I can dream, can’t I?
Uh, Legolas is FEMININE ??? He’s an Elf. Unless you’re considering Elves, as a class, feminine. . …
Though they do market real pink bows for girls/women.
Yeah - but why did that change? Because the babies grew up and realized that girls like pink. They couldn’t fight the ingrained genetics.
My kiddo does love pink, but right now her favorite color is light blue. I think that has more to do with Rainbow Dash than anything.
Elves haven’t been a class since the Blue Box Expert set.
It’s also true that some, even many, boys LIKE colorful or sparkly things, and the patriarchy puts the kibosh on THAT right quick.
I used to work in child care, and I’ve seen dads literally smack sparkly toys out of a 4-year-old boy’s hands. It’s not just parents, either - my brother really liked sparkly stuff when he was a kid, and rainbow colors, and cute things. Mom and Dad were fine with it, but he got bullied mercilessly for this by other kids until he toned it down. Now he indulges these interests only through “acceptable” outlets - foil magic cards, (especially ones with Rebecca Guay art), pokemon, playing a pink-haired gnome in WoW.
When I tell this story, people often ask me if my brother turned out to be gay. While there’d be nothing wrong with it if he did, nope, completely straight. He did get harassed with anti-gay slurs his entire childhood for daring to bring a purple lunch box to school, though.
I think a lot of time, parents don’t understand how much influence subtle cues they deliver have on their kids, or they underestimate the power of social norms. I’ve seen tons of very young children base their toy selection on extremely subtle facial cues from grown-ups. Oh, my dad’s jaw tightens when I look at the fluffly bunny? I’ll pick up this gun instead. Yeah, he looks happy now. I’ve watched kids abandon interests they were personally excited about to fit in with a given social group.
And hey, parents might get nervous when kids engage in non-gender-normative behavior because they want to spare their kid decades of harassment. And some of this stuff might actually be in genetics - girls have better color vision on average, and better skills at spotting and identifying colors, so “liking” colors might be directly associated with these traits, but we don’t know any of that for sure. Nowadays, we know a lot of what people used to about what was “in the code” of one gender was actually nonsense.
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The movie Legolas has a rather feminine appearance. Heck, they somehow made Hugo Weaving look feminine. Not even the makeup artists for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert could manage that trick.
It’s not just retailers. Have you seen nerf gun packaging? There are no girls on any of the boxes. Every package for every gun across all lines (N-Strike, Zombie Strike, Vortex, Super Soaker) has a picture of a boy on it - with the exception of the new Rebelle line.
Blech. A lot of women wouldn’t necessarily want a bow in black or camo, but a color, really any color might be preferable. But why the hell does the only color option always have to be friggin’ Pepto Bismol?
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I don’t have a dog in this fight, but: a Phil Collins reference? Really?
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I always thought of elves as “ethereal”.
When it comes to female elves, the old “Everquest” image still rings true with me. . .
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Hunger Games FTW!
They weren’t actually that great against armour- crossbow-proof armour definitely existed (“proofed” at point-blank range) and at actual battlefield ranges they were unlikely to get through even normal armour. The point of any medieval missile weapon was to kill the knight’s horse so he was just a man on foot, and even if better-armed and better-trained could be dealt with by your own infantry with their choice of farming tool turned can-opener.
As for the alleged Papal ban, there are doubts as to whether it existed. If it did, it may have banned Christians from employing any missile troops (archers and slingers as well as crossbowmen) against other Christians. It may also have been a response to the fact that Robert Guiscard was attacking the Papal States with a largely-Muslim army at the time- the Papal States’ army could still shoot at them, but Guiscard’s Norman officers would be excommunicated if they ordered hteir men to shoot back.
Love, Joy, Feminism recently had an excellent post about how confirmation bias operates when adults say “Girls just naturally like pink things! Boys just naturally like trains and trucks!” They notice when a kid likes something that fits their gender stereotype, and ignore it when a kid likes something that doesn’t. In the post, the author notes that her son likes both toy trains and playing dress-up. And her daughter loves both superheroes and princesses, and loved large construction equipment when she was younger. Yet people say “Oh, he loves trains, he’s all boy” and “Oh, she loves princesses, she’s all girl.”
I deeply suspect that most kids have more eclectic interests than most people think. The gender-conforming interests get encouraged, while the gender-nonconforming ones get ignored (or even actively discouraged). A girl who likes superheroes and princesses generally gets princess stuff for Christmas from the aunts and uncles. And how many parents would freak out and steer their son away from playing dress-up (or even punish him for it), and shower him with toy trains instead?
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Actually I was just trying to be funny. But yes, Elves are kinda feminine. Dwarves, on the other hand, are very masculine. Which is why Legolas and Gimli made such a good team, I think.
C’mon. This is common knowledge in Middle Earth.
Yeah, Elves have always been seen as foppish. While the dwarven women have beards. It’s a longstanding trope with fantasy series.
As far as kids are concerned, I actually have twins, a boy and a girl. They’re all of 10 months old at this point and neither cares one way or another about this stuff yet. Unfortunately, I can’t raise them on Mars away from all gender influences to see which ones develop on their own and which do not.
Yes, there are female practitioners. (Which I already mentioned.) But the art itself is considered masculine, and women who practice it are considered more masculine for doing so than those who do not.
As for Sailor Mars and Kagome, there’s actually a connection. They’re both miko - Shinto Shrine Maidens, and their archery is in fact drawn from a traditional form of ritual exorcism and purification using bows and evil-defeating arrows known as hamaya. Such arrows are still sold as protective charms at New Year’s festivals, and are also used to consecrate newly built homes. During the Edo period, they also were a popular form of gift given to celebrate the birth of a boy.
Mars and Kagome are also stereotypically “masculine” characters (at least using Japanese values). They’re brash and willful, they rush headlong into things, they eat like horses, they’re not afraid to speak their minds, et cetera. Are they entirely masculine in every respect? No, but they’re certainly much more masculine than the traditional meek female characters of Japanese culture and stories. They’re a mix of the two sets of qualities.
This again can tie back into Shinto. Part of the reason miko are associated with archery is because the sun goddess Amaterasu was an archer. She was also something of a tomboy, mixing values the Japanese traditionally consider masculine with those they traditionally consider feminine. She’s pretty much the one female deity that was allowed anything like a central role in the mythos, and that’s essentially because she’s the one female deity that is most like a male. Sad, but true.
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My 12 yr old daughter, who has a non-gendered compound bow, thought this commercial was dumb.
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I concur. My daughter, who is homeschooled and isn’t subject to much popular culture likes pink and purple. I wouldn’t care either way.
