the main character you play is a female and the only time that is ever brought up is in the game storyline and the ending. Of course she does have a skintight bodysuit but that is something the character would have to wear in the armor.
“I find the idea that I would want to play “Dead Or Alive: Beach Volleyballâ€? because of digital bouncing boobies…condescending.”
Considering the volleyball is a minigame and the rest of it you watch the characters romp around in bikinis some of which were blurred out whenever they were shown on reviews why else would you play the game? Certaintly isn’t the volleyball.
The sequel shows that the creator just made the game to masturbate to.
Quite a number of the bikinis and activities are of the sort you would see in a film shown on late night cinemax or on pay per view.
The thing is the nongamer public views video games as being for children hence all those stupid unconstitonal laws that would ban video game sales and kill the industry. Even though the vast majority of game sales are to adults and most games sold are E rated.
There are plenty of video games that aren’t offensive to women nor engage in sterotypes however US media only advertises certain games and guess which games get advertised.
Okami is considered one of the most beatiful games but it had miserable sales.
As a male gamer, I always pick the female characters. Not for the boobie-jigglage, which is most ridiculous in DOA, but because they’re almost always the fastest characters, and dammit, that’s the fighting style that wins.
Also, I’m glad to find out that there are other tech guys who like pink (and are not presumed to be gay). It was kind of hard to find the pink neon, but the IPU outline on my PC case has a way of generating a really useful false sense of security in the other players at LAN parties.
AFAIK, the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games are both extremely popular, and reading between the lines suggests to me that they may be more popular with females than males. See the dancing around in this article:
The word he was looking for, of course, is bishounen.
The key phrase here is “target demographic”. My translation: grrrlz.
Doc Science-
Well, game developers (and you can see it a bit in comics and television and movies) are starting to wake up to the fact that yaoi fangirls are (becoming?) a huge market force.
Give us our pretty boys, we will throw money at you.
Samantha Vimes: When I was involved in desktop RPGs many moons ago, I went out of my way to buy figures sculpted by Julie Guthrie (mostly from Ral Partha), as her female figs were realistic looking. I haven’t bought figs in almost a decade, though, so I don’t know what’s on the market now.
I’m more of a primary red, black, or silver girl myself, though I do love purple in almost any shade I detest pink with all of my being. I also have a degree in computer science, am currently remodling my own house for sale, and am a complete geek who games as often as I have time (not much recently due to the house thing).
I’ve never gotten an un-feminist vibe from Morrowind, but then I always wear a robe, which goes over my armor so I haven’t noticed the armor clinging in stupid ways or noticed anyone treating me, well, like a female, in the game. I don’t actually recall any stripping going on in the red moon house either…
I’ve played everything from Halo and Advent Rising to Harry Potter games. I like playing the kids games because they’re fun, inventive and entertaining.
It wasn’t pink, but I remember going to an auto show a few years ago and looking at a concept model, I think a Volvo, that was designed by and for women and had… no… hood. Or gas cap, for that matter. The whole front end could come open if you took it in to a mechanic (which you would have to do, and the car would e-mail the mechanic telling them it needed maintenance, since obviously women can’t deal with such things themselves), but otherwise, nothing doing. I asked the Volvo rep there why, in God’s name, would they make a car with no hood, and she said that women found things like hoods and gas caps “intimidating.”
I, personally, can’t stand pink. I’ll go with salmon (which is a great color on me), but that’s as close as I get. I’ve always been a big fan of blue, myself, and most of my electronics are silver. But whenever I see something offered in both the gender-neutral neutral and the PINK!, I’ll usually just ignore both offerings and go find the same product in a different, less patronizing, brand.
I don’t play many games, but an IBTP game–all right!
Included female avatars (or “Blamers”) include Twisty, Stingray, and Hedonistic Pleasureseeker (for patriarchy-blamers who are also girly-girls); included male avatars include Chris Clarke and Mandos (who, when first played, underestimates the strength of the patriarchy’s proponents).
Weapons include tacos, copies of the SCUM manifesto, and The Pointy Stick of Reason; special “spirit guides” include Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firesmith, and Kate Millet.
Dear Doctor Science,
Vossler was way hotter than Vaan. I was pissed when I figured out he was going to sell me out. Bah!
Fortunately, I still have Balthier. Finally, a man who dresses well!
Warmly,
Moira
It’s true. I lust for a standing KitchenAid mixer.
I was not permitted to register for one when we got married, because we have countertops the size of postage stamps. But I’m still pouting about it.
And, odd as this may seem, I never had a Barbie doll. My mom disapproved of them. I was allowed to have Dawn Dolls, which may have been more acceptable because they were tiny and thus not quite as anatomically effed-up.
Sometimes guys will whistle at you if you’re a female character. It’s not overwhelming, but it can be irritating.
PS. Balthier is the business.
