Gendered Easter Eggs?????

So I was at Target last night, shopping for Easter candy since it tends to go on sale during the last week, and I discovered something disturbing.

Plastic Easter eggs are now gender-segregated by color. There are bags of pink, orange, and purple ones for girls, and bags of blue, green, and yellow ones for boys. You can still get bags with all six colors (plus a shiny gold one for the grand prize), but the existence of the gender-coded ones really disturbs me. Like, really. More so than the absurd gender-coding of things for kids normally does.

I'm not sure why this in particular hits me so hard, but it really creeps me out. I mean, what the hell? Isn't the point of Easter eggs that they come in an entire rainbow of colors? What's next—girls' and boys' crayon boxes?

Wait, orange is supposed to be a girly color? :C

We already have those, actually.

But these "gendered easter eggs" make me want to fucking punch someone.

I'm with Kay here, never heard that stereotype.

I have actually seen gendered crayon boxes before, I think. This stuff does tick me off, but it rarely surprises me anymore.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

We have gendered 'surprise' eggs in Germany. Pink, with Winx-Club figurines in them, and marketed explicitly and exclusively to girls. I haven't taken a look at the Easter Eggs, but I have a bad feeling about those.

Every time I see such rot, I'm afraid I might crack a tooth or two for all the jaw-grinding.

Complicated - because simple is simply too simple.

I don't really understand what's so rage-inducing about that. :V

Gender branding is idiotic.

"Yes, girls are supposed to like THESE COLORS and guys are supposed to like THESE COLORS". Like fuck you, they're just colors. Let the girls buy their fucking toys in blue or something.

Plastic easter eggs? What're those for, decoration?

Well, those make sense. I know I wouldn't have wanted to find a Winx-Club figurine in a Kinder egg when I was little. But of course, back then you could actually get good stuff in those things...

A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the line

The very fact that it makes sense to you that a Winx-Club figurine is undesirable for boys is what's so wrong with this practice.

That is taking aside the issues I have with Winx-Club, cuz that's a whole 'nother shoe.

Complicated - because simple is simply too simple.

Okay, I can see your point.

I agree. No one should like WINX club!

The whole "pink for girls blue for boys" thing is great for marketing but it ends up building arbitrary and meaningless ideas of what girls and boys should like and whatnot.

If a girl likes pink, that's not the problem. If a girl has to like pink becuase there's nothing else on the market that's "acceptable" for girls to consume and marketed towards them that isn't "pretty pink pony princess"; there's my problem.

Like I said, yeah, marketing can do whatever they want and girls and boys can like whatever they do, but come on, easter eggs? That's just pushing it.

edited 29th Mar '13 11:48:09 AM by ThatOneGuyNamedX

Plastic has been assigned genders. Joys.

PM box is always open.

@Catfish: except they really don't. Just because you're a guy and wouldn't have liked them as a little boy, that doesn't mean other little boys wouldn't have either. Nor does it mean that little girls automatically like them. Also consider how much of that "I wouldn't have wanted one" comes from conditioning and how much from genuine lack of interest.

please don't capitalize my handle. I just don't like it.

Don't forget that the reverse holds true for boys and while the Tomboy has become very socially acceptable in large parts of the world, the stigmatisation of a boy liking 'girly' stuff is as strong as ever in most parts.

Complicated - because simple is simply too simple.

It's not "stigmatized" as much as it's downright scandalous that a boy might enjoy something "girly".

Agh, why did I post here...

A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the line

I'm not freaking out over this, but I have to ask: What's the point of Gendered Easter Eggs? When I was little I didn't care what the color of the egg was, I was more interested if there was candy inside of it.

Marketing, I'm thinking. At least for the most part.

The idea that marketing colored plastic differently is considered a sensible business decision actually concerns me more than the basic concept.

PM box is always open.

And the Heteronormative Revisionists Conspiracy strikes again.

edited 29th Mar '13 11:58:41 AM by montmorencey

Complicated - because simple is simply too simple.

I'm not seeing what's so disturbing about this. A bit old-fashioned maybe, but hardly cause for alarm.

It's not any more troubling than any other arbitrary gender division but at the same time, it's fucking chocolate eggs. That's just ridiculous.

Hmm, candy and chocolate eggs weren't even a thing here when I was a kid. I mean, you could buy them, but mostly what people did was decorate actual eggs. Like so: [1]◊. I kind of miss making them.

please don't capitalize my handle. I just don't like it.

How can it be old-fashioned when it's a brand-new development?

I find it disturbing because it's just one more thing that has to be gender-segregated instead of, you know, equal.

edited 29th Mar '13 12:08:37 PM by Karalora

I find it sad that this "isn't cause for alarm". Yeah, it could be worse, this isn't something major, but it really shows how insidious these stereotypes are when people are just "meh" about it.

edited 29th Mar '13 12:07:47 PM by bananasloth

please don't capitalize my handle. I just don't like it.