I saw this commercial for the first time last week and was horrified.

It almost makes me miss the days of the Easy Bake Oven.

The imagination growing while the little girl shoves laundry into the machine really horrified me as well.

Contrast that with the "Built for Boyhood" advertising campaign at Tonka Trucks (I wrote about it here: http://secondhandsally.blogspot.com/2007/10/built-for-gender-neutral-play-doesnt.html if anyone is interested.) where boys get to rough house with trucks around the house and we can see all the bullshit that is fed to little boys and girls. (And also how much more fun it looks to be a little boy.)

I think I'll wait and buy my daughter the cottage that comes with a little desk and a toy laptop instead. "I love when I get to say what I think/ those other toys drive mommy to drink drink drink."

I couldn't believe the commercial when I saw it on TV the other day. It looked like some kind of nightmare from straight out of the 1950s.

I guess it is never too early start brainwashing little girls into pretending to like doing laundry, cleaning, and baking muffins. Seriously- if my daughter really wanted to do those things, she would be welcome to do them in our real house, not the rose petal dream house.
Oh, and the commercial is ridiculous. When I saw it for the first time, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I ended up writing to Playskool about the product, but they gave me some bullshit response.

Of course it's exciting. Just take this endorsement from honorary woman, the animated Principal Seymour Skinner:

"Let's see: Tide... Cheer... Bold... Biz... Fab... All... Gain... Wisk... I believe today I will try... Bold."

I saw this commercial last night while eating dinner. I nearly threw up. I get the same feeling whenever a commercial for a cleaning product comes on and yet again it is a woman doing the cleaning. Proof that brainwashing thru toys is effective for a lot of people.

Come to think of it, wouldn't it be great if we came up with a line of feminist toys, clothes and books, for children?

I am sure it would sell well ...

Yes, the current Tonka commercials naturalize masculinity so much it's sickening. Take a look at the 1970s Tonka Truck commercial.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tBGlBtmqYIc
I swear I think we're going backwards...

I'm gonna give an outrageous thought.

I don't think it is THAT terrible. Because if you think about it, that girl could be pretending she has HER OWN house and she's doing HER OWN laundry. That's exactly what I used to do when I was a kid. But you could argue that I simply was born a feminist.

As it's often the case, it's not the TOY itself but what you do with it. And chances are that growing up with working parents, that girl is not going to play that she has a husband and she cleans the house while he goes to work.

Oh come on... I always dreamed of growing up and doing laundry-- it's the highlight of my week. :) I make it exciting by throwing in a red towel with all my whites to see if it's really colorfast on the cold setting. It's like my own little science project in my own little household kingdom.

Isn't that how women are supposed to be?

***my husband does all our laundry... after I turned all his underwear pink.

Emily, you made me chuckle while trying to pretend to do Profit & Loss Statements.

Thank you.

Not that Profit & Loss Statements were ever my dream, but at least I'm not re-arranging furniture - which is TOTALLY my other option, right?

Oh, if only I could be doing laundry right now...

Damn right, secondhandsally: Why the hell were WE excluded from the cottage? (Please, no pink.)

Sure, it's terrible what the toy companies and the advertisers do the little girls, but what they do to the little boys is WORSE -- for both the girls AND boys. While the girls were playing house, we were out slamming "cool" trucks into one another, as if we were little brain-dead animals with no responsibilities beyond our immediate gratification. What the hell did THAT teach us? And don't even get me started on the toy guns (which, I confess, I loved).

And you all think men are going to change now? You're getting to them about 18 years too late.

Well, MaryTracy, the way in which it actually is the toy itself is in that it is a toy that boys are never given, and it is an imaginative activity that boys are rarely asked to participate in. The girl may not make believe that she is a housewife, but she will certainly be rehearsing the idea that she is primarily/solely responsible for all housework and menial labor in her future life.

MaryTracy, are you kidding? The point is not that she's possibly doing someone else's laundry, it's that doing domestic chores are supposed to be her life's dream.

The fact that you have to do your own laundry if you don't want to constantly purchase new clothing, has nothing to do with the nastiness of this commercial and product.

And, Tim, perhaps my sarcasm sense is on the fritz today, but, no, what they do to the little boys is not worse.

