It would probably help if those who felt strongly about it explain how it can be sexist. The article here and on BBC only says that they are for infants. I had to go to the peeweepumps page to read this gem:
Your little princess will be the belle of the ball with her first fashion statement in her Pee Wee Pumps High Heel Crib Shoes.
…which I agree does sound sexist. But it’s an odd thing to omit from an article criticizing the “shoes”. My main concern would be about real shoes that babies or toddlers need to actually walk in, and could affect their bone development. These appear to be only slippers for non-walking infants. I also don’t buy that pumps are somehow inherently sexual. It seems more of a cultural thing than a developmental concern.
I wonder if people think that it is the articles themselves which are sexist, the marketing, or both? It could be an interesting phenomena to discuss, if people have the patience.
it’s teaching young women early that their comfort is not nearly as important as how they present themselves. As you note, high heels are bad for the feet. I’ve seen small heels on pre-pubescent girls, too.
But as we often noted, your not generally the norm on sexualization in the larger culture. It’s not inherently sexualized, it’s culturally created notion. [quote=“popobawa4u, post:21, topic:98021”]
the articles themselves which are sexist, the marketing, or both
[/quote]
Both, I’d argue.
All this being said, if a woman, a grown adult, decides to wear heels, that’s up to them. If they feel good about it and feel it some how empowers them… well, that’s all well and good. I have no problem with it. I DO have problem with teaching little girls that their entire reason for existing to to excite and titillate men, which I think stuff like this contributes to.
If you dance long enough, the positions and motions required of ballet result in damaged feet. A done deal. My Mom and I wanted my sister to get my 4 year old niece into ballet school; by then she could move and dance (almost scary to watch) like an adult and loved dancing. My sister did the research and found out about what ballet can do to one’s feet. That put the kibosh on that little dream.
Yep. And I don’t see how high-heeled babies could be anywhere near as cute as babies in just socks, or even barefoot with their teeny wiggly toes exposed. I suspect that high-heel-baby parents are likely to discomfort their kids in other ways for the sake of perceived, ill-considered cuteness.
Definitely! I prefer for us to critique this rather than for it to simply, as the BBC article says “spark outrage”.
As a non-gendered person, I do think it’s weird that people associate the product with girls/women exclusively. The sexism of their marketing could easily be remedied, for instance:
Your little aristo will be the beauty of the ball with their first fashion statement in their Pee Wee Pumps High Heel Crib Shoes.
I agree that helping them to make a “fashion statement” does sound a bit daft, but there is a whole debate one could make about to what extent baby clothes are really for the appeal to the baby, the parents, the baby’s peers, the parent’s peers, etc. Does the baby really like pastels, or primaries, or anthropomorphic animals? I don’t know if there is truly a way to separate what the parents think looks good from what they hope the child will like.
As for real pumps, I would say that shorter heeled pumps might be fine for children, but certainly not stilettos. In any case it is the child who needs to be comfortable with their footwear.
Are you asking me, or telling me? No, my avatar is neither a woman, nor naked. It is itself the avatar (recursion alert) of a character named Motoko Aramaki who has no physical body. And they are not naked, they are wearing both a bodysuit and armor - which is coincidentally what I just came home wearing myself about two hours ago. I relate to it.
(If you feel entitled to make personal comments about people, then I really hope that you back them up with actual critique instead of just dropping snark and then tuning out, because that’s the kind of rudeness which I have about met my limit with here.)
Yes, I have been to 4chan before. And no, I don’t particularly like it.
So, your thought about what I would like is based upon what, exactly? What do you think you know about me, what I like, or especially how any of that is relevant to this discussion?
If this place, the BBS, is going to involve actual conversations about topics instead of turning into a reactionary spectacle of personal comments every damn time, this needs to stop.
Yes, the same parents who thought it was just ADORABLE that their 6 year olds were dressed in faux-satin Marilyn garments and singing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” (true actual concert I witnessed at a school that taught Broadway style singing and dancing to kids. My daughter was not in the Diamonds number, praise be to Jesus.)
That honestly doesn’t sound that bad, assuming the dress was decently covering. At least innuendo is quaint compared to more modern songs. Maybe because I’ve heard worse (but can’t recall any at this moment.)
But yes, we had the kiddo in dance for a few years. One thing we did was view the “class” photos to see what sort of costumes they wore. There wore some that were a bit revealing at the places we didn’t end up going to. (Fun Fact - one of her teachers went on to be a Chiefs cheerleader.)
I mean it is the moms primarily in charge of putting their kids in dance and taking them to lessons etc. And the instructors/owners who come up with the numbers often have kids too, so maybe they just have a different level of acceptability? I dunno?
Worst moment like this for me was at a Daddy Daughter dance at my kids Catholic school, and the DJ called all the dads to the floor for KC and The Sunshine Band’s classic hit - Get Down Tonight. I don’t know if he forgot the lyrics or what - but I was like - WTF??? Honestly every DJ except the last one has had “questionable” spins, IMHO.
Oh in New York there is just no thought to music selections being wildly family inappropriate. I have seen so many parties for kids where the DJs where playing really dirty stuff. It is bizarre.
A lot of women are not terribly aware of patriarchy/sexualization as being a bad thing. God in the South it was just … oblivious.
Male is, as a cultural artefact, a stereotype. As is any “male gaze” which would enclose another set of stereotyped values and expectations of others. For any sort of gender role to count as a social rather than merely personal construct, it would need to be a norm shared by the participants. Negotiating both what society one belongs to and what its norms are - as it seems we are doing here - I think is a beneficial process. Any prescriptive norms imply imposition by a hierarchy, which means that they are not truly shared.
That’s Motoko Kusanagi, a different character, who was born as and identifies as vaguely female. Motoko Aramaki is a software construct, and there is not much online about them. People often get them confused with each other.
I guess. That’s topical, at least. Although I do think that “male gaze” is a dubious concept which attempts to undermine stereotypes by use of a meta-stereotype. It can be a useful perspective for criticism if one has never seen things from any other position, but I think it has severe limitations as means to counter sexist attitudes or practices. Unisex dress codes at schools and businesses are probably the most expedient ways to go about it.
Is there some metric for how heels worn by a female are more signifying of a male gaze than when worn by a male? And if so, how might its index vary across various cultures, times, regions, etc? How does one signal their subscription to the norms of one such culture versus those of another?
Behaviors I can more readily classify as being sexist or not. So I am interested in how people see taller shoes as indicating or facilitating certain behaviors. Since anyone can wear a shoe, it seems to all depend upon what values and assumptions one has tied up in it as a cultural artefact.
