The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[xoxoxoBruce]

The reality for receptionists is they are in the same boat with actors, salespeople, and TV talking heads, appearance is primary. But If heels are a requirement, she should argue the company should provide them, like hard hats, earplugs and safety glasses.

[DanaC]

Difference being that alll those items promote safety and well being, where heels actively damage health.

It is perfectly acceptable for an employer to demand a particular dress code. It is not acceptable that they demand a dress code that could damage the health and well-being of their employee.

Employers have a duty of care to their employees, to ensure that their employees are as safe as practically possible. That means, according to law (in this country) that every effort be made to mitigate risks associated with work and the workplace - so, for example, desks and computer set-up are supposed to take account of the risks to health and employees given training on posture and proper usage in order to minimise risk of RSI and eye strain. Workers in dangerous environments are to be provided with appropriate safety wear, such as hard hats and steel toecap boots. Nurses are not supposed to try and lift paralysed patients on their own, they're supposed to work in twos when lifting.

Insisting that an employee wear a smart suit, or that they only dress in black or navy is acceptable - insisting that they wear an item of footwear which could cause long term damage to their feet, when it is not necessary for them to take such risks in order to perform their jobs is not acceptable.

[DanaC]

Ffs. Here we go again:

Iron Man 3 could have been a very different film if director Shane Black had got his way.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) squared off against main villain Killian (Guy Pearce) in the superhero movie, but it should have been Rebecca Hall's character.

Why was this changed? Because, apparently, Marvel didn't think a female toy would sell.

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/iro...-wouldnt-sell/

This is such utter bollocks, it makes my blood boil. I cannot believe we are still having this debate now. I'm guessing their 'consultation' wasn't with the kids or parents who might buy the toys. And I'm guessing they just assume all the toys bought would be for boys anyway.

[Happy Monkey]

I wonder whether it originated* with Marvel corporate, or Disney corporate.

Because Disney is already pretty bad on this front.


* The article says it came from Marvel corporate, but it could have been passed down from the parent company.

[xoxoxoBruce]

They are probably basing it on past performance of action figures in the market place, but I suspect much of that is self fulfilling. Girls are to be saved, not save.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by DanaC

This is such utter bollocks, it makes my blood boil. I cannot believe we are still having this debate now. I'm guessing their 'consultation' wasn't with the kids or parents who might buy the toys. And I'm guessing they just assume all the toys bought would be for boys anyway.

Listen, it's like everything else--the girls will play with the boy toys, but the boys* simply won't go for the girl toys. The parents might even say they would buy them in interviews, because they would feel like it's the right answer. But they absolutely wouldn't buy it when they're standing alone in the toy store. And maybe that's society's fault, or the parents' fault, or whatever... but I have children, and I know a ridiculous number of children, and I have been to countless birthday parties in a very liberal city with a healthy rejection of gender norms and the highest gay percentage second only to San Francisco, and I am telling you: the girl-villain action figure would not sell even a fraction as well as the boy-villain.

Honestly, I think the bigger crime here is dictating the plot of a movie based on toy sales. Like Marvel doesn't have enough money already?


*as they currently exist today, not some inherent biological programming. But Marvel is selling toys to boys as they currently exist today. You can argue that they should make a girl toy because it's the right thing to do, but you can't claim that the girl toy would sell as well.

[DanaC]

Maybe many of the boys won't buy a female villain figure - I suspect they might though if that is just a figure in a range of toys from a movie. It's different to expecting boys to play with the toys that are aimed at girls. I wouldn't expect hordes of prepubescent boys to buy Frozen characters - but I bet a fair few of them have alll the Star Wars figures, including the female characters

Also - if Marvel have more and better female characters in their movies, then maybe more girls will get into them and want to buy those figures. If they play the long game they could increase sales of their toys by nurturing the girl market which they have hitherto ignored. Girls are a rapidly growing demographic for comicbook and sci fi films.



You're right though - the sales of toys should not be dictating plot of film.


But as an aside here's what happened when the toymakers decided to stop being dicks and include the main female character in their toylines (having at first pretty much left her out, despite her being one of the key heroes of the film)

http://www.mtv.com/news/2688307/fema...s-selling-out/

[Clodfobble]

Yes, but don't forget Star Wars relies heavily on adult nostalgia. Grown men who aren't afraid of their sexuality are buying the Ray dolls. Iron Man 3 is still only being bought by/for children. It will change, it IS changing, but we're not there yet, and getting there requires companies doing the right thing rather than the monetary thing.

[DanaC]

I think they may find that if they market to the girls as well, they can increase their sales overall. They just have to do it in a way that doesn't put the boys off.