Uh, you know, if the kid really wants to be doing laundry, why not let her do the real laundry? Sure, three is a little young to be pouring detergent, but any toddler can carry dirty clothes, sort whites and colors, fold (um, wad up?) clean clothes... it's fun for them. Plus I get out of a bit of housework by giving it to my kids (bwahahaha) and don't have to spend money on *pretend* laundry. The only reason my daughter has a pretend kitchen is because she breaks too many eggs if I let her in the real one :)

Finally: in general, kids' dreams don't have much room to grow when you give them obviously single-purpose toys. A washing machine is only a washing machine. Give her a cardboard box and see how many bazillion things it will become. THAT is giving her dreams room to grow...

Whether cooking and doing laundry for someone else or for herself, she's being taught at an early age that her place is in the home ...and that her sphere is a private one - and that somehow, there's SOOOO much satisfaction in baking cookies and cleaning the house, and doing laundry, because that's every girl's dream.

Hell, if this commercial included a little boy and was aimed at boys, too - then I'd have no problem with that. But the fact is that it's reinforcing gender roles on kids.

Oh, and how did we boys have it so bad playing with toys and swords, Tim? We didn't! Let's stop making victims of males here. Boys who are socialized to be violent grow up being violent toward ...WOMEN! So there! Who's the real victim?

Saw this commercial last week, and after I stopped being dumbfounded, I thought, "Yep, Jessica's gonna be all over this one."

While the way this toy is being marketed is certainly sexist-- and creepy as hell, especially that laundry thing-- I don't think the toy in and of itself necessarily is. Or even inherently gendered. My little brother wanted a playhouse so badly that he built one himself (he had a talent for carpentry).

I agree with Tim that gendering toys is a problem for boys, too. My same brother is over-the-top macho today, and I think that it may be due in part to the crap he got as a kid for being interested in "girl toys" like dolls and play houses. My mtf girlfriend also suffered a lot due to gendering of toys-- since her parents thought she was a boy, they wouldn't buy her the things she really wanted: "You can't have the toy kitchen; that's for girls. We just bought you a basketball."

And some people do enjoy baking muffins, incidentally.

While the way this toy is being marketed is certainly sexist-- and creepy as hell, especially that laundry thing-- I don't think the toy in and of itself necessarily is. Or even inherently gendered. My little brother wanted a playhouse so badly that he built one himself (he had a talent for carpentry).

I agree with Tim that gendering toys is a problem for boys, too. My same brother is over-the-top macho today, and I think that it may be due in part to the crap he got as a kid for being interested in "girl toys" like dolls and play houses. My mtf girlfriend also suffered a lot due to gendering of toys-- since her parents thought she was a boy, they wouldn't buy her the things she really wanted: "You can't have the toy kitchen; that's for girls. We just bought you a basketball."

And some people do enjoy baking muffins, incidentally.

"Uh, you know, if the kid really wants to be doing laundry, why not let her do the real laundry?"....

That's so funny and true for me...Growing up in the country as the daughter of a farm girl (who was very much a part of the work on the farm - in the barn, field and house) there were no "house toys". When I asked for an easy bake oven, mom taught me how to use the real oven - which was fun - I love to cook. Not so fun was when I asked her how to use the laundry machine, dish washer and lawn mower! And just as a side note, my father is also a wondeful cook.

ProFeministMale, you have completely misconstrued my point. Boys are not victims in the MRA-sense you somehow assume I was advocating. Exactly the opposite. It is a given that girls should be encouraged to play with trucks, etc. But gender-specific boy-toys hurt women, not only because girls aren't encouraged to play with boy-toys, but because confining boys to boy-toys has, I would suspect, helped create a perpetual Peter Pan state in grown men -- we don't do domestic chores or raise our children nearly as much as we should. ONLY in that sense are men "victims," ProFeministMale. You can bet most men don't know they were victimized by their toys -- they had too much fun. Hell, the boy-toys were a lot more fun to play with than the cottage, I would guess. But it damn sure would have been better for the boys (and for the girls/women) if boys had also been encouraged to play in the cottage earlier.

My dad built us a shed and turned it into a play house. It was white and had a little window. Inside had movie posters that my sisters and I liked. It had a bunch of little chairs for our art projects. We did have a fisherprice kitchen set which we pretended was out "laboratory" and ran around in the woods picking up things to mash together in the sink to see what would come out after. hehe. So we didn't really get that we were sapose to pretend to make dinner or wash the dishes.. the sink was always full of weeds, mud and water. It was a really awesome toy but I think we would have prefered a childs chemistry set in retrospect...