I don’t understand this at all. We had a small kitchen when I picked up the Kitchen Aid mixer for Becky’s birthday, but the Significant Other Happiness Credits and the non-stop stream of baked goods more than made up for the clutter.
Also, I tried playing the IBTP game once but I lost a one-sided die roll to an orc-Norbizness hybrid with a +3 Snark, and wound up with zero Street Cred.
I don’t understand this at all. We had a small kitchen when I picked up the Kitchen Aid mixer for Becky’s birthday, but the Significant Other Happiness Credits and the non-stop stream of baked goods more than made up for the clutter.
We already have a toaster oven, a microwave, and a coffee maker, which pretty much uses up all available counter space. I did manage to eke out some room for the crockpot, but even that is going to have to be put away fairly soon so we have a food prep area somewhere other than the top of the stove. Very small, very poorly configured counters in a galley-type kitchen is not a good combination.
I suspect that there are also still hard feelings on his part about the “marinara on the ceiling” incident. (It just spattered to ceiling height while it was simmering. I don’t know how. It just did.) I think there was some fear that he would come home and find me trying to knock a big wad of cookie dough off the ceiling with the broom.
I finally gave up asking for one and got my own KitchenAid mixer (or rather, told hubby’s mother that HE really wanted one for Xmas) but I told her to get graphite so he’d feel it was more his own. I made tons of cookies until he put it up on a high shelf which made it impossible for me to get it down by myself (because it’s so freakin’ heavy I’d kill myself and the small child hovering around my knees). Bastard.
Ya. I remember when Pokemon first started having a female lead and I was like “that’s so cool! Finally I actually get to play as a girl!” which was pretty much my reaction to FF6 too. Yes video game makers there are three things you can do to attract the female market.
1) Have the obligatory obserdly cute bad-ass character. Yes it may appear sexist but girls are just as attracted to hot male studs as men are to hot women. Actually pretty much all you have to do is add Bishonen and girls will come flocking.
2) Have some female main characters.
3) For the love of hell people, don’t have those main characters fit only into the steryotypical healer, mage, the dangerous looking pseudo-fem-fatale, or any character that shouldn’t be expected to actually do damage when they attack an enemy physically (because if I’ve got limited MP the last thing I want is to waste it and I hate having to choose between MP and attacking for piddling damage). And please please please no more Yordas.
What do you expect? This is a Final Fantasy game, there’s almost an unwritten rule that the cutest guy has to be evil (or maybe that’s just me).
And Sephiroth’s the cutest. But I agree, Balthier’s hot.
In pen and pencil D&D, every single time I have had a male GM, my character has been raped. Do with that what you will. That’s why I’m the GM now.
Jesus Christ, what?! I’m trying to imagine any of my DMs (all men, three different groups, although some overlap between who is there) doing that and I can’t. I don’t think it would even cross their minds as something to be done.
The guys I game with are all awesome, though. So are all the women. Much love to my groups.
By the way, there are definitely lots and lots of pieces of armour in WoW that are full-coverage for the men and a fucking thong or pasties for women. The newer art team seems to be steering away from that (thank God), but my poor paladin definitely passed on some clear upgrades because I refused to look like some Vegas showgirl reject, and it looked like real armour on my husband’s warrior. Rrgh.
Ok, so, not a gamer - but when it comes to my computer stuff, I’ve found that Strawberry Shortcake stickers, Princess Leia wallpapers and other references to girlhood in the 80’s does the trick just as well.
Now, I’m not saying raising feminist children isn’t hard, but the Lego enthusiast in me would like to argue that if you get them Lego Quatros before they reach 6 months, then any refusal to play Legos at age 3.5 will probably be extremely short lived, if it happens at all. My neice is 3 and sooooooo into princesses and I cannot imagine her ever refusing to play with Legos - ever. It would be like refusing to go the the park because the slide isn’t pink.
As someone who might be a gamer if it was easier to find games that didn’t take me out of my fun zone by annoying me beyond belief - WORD.
I just hosted a game night at my library (it went beautifully, btw) and you have no idea how happy I was to be able to say “Nothing rated older than T allowed for TEEN game night!” simply because it meant 1) I would be a lot less tempted to throw something heavy at the screen and 2) that I wouldn’t have to worry as much about girls feeling even less welcome and boys feeling like it’s ok to sexist.
See, now that I find kinda funny.
As a scrapbooker, I know that the eyelet setter put out by the Crate and Barrel of the industry (having a hard time coming up with good analogies, sorry) - Making Memories - is just plain silver like any normal tool - such as the exacto knife it resembles. It’s meant for a variety of eyelet sizes, so the top screws on and off - similar to bits on a drill. Plus, you need a hammer to use it.
So, yeah, We R Memory Keepers probably thought the normal way of setting eyelets would sound scary to a lot of women and so they came up with a new design that was non-threatening in a variety of ways.
