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From the Consumerist:
Science Toys "For Girls" Don't Need As Much Power

Budding female science nerds of America, Toys R Us has an important message. This message is: \\"don't worry your pretty little head with the most powerful science toys we have to offer.\\"

Okay, maybe that's not the actual message here. However, it's easy to draw some rage-inducing conclusions from a catalog page showing three Edu-Science brand toy telescopes or microscopes, where the least powerful of the trio is always the pink one.

What's interesting about this grouping is that it doesn't reflect all of the toys in this line. The least powerful microscope, which was not on sale, actually comes in a nice sleek unisex silver.

Do girls have to buy the pink microscope? No, of course not, but there's a disturbing message hiding somewhere on this page.

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I have a completely different take on this. The lowest end product isn't on sale, and probably exists just to convince people to buy the slightly more expsensive version ("look at all you'd miss out on by going cheap"). The mid-range products sell the most, and thus can have the most color options. The higher-end models sell less, and have less color options.

Neither the ad nor the product itself is implying that girls don't want cool science stuff. When Handspring made PDAs the low end came in black, the high end came in silver and the mid-range came in lots of colors (blue, green, orange, etc.). It's easier to find colored laptops, MP3 players and other gadgets in the mid-range. There is no need to attach a gender agenda to the availability of color in tech products.

Also, saying that girls like pink isn't sexist, nor is it cultural. A recent scientific study showed that women tend to like pink, while men tend to dislike it, and that this color preference is cross-cultural.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/gallery/2009-09/science-confirms-obvious
Image 4 in the gallery: Girls Like Pink
“Biological Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference,” Current Biology, August 2007
- Popsci says:
“It turns out that while blue and green hues have universal appeal, men hate pink, and women love it. ”
- Summary of the paper says:
“Here we report a robust, cross-cultural sex difference in color preference,”

yeah, whatever.

Gruebeard said:

yeah, whatever.

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Pretty much the same response over here. Calling this sexist seems to be reaching for straws.

Gruebeard said:

yeah, whatever.

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This

Why does the black kid have to be using the black telescope?

Racists.

What a world we live in.

I kinda feel bad that the scope of the responses to your thread is "yeah, whatever" when you put some significant effort into the OP.

Coulda been worse, haven't seen a TLDR yet.

True. At least "yeah, whatever" suggests we've taken the time to read the OP aranoid:









(yeah, I did)

Gruebeard said:

I kinda feel bad that the scope of the responses to your thread is \\"yeah, whatever\\" when you put some significant effort into the OP.

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It's a pretty absurd post. I could have put it in the Rant thread instead, now that I think about it. I just hate political correctness sometimes, and this isn't the first time a blogger went into an uproar over pink products.

OK, so I agree not sexist. Just that chicks that like pink are stupid and buy crappy underpowered science shit.

yeah, that rant against pink is a silly complaint, the type that annoys me, too. But I agree with Political Correctness, that being PC makes sense when looking at what the phrase is meant to describe: Avoiding alienating a large swath of your customers or constituency.

That catalog page is not gonna do that. Those complaining about it are looking for shit to complain about.

Women are allowed to use magnifying glasses now? What's the world coming to.

meh

A friend argued with me today that the Twins from Transformers two were not racist stereotypes...he instead told me they were parodies of black people.

He is convinced there is a huge difference.

I don't know what the point of this post is other then to say that really annoyed me.

LittleSin said:

A friend argued with me today that the Twins from Transformers two were not racist stereotypes...he instead told me they were parodies of black people.

He is convinced there is a huge difference.

I don't know what the point of this post is other then to say that really annoyed me.

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According to Bay, they were actually supposed to be parodies of White people acting like Black People. I still don't understand how that wouldn't be racist still... not to mention he only did that after people called him out on the racist imagery.

Flanders watching video tapes, looking for something to complain about online.

I'll see if I can come up with a more poignant rebuttal to this alarmist bullcrap after I've had some breakfast. Before sammich brain no work good.

The pink microscope looks like a cartoon demon's head. The magnifiers and the things right under them look like teeth, the part right above it a nose, and the silver knob part on the side looks like an eye.

doomdragon6 said:

The pink microscope looks like a cartoon demon's head. The magnifiers and the things right under them look like teeth, the part right above it a nose, and the silver knob part on the side looks like an eye.

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At first I was all like "wtf is he talking about" but now I totally see it. O_O

Dude, you see demon heads everywhere...

It's so liberating to know we are teaching girls to go for demons eyes.