Anyway, I doubt kids would even get this toy. Especially kids that young. Kids tend to emulate their parents, but somehow I don't think them understanding the laundry part. Even still, stupid toy. I would have prefered a cardboard box that I could draw on and turn into a little club house. ooo yeah.

Ah, the always-versatile cardboard box. My brother and I had many of those when I was a kid. Houses, race cars, offices, cradles, dog pens, jails, banks, stores, rocket ships (I grew up in Houston, so of course rocket ships)... My dad even found me an old steering wheel and showed me how to fix it so it wouldn't fall out when I wanted to "learn to drive."

When I was a few years older (but still not too old to regress) I helped the younger neighbor children build a mega-cardboard-playhouse in their yard. Many boxes, all fixed together. We painted the walls inside and out, made rooms for different purposes, etc. I was mostly in charge of construction, organization, and making sure they didn't end up wearing too much paint. And just for the record, the kids were a boy and a girl.

I hate to sound all "back in my day," but that really did encourage more cooperation and imagination than any PlaySkool set you could possibly find. When you have a large enough cardboard box, the world is your oyster. Add in a small hammer, some mis-matched pieces of wood, and a handfull of nails and you're a millionaire. Actually, I miss being that easily satsified.

Erica B
Give her a cardboard box and see how many bazillion things it will become. THAT is giving her dreams room to grow...

A great kids' book: Christina Katerina and the Box. A large appliance box was always a prized score when we were kids.

And, like Olivia, I get the urge to throw up a little bit whenever I see cleaning product commercials. On the rare occasion when they feature men, it's always treated as comedic or exceptional.

"Hell, if this commercial included a little boy and was aimed at boys, too - then I'd have no problem with that. But the fact is that it's reinforcing gender roles on kids."

No kidding - especially since when my son (almost 2) saw the commercial he let out a big "OOOHHH" and pointed like it was the most amazing thing he's ever seen.

And I haven't quite figured out which is worse - the marketing or the damn colors. I don't understand why toy companies make everything "for girls" in pastel pink and baby blue. Do they not get that some girls (like mine, for example) like bright reds, blues, and yellows? Or that some boys like "girl toys" but refuse to play with anything pastel? Personally, I'm all for the above mentioned box idea - it's cheaper, easier, and it's going to wind up being 10,000 toys in one. But for those parents who would be willing to spend the money on this stuff the hyper-feminine coloring is going to prevent them from even thinking about buying it (no matter how excited the little guy gets).

Honestly, the product and its marketing are just going to be a huge disappointment (either now or later) for any boy or girl who is interested.

I see the problem here. BUT I don't think it's that weird that a little kid would want to do laundry. Little kids want to do what they see grown-ups doing--imitation is a huge part of imaginative play. Since most parents do their job work away from home, a lot of what kids see parents doing is housework, so they want to do it, too. Plus, lots of little kids are just fascinated by household appliances: they're desperate to know how they work, to be allowed to use them themselves, etc. One of my parents' friends took care of a little boy who was obsessed with the vacuum. He was always excited when she got it out, begged to know how it worked, and he said "good-bye" to it every evening when his parents came to pick him up.

That said, I LOVE Erica's point: When possible, letting kids do real stuff is better than fake toys, and encouraging them to make their own playhouses, appliances, what not, out of stuff they already have fosters more imagination than buying lots of expensive toy whatevers they'll quickly outgrow.

omg, everytime I see this commercial I want to vomit. "Where your dreams may grow!" But only if you stay in the kitchen of course, can't let it grow anywhere else! Plus that little girl kind of creeps me out.

I am so glad you all have posted this, I was waiting for it.

My idea:

Make it colored like a regular house. Not pink. Get rid of all the froofy flowers. Advertise it for "kids" and not just "for girls." Let the boys also get the notion that cooking and cleaning are part of normal life.

You see, I have a guy who never got that notion as a kid. He was busy making icky glop with his chemistry set while I was learning household basics. So now, trying to get him to do housework is like banging my head on a brick wall. I'm stuck with it all.

Last week his mother asked me why *he* didn't do the vacuuming and the lawn mowing instead of me. I just busted out laughing. Why does she think?