So, I guess I mostly find it funny because it lets me be a geeky snob about my own tools.
Yes, I am shallow.
[…] Regular THL readers will probably also like Ilyka’s Blog Against Sexism post, “Don’t Like Pink? We Also Have Mauve, Rose, and Blush,â€? at Pandagon, wherein the idea that the way to sell tech to women is to make it girl-colored is discussed. […]
Chris Clarke: I own one of those hammer/screw driver things and it’s actually quite useful around the house. Mostly for the screw drivers and the fact that it’s basically a tool box in a small package.
My dad has a tool box and a gazillion old tools - most of which are either rusted or lost in the void - It’s not organized and it’s impossible to find a screw driver when you need it and even if you do it’s usually not the right screw driver or the right size. I don’t even know what he keeps those tools for, sigh… to feel macho I guess *dur look, I have a tool box with actual tools that I never ever use* Meanwhile whenever he’s trying to do something he inevitably asks me for my hammer/screwdriver thing, cause it’s NOT lost, NOT rusted and actually fairly useful… though the purple floral pattern does tend to through him off at first.
I really only bought the damn thing cause I was at the checkout and I remembered that I needed screwdrivers and a hammer for the project I was working on and there it was. I do miss my old tool kit though… the screw drivers were magnitized so that the screws didn’t keep fall off and getting lost.
The tool itself is very useful, why they thought they had to put the frilly floral patterns on it is beyond me.
Aww, come on Rob… it’s just the Breast Cancer Awareness PS2 (well it should be anyways. I don’t usually buy that color pink unless it has something to do with that or is paired with another color like brown). Actually I’d like to see them make gaming consoles in metallic purple, turquoise and azure. That would be sweet (mine is silver btw).
Roula: My first Barbie was She-Ra and her brunette friend who wore purple (I think).
Ab Normal: I’ve always had a fondness for Dark Haven figurines… there’s a lot of variety and I can usually find a fig that closely matches the PC I’m interested in at the time. God I miss painting figs, I had an awesome collection (my fav was a fem dark elf rogue, who had two potions on her hip - I painted one red and one blue - in honor of Diablo…) … but I can’t afford to buy all the paints, figs, carrycase, brushes, primers all over again… sigh.
Moira: I’m more of a Basch fan to tell the truth… the whole tortured, rugged, knight stichk, sigh… and he’s the only one with a decent ass to look at, IMO.
“3) For the love of hell people, don’t have those main characters fit only into the steryotypical healer, mage, the dangerous looking pseudo-fem-fatale, or any character that shouldn’t be expected to actually do damage when they attack an enemy physically (because if I’ve got limited MP the last thing I want is to waste it and I hate having to choose between MP and attacking for piddling damage). And please please please no more Yordas.”
That’s what I love about FF12, you get to specialize the crap out of the characters. Like you could have all the guys be support if you wanted and all the girls with swords and shields or what ever. I prefer an even mix of swords, range and magic personally, but that’s the beauty of the system - you get to choose. AND the fact that there are an EVEN number of males and females. It has ALWAYS irked me that there were always more guy characters than female and that the females always seemed to be weaker physically but more magically inclined than the males… granted their evasion skills were usually kick ass, but then again they have to be since all the monsters seem to want to pick on the females anyways! Grrr.
“In pen and pencil D&D, every single time I have had a male GM, my character has been raped. Do with that what you will. That’s why I’m the GM now.
Jesus Christ, what?! I’m trying to imagine any of my DMs (all men, three different groups, although some overlap between who is there) doing that and I can’t. I don’t think it would even cross their minds as something to be done.”
Yeah, I agree with Sojfn. Granted I’ve never gamed without my father, brother or boyfriend (now ex), so maybe that’s why. Though my first character was in my dad’s campaign and he did the typical “damsel in distress” stitck which irked the hell out me (I wanted a super kewl entrance that was empowering but dad couldn’t have that… I guess he’s the only one allowed to be a power-gamer in the family, meh! … I mean, who wants to be the dumb noble chick would got kidnapped by a bunch of giant spiders in the anciet temple? At least I wasn’t the dumb warrior guy who touched the statue guardians and woke them up!!! *ROTFLH from the memory*
Although I WAS the girl who rolled a natural 20 on a smoke bomb and set an inn on fire which led (somehow, I forget really) to that universe being destroyed.
Yeah, Jasmine is a bit more independent than Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, plus she doesn’t fall madly in love with Alladin the first time she lays eyes on him. But let’s face it, she doesn’t get to save Alladin’s life the same way the various princes save Snow, etc; if anything, he saves her life when she’s trapped in the hourglass. That’s why I prefer Belle; she doesn’t grab the first marriage offer to come down the pike, and she saves the Beast when he nearly falls from the parapet after his fight with Gaston.
Still, I’ll have to reserve judgement until I see the first black Disney princess.