Is this sexist?

[Weird Harold]

I went to McDonald's with the granddaughter after her gymnastics class tonight. While we were there, I was trying to trace out the various paths in the oversized hampster habitat they call a "playplace". I noticed that the pink slide started at the mid-level and the blue slide started at the very top level.

Do you think it was a conscious decision to make the shorter and safer slide pink ("girly color") and the longer more exciting slide blue (Boy color)?

 

[CreamyLady]

Probably, but I'd like to think that it wasn't a conscious decision.

Then again, I find patriarchal conspiracies everywhere.

 

[BlondeBeauty]

Quick question-

Is it sexist to call pink a girl color and blue a boy color?

Huh? Huh? LOL

 

[Samuari]

Probably, but I'd like to think that it wasn't a conscious decision.

Then again, I find patriarchal conspiracies everywhere.

So the pink box that Barbies come in is part of the vast patriachal conspiracy? Does that make the sky and sea masculine?

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[Katie]

I wouldn't consider it overtly sexist, but I think that the colors of the slides might send a subconscious sexist message. Whether it was intentional or not, I couldn't say.

Slap a drawing of a little girl on the side of the pink slide and picture of a little boy on the blue...that I'd consider sexist.

 

[Grrrn38]

Marketing isn't supposed to hit you on the head; of course it's intentional.

"Pink is for girls and blue is for boys" isn't a choice we get to make as parents, folks. It's made for us and delivered to our kids. The best you can do is try to combat it (if that's something you're interested in doing).

 

[Guest]

I'm a boy and I love pink :-}

 

[Nobody Special]

Actually Pink is a very soothing color. Psychoanalists paint the walls of asylims pink to calm down the patiants.. and they also found that blue will make them more violent.. and one thing that is done as a code (as in color codes of what people wear) is that men who wear Pink are more intune with their masculinity and feelings, making them more suseptable at getting laid........ and ridiculed by fellow men.. for the same reason...

E

 

[Never]

Is it sexist? Yes. Did someone consciously plan it that way? Probably, but we'll never know.

CelestialBody, I'd have to disagree. The ocean and sea are feminine principles - if you want to get technical, the ocean is the amniotic womb from which life on this planet emerged. Poseidon wasn't the Ocean, he was Lord of the Ocean - it was a territory he ruled.

 

[Whispersecret]

I highly doubt that McDonald's would be stupid enough to purposely send a sexist message. I wouldn't be surprised if you found a "cover-your-ass" label somewhere on those slides that stated that they were in no way, shape, or form, implying any gender bias in the colors of their slides.

 

[Never]

However, if they put a label like that on the slide they would be admitting that it could be thought of in that fashion. Better to just deny it all together.