I'm so glad you're covering this, Jessica. I've been seeing these ads for the past few weeks ad nauseum. I see them in the morning when I'm getting ready for work (watching the horrid Today Show) and at night, usually when I'm watching the news (on regular ol' network TV). I noted to my partner that there seemed to be an excess of gendered toy advertisements lately. I wondered if it had to do with the recent large recall of toys made in China (due to high levels of lead). Or could it be because Christmas is approaching?

Whatever the reason, these commercials have been pissing me off as they're on quite often and seem to be regressing. I've also been seeing ads (maybe also by Playskool) for toys for boys in which a 'researcher' type asks the baby boy/toddler what he wants to be when he grows up, how that will affect his schooling, etc. - The point being that boys should be thinking from an extremely young age about being number one, being competitive, getting into a good college, getting a high-paid and powerful job. Ugh.

"I have a guy who . . .was busy making icky glop with his chemistry set while I was learning household basics. So now, trying to get him to do housework is like banging my head on a brick wall. I'm stuck with it all."

Exactly my point, gothchiq. But it is a given that you should have also been encouraged to play with the chemistry set.

Everyday is magic time with airplane glue!

Add me as another advocate of boxes as toys. I've already made one playhouse out of a refrigerator box. I cut out windows and doors; it was pretty cute. It's been destroyed now, but we recently had to order a new dishwasher, so he'll get another soon. This time he is old enough to paint, which should be fun.

He also has his own sponge because he like to help do dishes. I cut an old broom down to size because he likes to sweep. Sadly, he does not undertand the difference between clean and dirty laundry; he wants to throw the clean stuff in the hamper if it is not folded.

While I generally favor teachng children to use the real thing; I loved the easy bake oven when I was a kid and wnt my son to have one too. It didn't turn me into a good cook, but I am a decent baker.

My thoughts on pink: I used to hate pink because it was such a "girl" color, and I was never a very traditional little girl. So I rejected pink on the basis of its gendered ... ness. But more recently ... I LOVE pink. I've decided that I'm not going to let society's ideas of what I should like as a girl (or reject in order to not be girly) get in the way of my new found love for pretty, shiny, bright pink items. I wear and use a lot of black generally, and pink is such a fun, contrasting color. Plus, it's the only shade of red that looks good on me. (Red, orange, and even yellow look awful on me. Pink is okay.)

Regarding the house itself: Sure, it makes her imagination grow and grow ... as she plots how to imaginary kill her imaginary husband, since she's so burned out from doing laundry and baking muffins every damn day.

Random and related comment: I had a kitchen set when I was a kid. I always pretended to be a chef or to own my own deli. Stuffed animals were my customers. I had oodles of plastic foods.

I think these are all valid points, but I would like to add my experience. when i was a kid, i played with toy laundry machines and kitchens, probably in an attempt to emulate my mother, who was also a working mom. And i would like to think that despite playing with toys that pandered to gender roles, i turned out fine. I have a career, I don't plan to stay home and play housewife, and i'm a feminist- despite the pink toys of my past. I don't think it's so much the toys you play with as a child that make you, but the people around you and your experiences throughout your life. So yes, children should have access to any toys they want- cars, barbies, or legos- but i don't think that just because your little girl is given 'role-playing' type toys, she's going to turn into a suzy homemaker when she's older.

Oh god -- that ad is even more barftastic than it sounds! There's no grey area here: this product and its advertising are EVIL. There is no hint -- NONE -- that girls have functions/dreams/etc. beyond cooking, cleaning, and childcare. I wish I could scrub the icky pink memory of it out of my brain.

Come to think of it - I also had a kitchen set that you could actually cook with when I was a child - along with guns and trucks - and now, I can't cook worth shit - but I can shoot with the best of them, and I love trucks ...

So, I really do question, and this is not me being an asshole - how much does socialization affect us? Is it just socialization or also the environment in which we grew? My liberal upbringing did help me, I think.

When I read "Rose Petal Cottage" I thought, "Oh, that would be a playhouse with gardening and art project activities".

Cooking can be fun, sure, but laundry and cleaning? Please.

Sometimes I played house as a kid. Other times I made little shields and ran around playing knight (as best I could without any weapons).

Seriously, I was just about to send this to you guys. Saw the commercial just a couple days ago. Way to be all over it.