And then TWIST.

Ahhhh.

figmentPez said:

Also, saying that girls like pink isn't sexist, nor is it cultural. A recent scientific study showed that women tend to like pink, while men tend to dislike it, and that this color preference is cross-cultural.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/gallery/2009-09/science-confirms-obvious
Image 4 in the gallery: Girls Like Pink
“Biological Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference,” Current Biology, August 2007
- Popsci says:
“It turns out that while blue and green hues have universal appeal, men hate pink, and women love it. ”
- Summary of the paper says:
“Here we report a robust, cross-cultural sex difference in color preference,”

Click to expand...

What? If that's true then that's the problem here. If girls like pink then you are branding the lower-end product as 'for girls', which was the problem to start with... If they don't, it doesn't matter, as pink is culturally associated with girls and the message conveyed is exactly the same.

Also, even if there are many colours for that same product, why are they showing the pink version for both the micro and telescope?

My mom (scientist-type) once bought me a microscope when I was 8 years old. It was so complex I never understood how to use it!

And that's my answer. As an old man, I don't answer to the topic presented. I simply rant about old memories

Y'know, Jelly, I was exactly the same way when I was given a kid's microscope. Call me chronically ham-handed, but I just didn't figure out how to use the bloody thing. Not knowing English at that point didn't help...

North_Ranger said:

Dude, you see demon heads everywhere...

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It is my curse. It is my blessing.

I am

THE DEMON HUNTER

*cue lightning + wolf's howl*

doomdragon6 said:

*cue lightning + wolf's howl*

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KRAKKAB-rowwwoowwwwwwww!

tegid said:

What? If that's true then that's the problem here. If girls like pink then you are branding the lower-end product as 'for girls', which was the problem to start with... If they don't, it doesn't matter, as pink is culturally associated with girls and the message conveyed is exactly the same.

Also, even if there are many colours for that same product, why are they showing the pink version for both the micro and telescope?

Click to expand...

Actually, it's not the lower-end product, it's the mainsteam model. (Well, actually, the telescope is the cheapest on the TRU site, but there are binoculars cheaper.) Take a look at this week's Best Buy ad, for example. If you look at the digital cameras, video cameras, laptops and other tech products, you'll see that the cheapest advertised models are usually the ones with multiple color options. Those are the mainstream models, and they sell the most and thus they can have the most color options. The absolute cheapest models aren't usually featured in the ads, and the multiple high-end versions usually don't come in colors because they don't sell enough units to risk a less popular color killing a sale.

There actually aren't that many colors available for the telescopes and microscopes, at least online. I can't even find the red one from the ad, only a similar blue model which may not be on sale. There are the pictured pink models (which also come in black), one blue telescope that has no other color variation (and is out of stock), and one blue microscope. That's it for colors other than black. As far as I know, the ad is showing every color that's been discounted.

The price point that will sell the most units gets the additional color options. If there's still only enough sales to warrant one other color option, then you choose the second color that will appeal to the most customers who won't want black. In this case the makers thought that color was pink. This is a business decision "More and more girls like science, girls like pink, so the best-selling model we can produce in multiple colors will have a pink option." That's an attempt to maximize sales, and the simplest explanation. To think that a business is trying to tell girls that they're only good enough for the cheap model is paranoid, and is contrary to the way color is used in most other products.

EDIT: I'll also note that the sole reason anyone thinks the red model is better thank the pink one is that it has a higher magnification. If the similar looking blue model is any indication, the red is cheaper than the pink/black model with lower magnification. I'm guessing this means the red comes with fewer accessories, or has lower quality optics, despite having a higher number attached. So, really, the pink may not be the cheapest, or even the wost, option among the three microscopes.

LOL, demon head microsope. Just what we need. Religious nut-jobs decrying this ad for trying to get women out of the kitchen and into the demonic sciences. Women studying biology is evil! Young ladies need to be working on getting their Mrs. not a PhD!

Pink is sexist... we should totally ban it.

ITT: Toy R'us can only offer the lowest powered telescope in pink. It's not possible that pink was simply chosen to represent color range and all the telescopes are offered in pink/black.

Deschain said:

ITT: Toy R'us can only offer the lowest powered telescope in pink. It's not possible that pink was simply chosen to represent color range and all the telescopes are offered in pink/black.

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They really only do seem to have one pink telescope. However, their most expensive telescopes appear to be neither pink nor black:

http://www.toysrus.com/search/index...=telescope&origkw=telescope&kwCatId=&view=all