[Undertoad]

Course it's the frickin' parents doing the buying part... the kids will probably be fine with whatever the parents are fine with!

[Clodfobble]

Nope nope nope nope. We've never bothered with gendered anything (more because we're lazy than any kind of active choice,) but each of my kids came home one day (Kinder for the boy, first grade for the girl) declaring, quite emphatically, that they didn't want girly/boyly (yes, that's the word she uses) things.

The kids are fine with what their friends are fine with. It takes all the parents being okay with it at once, which is a shift that takes more than one movie's product tie-ins.

[DanaC]

A lotof this stuff is based on assumptions that don;t bear out in the real world. For instance, when the compute game, The Last of Us was about to go live, the publishers and distributers didn't want the female character to be shown on the box, despite her being a lead character, because they said, according to their consultations, boys and young men would be put off from buying the game i fthey thought it was a 'girl's game' and the presence of a female main character (as opposed to female set dressing) would give that impression. The makers stuck to their guns, she was shown on the box, and the game broke sales records and became a massive hit, with both male and female gamers.

It is absolutely the case that girls are often a lot more comfortable with, and subject to a lot less stigma for, playing with 'boys' toys than are the boys playing with girls' toys. But - kids of both gender seem perfectly fine playing with neutral toys that aren't specifically marketed at one or the other gender. The problem is that toy makers routinely market film tie-ins and action figures in a highly gendered way, whereas if they marketed them simply as toys, rather than as boys toys, they could bring in both boys and girls.

Nope nope nope nope. We've never bothered with gendered anything (more because we're lazy than any kind of active choice,) but each of my kids came home one day (Kinder for the boy, first grade for the girl) declaring, quite emphatically, that they didn't want girly/boyly (yes, that's the word she uses) things.

That may be so - but that may just mean that we are coding toys too strongly, so that they do sit firmly in one of those camps. Boys may not want a pink bike, and girls may not want a blue bike - but they both want bikes.

Boys may not want a doll and girls may not want an action man, but there's no reason why they might not both want lego. And there's no reason why theymight not both want figures from the most popular movie on the cinema screen, if it's being watched by both girls and boys and has both male and female characters.

And it may well end up with the boys mainly playing with the male characters, and the girls mainly playing with the female characters - but if they're both playing with characters from that movie then the toymaker will make money.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

I wonder whether it originated* with Marvel corporate, or Disney corporate.

Because Disney is already pretty bad on this front..

Bloody hell, you're not kidding.

The Disney Store have been selling Iron Man 3 tshirts for boys/men and girls/women - the boys tshirts have the slogan 'Be a Hero' whilst the girl's tshirts say 'I Need a Hero' and 'I Only Kiss Heroes'. In light of a bunch of negative feedback they've removed the 'I Only Kiss Heroes' one, but are still only selling 'I Need a Hero' for the girls and 'Be a Hero' for the boys.



And in other Superhero toy news ....

In Age of Ultron, there is one truly kickass female character - Black Widow. There is an iconic scene in the movie in which Black Widow exits the Quinjet on a black Harley.

Having previously left Black Widow out of the toy line for the Avengers movies, the toy makers have now included both the Quinjet and the Harley, which comes out f the the bottom of the jet just ;like it does in the film, so that kids can recreate that iconic scene - except with either Captain America or Iron Man riding it.

So they have erased Black Widow from her own iconic scene.

I get that boys might not want to buy girl toys. But there is no reason at all, why boys would not want a complete set of characters, including the female character. And there is no reason at all to assume that only boys will be playing with these toys. The fact that Disney made a tshirt for girls and women at all is a tacit acceptance that girls and women are wanting superhero film merchandise.

Time and again, the toymakers remove the female characters from their line up. They did not include Rey initially in their Star Wars Force Awakens line up, despite her being one of the central characters - they replaced her with minor characters and characters from previous films.

They did not do this in the 70s! The Princess Leia figure was there in the line up for the original Star Wars toys - my best friend, David had them all (including the Millenium Falcon and one of those things with the giant legs). Nobody thouight it would be a good idea to remove the only key female character - they just sold all the characters, and they all sold just fine. I remember the Princess Leia figure - she was done in exactly the same style as Luke and Solo - with a gun in her hand (the later figure sets granted, did opt more for the Leia in a gold bikini sex slave figure). It wasn't an issue. And that was back before anybody thought about girls wanting to buy the toys - they just put out the key characters for the film. And boys bougth and played with them (and so did some girls as it happens)

This kind of over the top gendering of toys is a new thing.


Here are the Disney tees

[BigV]

We're waaaay gayer than you. . .







Um, that kinda came out wrong. .

[xoxoxoBruce]

The men who designer safety measures for war workers were determined to save the TaTas.