I'm glad I wasn't the only girl who avoided the playhouse like the plague. I always thought house was phenomenally boring and wanted to play with my pink RC four wheeler (on which my Barbie fit perfectly, but for whom it wasn't made). All the boys were jealous.

I also made up X-Men or played Storm with my friends.

House was boring. Hell, I still hate it. See: my sink.

i don't have a problem with the domestic toys, just how they are marketed to be exclusively "girl toys" (and the trucks, conversely are "boy toys.")

my sister and i had a playhouse of some sort in our backyard. it was some obnoxious lavendar color and looked like a gingerbread house. i never actually played house, though. the house was just our home base for games. it was a castle or a ship or a space station or a hideout, just like my barbie dolls were rock stars and jewel thieves and superheroes and executives.

my parents never minded buying transformers AND my little ponies. toys can socialize, but i think that can be outweighed with the right parenting.

so even if a girl wants a playhouse and all her parents can find is this "rose petal cottage" nonsense, if she's been raised to think for herself, the cottage easily converts to a pirate ship in her mind.

You know what *I* wanted when I was a little girl? A play office. My girlfriend and I always overturned the utility room to make one, filling it with all kinds of office-y stuff my mom brought home from work, and we took turns being president of the company.

I can see imitating parents' activities at home as being "fun" (though it wasn't for necessarily for me, since I always wound up helping my single mom with most of the chores anyway - including the laundry), but why does those kind of toys have to be gendered in colour and name, and why AREN'T there other options, like Her Little CEO's Office? THAT'S what's so disturbing - it really is a form of inculcating girls into a certain lifestyle that's based on so-called "traditional" gender roles.

I think these two popular books illustrate the contrast people are talking about.

BOOK 1: THE DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS

If ever there was a book to make you switch off your television set, "The Dangerous Book for Boys" is it. How many other books will help you thrash someone at conkers, race your own go-cart, and identify the best quotations from Shakespeare? "The Dangerous Book for Boys" gives you facts and figures at your fingertips - swot up on the solar system, learn about famous battles and read inspiring stories of incredible courage and bravery. Teach your old dog new tricks. Make a pinhole camera. Understand the laws of cricket. There's a whole world out there: with this book, anyone can get out and explore it. "The Dangerous Book for Boys" is written with the verve and passion that readers of Conn Iggulden's number one bestselling novels have come to expect. This book, his first non-fiction work, has been written with his brother as a celebration of the long summers of their youth and as a compendium of information so vital to men of all ages. Lavishly designed and fully illustrated in color and black and white throughout, it's set to be a perfect gift for Father's Day and beyond. Chapters in "The Dangerous Book for Boys" include: The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, Conkers, Laws of Football, Dinosaurs, Fishing, Juggling, Timers and Tripwires, Kings and Queens, Famous Battles, Spies, Making Crystals, Insects and Spiders, Astronomy, Girls, The Golden Age of Piracy, Secret Inks, Patron Saints of Britain, Skimming Stones, Dog Tricks, Making a Periscope, Coin Tricks, Marbles, Artillery, The Origin of Words, and The Solar System.

BOOK 2: THE GREAT BIG GLORIUS BOOK FOR GIRLS

This book brings back memories of my childhood. It contains most of the things I did as a girl in the 1940/50s - a much gentler time than now - plus a few more modern things. Even the cover has the feel of that time. I was brought up making things and still knit, crochet, sew, embroider, make lace, arrange flowers, etc nowadays as well as use a computer, write, walk, take photos, ride a horse... so I am never bored. I think it's a pity that everything seems to be bought nowadays. Where has imagination and creativity gone? Where's the satisfaction in saying "I bought that?" unstead of saying "I made that?". Hopefully this book will help to bring that back. My husband still has his copy of the 1940s equivalent of the boy's book. Perhaps children who do what's in these two books will always be able to find something interesting to do and won't end up hanging around on street corners when they get into their teens.

Damn! You beat me to it. I had been so planning to post about this BULLSHIT toy. I saw the commercial for the first time the other night and was f***ing horrified! The only things that come inside it are an oven, washing machine, sink and crib? DISGUSTING. And don't you love how she drags her mom over to show her all she's learned and accomplished during playtime? My friends who are moms would be bleeping horrified, I can tell you that. Pretty sure none of them even do their own laundry anymore (Of course, that's a whole different issue, and it's probably only a matter of time before Mattel et al. are marketing the Rose Petal Deluxe to little white girls that comes complete with your own maid-of-color and a spinning bike our little ones can ride while the maid takes over the rest).

