Spiderman has entered the building

Jump to Comments

There have been more than a few posts around the blogosphere recently about resisting or not resisting princess purchases at this time of year. Even when we succumb to the desires of  little girls and give them what they seem to want most of all, and buy even the smallest Disney trinket, guilt ensues. I’d be in the same boat as these parents if Pitter were a girl. I’d resist, as my mother did, and probably refuse to purchase Barbies and princess outfits so that my daughter would have to resort to saving her own money to buy her own dolls, or use her imagination with Disney-free dress up clothes to create her own princess outfit. I certainly would not send out a Christmas card, as we recently received, featuring a picture of my toddler wearing a skimpy cheerleading outfit and sitting in the lap of a college team mascot. Cheer for the real athletes that attend daddy’s school! Grow up to be an oversexualized, overly-made up, short-skirt wearing girl, dancing and prancing to the fight song of your college team! I don’t deny the gymnastic and dancer athleticism required to be a professional cheerleader, but let’s face it, there’s a big difference in the admiration men have for the national women’s soccer team and the Dallas Cheerleaders. Which group would you rather your daughter be in when she grows up?

Okay. So that Christmas card gave me a tic that’s still making my left eye twitch. Back to the main point: This Christmas, I’m not reading as much discussion about what icons are force-fed to boys. I have come across posts about toy guns here and there, but that’s about it. I don’t think boys are considered as vulnerable as girls to social pressure because they don’t develop eating disorders or wear sexually revealing clothing at the rate girls do. But isn’t pushing toy guns and Superman on young boys as confining to their intellectual and emotional development as Ariel and Cinderella can be for girls? Of course, superheros have fantastic qualities that boys and girls might like to emulate or foster, including powerful bodies and the desire and ability to help people and put others before themselves. I’m sure someone’s written a dissertation on this, but it seems to me that Superman is often saving Lois Lane and Spiderman is saving his red-headed lady friend, and although these women may be intelligent members of society, they, like the Disney princesses, ultimately need a male figure to save them when true danger arrives. Doesn’t this put a bit of pressure on the boys? Don’t these figures suggest that the coolest, strongest of all heroes take care of everyone, including the girls? I’d like to multiply Wonderwoman times 10,000 and create a few more female superheroes to fix the imbalance.

For his first year, Pitter escaped most sports paraphenalia, and received no superhero or war toys. This year, he’s already been given two Spiderman dolls and a Spidy T shirt. I find these gifts particularaly interesting for a toddler, since I think of Spiderman as one of the more conflicted, creepy superheros out there. Bitten by a radioactive spider? That’s scary stuff! His costume is creepy, too. Pitter can’t find his nose because he doesn’t have one, and his eyes are a white mucousy color without any pupils. He’s more monster than man to a child, and yet…he sings and dances when you touch his robotic feet! he’s climbing down a giant web like something out of a nightmare on a T shirt! The attempt to make a frightning figure friendly is disturbing in its own right. Yet another message directed at boys to face what is fearful, to embrace it, and then to somehow emualte it, in order to become a man. Dare I suggest this may be equally damaging to the emotional development of our small boys as giving our little girls perfectly-dressed princesses with dainty shoes and teensy earrings?

3 Comments

Filed under feminism