from: Danielle
This is a picture of me taken when I was 6 years old. I chose this picture because it is a picture of me in my pink Barbie corvette. I remember this distinctly because I kept asking my parents for the G.I. joe jeep. I wanted the jeep based on practically. I thought the jeep would be faster because it was bigger and it had more room so I could drive me friends around or haul dirt. They kept telling me no because the corvette was for girls and only the boys could have the jeep. This was many years ago while today if a child asked for the jeep no matter what their sex, that is what their parents would probably buy for them. Now many girls own jeeps and it is very acceptable for a girl to buy one. While I was excited to have any car to drive at all, I treated this toy very badly because it was not the one I wanted. As shown here in the picture as I am driving it into the bushes. I hated this car because not only did I hate the color pink with a passion, but it was the first time my parents made me feel like I was not being "girl enough". This picture represents how parents cause children to feel like they must fit into their gender. It shows how parents more than anyone can influence how a child thinks they are supposed to act. I know this first hand because after this incident I never asked for the "boy toy" again. I felt that if I did my parents were going to think that something was wrong with me for always wanting to play with the boy toys. This one incident with my parents made me realize that I have to fit into my gender or society as a whole was going to think I was weird or different.
3 comments:
I think it is amazing that you remember so much about the Barbie jeep incident and are so aware of how it affected you. And now? Do you curb your enthusiasm for "boy" toys today? Do you drive a green jeep today?
I think I was around age five or six when my sister got a pink Barbie corvette. I didn’t care about anything that I got. All I wanted was to drive that car. I think I really liked the idea of driving something that moved without me having to pedal or walk it. My parents told me that it was for my sister and I should go open my presents, but I didn’t listen. They ended up disconnecting the battery so it wouldn’t work but somehow I reconnected it and I ran over my sister while she was crawling through one of those silk, different colored tunnels. Its all on video and its pretty funny. Its weird because as I got older and I would go to toys-r-us, I would just stare at the dirt bikes, four wheelers, sport utility vehicles and go carts that were battery powered just like the Barbie car. I don’t think I even gave one look to the shiny pink vette or any of the other more feminine cars that were more than likely right next to the motorcycles and G.I. Joe jeeps. Thinking now, its funny how the pink corvette that I fell in love with at first ride was worthless to me after I saw the more masculine products. I’ve since moved on to gas powered transportation, but the Barbie corvette will always be my first love. Haha.
HAHA, i had one of those...I mean a GI JOE one of course. But my parents bought me the GI JOE one because i am a guy. When i was a kid there was a girl in my neighborhood that had the barbie one, we used to ride around in ours all the time. I almost wished my parents would have taken a picture, i prolly would have used that one instead. I am curious to know if Chevy made the corvette pink so that one day a little girl would become a woman, and that woman would remember how cool that corvette was and would go to the dealership to buy a real one....maybe it was a marketing scheme.
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