This sucks. Like most of you, I loved trees and empty boxes and blank pieces of paper when I was little.
Maybe they could make it even better by cutting a deal with Disney and making it a Princess cabin. My cousin has two little girls who won't eat their food unless she sprinkles it with princess powder (aka salt). I sincerely bet that they will get the Rose Petal Your Place Is In The Home Dream House for Christmannukah.

The commercial left out one thing -- "Availability may vary for subprime buyers."

I saw this commerical while my boyfriend was watching cartoons with my daughter. My first thought was that it was kind of cool, because it was like the whole playschool kitchen set all in one. My best friend had one growing up and I was so jealous. But the baby cradle is kind of creepy. I don't think the playschool set had a washing machine either. Then I started thinking and if I'm my daughters role model there is no way she is going to play with something like that. I can't cook, I hate doing laundry. Instead I imagine her playing camp upstairs in her bedroom with our tent and a play fire and little pots and pans. Our two flights of stairs make perfect pretend hiking trails.

I still remember the Christmas when I was not-quite 5. My brothers both got trolls and troll houses. I got little kiddles and a little kiddle house. I was devastated. I LOVED trolls and that little cave-like troll house was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

I'd been seeing the Tonka commercials for boys and immediately thought they were stupid and gendered, though seeing this today made me wince away from my computer. That jingle, ETCH.

That's so funny and true for me...Growing up in the country as the daughter of a farm girl (who was very much a part of the work on the farm - in the barn, field and house) there were no "house toys". When I asked for an easy bake oven, mom taught me how to use the real oven - which was fun - I love to cook. Not so fun was when I asked her how to use the laundry machine, dish washer and lawn mower! And just as a side note, my father is also a wondeful cook.

ditto, VicSin. I also grew up on a farm and had no need for the little houses playthings. Like many people here have already stated, give me a cardboard box as a kid and I was set. One of the happiest days of my life as a kid was when my parents got a new refrigerator and they let me have the box it came in. I don't think I left that thing until my mom forced me out for dinner.

And again, this makes me happy I had the parents I had. We never had toys for boys or girls, my brother and I were five years apart and we were always playing with each other's stuff and we'd play together. I'd use his GI Joes and he'd use my My Little Pony(s) (they were used as war horses of course, imagine that;). Later, when I got older I got into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I got the whole set for Christmas. I'm going to have to call them and thank them...

When we see ads like this, or (personally I think they're even worse) Bratz advertised to the pre-10 set, my 6-yr-old son and I have a brief chat about how lots of girls are not interested in these things, or may be interested in these but also liking sports, science, computers, robots, electric guitars, etc.

I saw this the other day, and I started screaming at the Tele. I scared the crap out of my BF. I had some crappy kitchen set toy growing up, but I think this stuff is getting worse.

Side note - my father did the laundry in our household, which is why, at age 12, I learned how to do my own laundry. I didn't want him to be washing and folding my training bra.

Kali Ma- the problem here is that there are simply no other alternatives when it comes to mainstream toys for girls and boys. All the toys are POLARIZED, they are explicitly targeted to either little boys or little girls and there is no middle ground for the two. Rarely do you see a toy commercial where boys and girls interact equally. For instance, I saw a toy Jeep commercial the other day and throughout the entire commercial, the boys drove and the girls rode. Also if you take a trip to your local Hell-Mart or Toys R Us and actually look what at what kinds of toys are sold in each department,you will find all the "educational" toys (telescopes, microscopes, genuine toys for learning only) are found only in the boys aisles. This is alarming. You're right, the little girl at that point in her life isn't going to pretend to clean up after her husband and do all the dirty work but it is setting the stage for what she will be taught and exposed to later in her life. These toy companies aren't concerned with her development as a little girl, they are concerned with keeping their wallets stuffed and keeping alive the stereotypes that exist that allow them to sell shit like this in the first place. And let's face it, life is not a fucking rose petal cottage. This commercial made me want to shoot myself in the foot.

Actually that was in response to MaryTracy, I always get confused! :)

I'm not gunna lie. Play houses rock.

Pink play houses blow hard, though.

