In our society, gender changes everything for a child. We have placed two categories on what the human race can be. These categories have no in between in our country. You are either male of female at birth. This judgment determines the rest of the baby’s life. From early on, we are subjected to the fact that boy’s toys are generally more neutral colors including green, blue, red, and yellow. Conversely, girl’s toys are usually pink. Society usually makes toys gender specific, but children have the tendency to go against the way manufacturers have designed for these toys to be played with and play with their toys however they please. I specifically remember playing with my ‘Easy Bake Oven’ the most as a child. The Easy Bake Oven represented gender because of it’s features which were mainly pink, its advertisements which only included girls playing with it, and it’s nurturing feel that made it seem as if only girls were supposed to bake.
For my younger brother and I, toys were something to share. The toy could be designed for something in particular, but we were always using our imaginations and coming up with new ways to play with our toys. We were simply seeking to have a good time playing together as children. This is called subversive play. Subversive play means, ‘Children play with toys in ways manufacturers never imagined.’ Inness, Sherrie A. “It’s a girl thing”: Tough Female Action Figures in the Toy Store. My brother and I frequently would subversive play.
When I received my Easy Bake Oven from my grandmother for Christmas I was thrilled. The shocking part was that my brother seemed more thrilled about the gift. This seemed odd to all of my family members because the box had a picture of a three young girls baking together. The Easy Bake Oven was pink and had cookie cut outs in the shapes of flowers and ponies. This was one of the most feminine looking toys I had received that Christmas. I think this is why my family was shocked that my brother wanted to play with the Easy Bake Oven before wanting to play with his own gifts.
When reading the manual for my Easy Bake Oven, the first things I noticed were the pictures. One of the pictures showed the three young girls mixing the ingredients together. In the second picture it showed the mom figure helping them take it out of the warm oven. This message portrays that woman are the one’s that cook and nurture, so little girls should be the ones who use this toy. This is not true. My brother is just one of the many boys who also used this toy and had a blast doing it.
While reading the directions in the manual, I saw that in the last step to baking your creation it says ‘you have now completed your baking experience, time to eat with all your girl friends.’ Notice how the manual said the word girl. This could’ve easily been left out but it wasn’t. Not only the box was pink, the actual oven and manual were as well. This is a huge turnoff for a boy. I assume that if my brother didn’t have an older sister, he would’ve never gotten the chance to play with an Easy Bake Oven and wouldn’t have asked for it for Christmas himself. Boys have the image from a very young age that they’re supposed to be powerful and masculine. You rarely see a boy who is writing Easy Bake Oven down on his Christmas list even if he did want one.
My brother and I would also bend the rules the Easy Bake Oven suggested by eating the dough that we made before cooking it. It always gave us a rush of exhilaration because we felt sneaky. It wasn’t something that we were supposed to do because it wasn’t listed in the instructions. We would try to get away with it until our mom would notice one of the cooking packs were gone and question where it was. She usually didn’t care, but if we ate too much of the dough without cooking it she would scold us because it’s not healthy.
Because my younger brother looked up to me, he was interested in playing with other toys that were mine. I love to paint my nails and he was always curious about it. He would watch me until one day he finally asked if I could paint his toenails. I agree’d and painted his toenails dark blue. Once my father came home from work and saw my brother’s dark blue toenails, he was furious. He demanded that I take the nail polish off. He never gave a reason why he had to. While on the other hand, if my father came home while my brother and I were playing with my Easy Bake Oven, my father would never question it. This shows that cooking isn’t just for woman and an Easy Bake Oven shouldn’t be either.
Sadly, my Easy Bake Oven did not last forever and broke when I was about ten. When I told my sister, eight years my junior, about my Easy Bake Oven, she demanded to have one. Our grandmother bought her an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas and I was shocked to see that the Easy Bake Oven was not as how I remembered it. It was in a light blue box with splashes of pink. Although it still had three little girls baking on the cover, the actual oven was light blue as well. The manual was light blue. I think that Easy Bake realized that young boys could also wish to play with this toy as well and wanted to tone down the feminine aspects that it portrayed.
Children subversive play everyday. Manufactures should expect it. By putting three girls on the box of the Easy Bake Oven, it signals boys that that is not a toy they should play with and Easy Bake Oven looses business. Children are going to play with toys however they see fit and there’s nothing manufactures can do about it. I think that manufactures should stop making toys gender specific and maybe add a boy into the mix of three girls on the box of the Easy Bake Oven. That way it would show boys that it is not the girly toy that it seems to be and Easy Bake would get more business.
Women In Popular Culture 