When I was seven I would not have touched that thing. I would have secretly thought it was -awesome-, but the pink would have made it evil.

Tim, you totally should have lived across the street from me. I had a kitchen that was all primary colors, with lots of fake food. (I wanted an easy bake oven too) The boys from next door would always come over and want to play house, because then we would play with the kitchen.

If I recall properly, if it involved mechanical parts or me making something, I liked it.

Also Redstar--you are hilarious.

I need to call my parents and tell them how much I love them. They bought a rocking chair when I was four. The box was the best playhouse ever, even had a slanted roof. Then we moved and left the box behind, but when we moved we bought a washer and dryer, and got not one but two big boxes for playhouses. Dad cut a door and windows in each one. My brother got the Tonka trucks and I had a dumptruck that looked like, no joke, a cantaloupe and a fire engine and that was a tomato but I played with my brother's trucks and cars and Dukes of Hazzard toys and no one gave me any trouble. My brother wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid more than anything in the world, and when a family member happened upon a store selling them during the craze in 1983 and bought several, my parents said they'd take one for him as well as for me. His bunk bed was our boat, our house, our fort, our pirate ship, our factory, and whatever else we could think of. Sure, society gave us as much gender role pressure as it could think to, but our parents did a pretty good job letting us do whatever we wanted and not making gender an issue. Mom did say when I came out that she expected my brother would be the gay one and she was surprised that he's straight and I'm the lesbo, but he was with the with the theater minor after all and I had the straight-up girly French major. I'm pretty proud of my sensitive feminist straight brother (NOT the Nice Guy you straight women and men complain about here) and he's pretty happy with his dyke sister too.

When I was eight I won a little wooden house like that from a parade - only it was, you know, the color of wood. I believe it had lace curtains but because my cousin and I always played with it like it was a fort, they were pretty much destroyed within a year or so. The reason I bring all that up is I'm sure some people would point to girls playing these houses and go SEE? LITTLE GIRLS WANT TO BE HOUSEWIVES! It never occurs to them to just give us a blank template of a house and see what we do with it - in my case, it never occurred to me to do fake laundry or "run the house." I had hunting to do! :D

Amidst all these gendered "boys are just built different" and "dreams of laundry" toy commercials, I was actually quite happy recently to see a Toys R Us commercial in which a boy and a girl are playing together with Legos and a toy truck, and the girl is the one to crash her truck through the legos.

You know what's depressing? I'm sitting here with my 3.5-year-old daughter, and she looks over my shoulder at the picture and says "ooh - I like that playhouse."

Then we watch the commercials, and her reaction is still "that playhouse is kind of nice, because little girls can do stuff with cradles in it". She did have the expected reaction about laundry - not fun - but...

When I was a little kid, my sisters and I would make costumes out of construction paper and craft foam. Then we ran around the house playing Robin Hood and having sword fights with swords made from Toobers and Zots. We never had any real intrest in house work, though I have always enjoyed baking.

Alright, after looking on the website I think the house is so cute (I like the color pink). If I had kids, I'd buy it for both genders. And then I'd tell them they had to defend it from dragons. I wouldn't make a very normal parent, but that's ok, because all the gendered stuff parents and kids are supposed to do really bothers me. Why can't the boys get pink playhouses?

I agree that the toy itself isn't exactly sexist. The marketing is, I guess, in the same way the Tonka commercial is, and the pink pre-decorated walls are kind of lame (that's the same reason I never liked my Barbie house, everything was printed on the wall). But I don't think giving a kid some kind of toy is going to show them that that is what they have to look forward to when they grow up or anything, I really don't think playhouses or other "domestic" playsets train little girls for housework. My brothers are 4 and 1, and they have a play kitchen that they absolutely love, because they see my parents use the kitchen and want to do "big people things" like all little kids do. My mom got them the kitchen so they would be able to feel like they're participating, at least until they can actually handle doing things in the kitchen.
I had a really imaginative childhood, I was always pretending all kinds of things. I think I would have loved that house, but at the same time I loved my plastic suit of armor and my lightsabers and my bow and arrow set. And that bow and arrow set didn't train me to be an archer. And housework shouldn't be automatically equated to being submissive, because nearly everyone does it at some time. My mom bought me a fake toaster once and I remember I set up a little kitchen and pretended i had my own apartment. I think what's really the problem here is the way housework is treated as woman's work still, and therefore pretending to do housework is for little girls. BUt, since children like to immitate so much in their play, I don't see why anyone should discourage their kids from pretending to do housework. Maybe they'll just grow up to be a really clean person. I mean, i think dusting furniture is kind of fun. :)

"Personally, I'm all for the above mentioned box idea - it's cheaper, easier, and it's going to wind up being 10,000 toys in one."

No wonder the toy companies don't like that idea. Gendering toys seems to push some parents (the ones with both daughters and sons) to buy more toys than they would if they could let a little brother play with his big sister's hand-me downs and vice versa. I bet that if interracial adoption was way more common, these companies would also fear, say, white kids playing with black siblings' hand-me-downs and market toys by race as well as by gender...

"Maybe they could make it even better by cutting a deal with Disney and making it a Princess cabin."

Now that reminded me of Mulan. :)

Maybe they could make it even better by cutting a deal with Disney and making it a Princess cabin.

Shush! They'll hear you!

The advertisment for this thing makes me throw up in my mouth a little. As a history major its not really shocking to see stuff like this as it has been a part of our "American way of life" for many years. Yet, I think an interesting question we need to ask is what if a young girl who has never seen the advertisments for this cottage picks it out in the store. Is it wrong to buy it for her just because the marketing is sexist?

l.short.1230 (did i get that right??) - thanks!

In my aghast exuberance over the Rose Petal Penitentiary I forgot to mention that it was all about the pots and pans for me. My mom has fond memories of being able to pull a whole bunch out of the cabinets and I'd be happy for hours. She likes to tell this one story about her and my dad took me to ME with another young family, and the other kid showed up w/all these toys, and I was like "WTF????" (toddler version), because, you know, I'd only been playing with the cookware. Of course, then I immed. wanted toyz.

Oh sh*t, I hope I didn't chalk one up for the marketers AND the sexists, with that story!!

we used to have a playhouse in the back yard. my sister and i both wanted to be archaeologists so we would spend our time digging up the yard and running into the woods to collect "treasures". what did we use the playhouse for? we would pee in it when we were having too much fun to go all the way inside.

damn, i looked on the website and you have to by all that shit separately. the only thing you get for $80 is some fabric and plastic poles. and the little house tour was all bullshit. it tries to make it look like there are 5 separate rooms when there's really only 2. obviously these people are going to have shitty advertising. yeah i think i changed my mind about this house. great job, playschool (but play houses are still badass).

These advertisements make me want to throw up. I think I actually threw up in my mouth the first time I saw them. Girls can't dream about being something more than just a housekeeper? Last time I checked this was 2007 not the 1950s. A girl should be given something that will inspire her to be something more.

Just discovered the site. Quite late to this party... As a recovering "Peter Pan" father of two (a boy and a girl), I have a few thoughts.

1. There's nothing wrong with children pretending to be grown-ups, even if that pretend includes doing chores. The problem with this ad is that there are no boys in it -- add a boy playmate pretending to do laundry too, and you suddenly have a wonderful product. Look! It's pink, laundry, and for boys!

2. It's interesting that our society has evolved enough to allow women to join the work-force, and that having a little girl in the Tonka commercial would raise no eyebrows, while contributing in the house is still just for girls. Would you all agree that the biggest battle for feminism right now is not equality for women per se, but rather convincing men that equality includes equal participation at work AND at home? I was raised in a quite traditional 1950's style house, and never really cleaned anything until long after I graduated from college. I honestly don't see the mess; I suck at cleaning it; and I still have difficulty grasping how much time keeping a household running takes. I'm better than I was, but I know that my wife would still scoff at the idea that I'm pulling my weight. This is hardly atypical.

3. My 12-year-old daughter doesn't like the X-men, vastly preferring Teen Titans and Avatar. Although I loved the X-men as a kid, and my son (now 20) also loved them, I'm glad for my daughter's choices. Both of those shows have far more healthy female characters.

I think that they should have the house in a more realistic color scheme, like a brown roof, and red 'bricks'. Also they should have two comericials, a boy and a girl, with the song of course to begin the idea of gender equality amongst young kids. :D

I think that they should have the house in a more realistic color scheme, like a brown roof, and red 'bricks'. Also they should have two comericials, a boy and a girl, with the song of course to begin the idea of gender equality amongst young kids. :D