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No Girls Allowed

polygon.com

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Re: No Girls Allowed

#51

Post by bcoates »

runarberg wrote: post #23
k_os wrote: post #3

I myself believe in market dynamics. If girls were interested in what boys had they'd pursue it. If girls hated barbies they would nag parents about getting a train or a car and market demand for barbies would dry up. The fact that toy dolls are a billion dollar industry should make one sceptical about the supposed 'girliness that society instills in girls'. I find that premise as silly as thinking boys were somehow…

According to your theory --of children as free thinkers whose actions represent their own 'free will'-- doesn't account for why advertizement works. If it were true, nobody would spend money on advertizement because everybody's actions is fully controlled by rational thinkers. Nor does your theory account for insanity or stupidity (why do something stupid if you have full control of your actions?) In fact your theory…

Advertising can perform a signalling function without anybody involved being irrational.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#52

Post by runarberg »

spindritf wrote: post #24

Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it? I hear this a lot lately. Some people believe that media have an almost magical power of shaping culture and behaviours. Beauty? Cosmo propaganda. Boys liking different toys than girls? Marketing. Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values and barely significant, temporary cha…

Just think of two opposing theories. One account scribes that humans are not rational thinkers, our actions constitutes of the stimuli around us. We can be pursued against our best interest.

The other accounts for humans having 'free will'. Our free will explains our rational thinking, we will always maximize our utility. Advertizement has no effect if it doesn't meet our utility.

Now if you thing about those two theories and compare them. Look at evidences for either ones and evaluate their validity, surely you must come to the conclusion that either we humans are special in nature of being able not to respond to stimuli due to some 'free will apparatus' or, more likely, marketing agents have the ability to control us. Or at least, by Okham's razor, the media explanation is the more plausible one.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#54

Post by k__ »

AlexandrB wrote: post #48
spindritf wrote: post #24

Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it? I hear this a lot lately. Some people believe that media have an almost magical power of shaping culture and behaviours. Beauty? Cosmo propaganda. Boys liking different toys than girls? Marketing. Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values and barely significant, temporary cha…

Diamonds. > Americans exchange diamond rings as part of the engagement process, because in 1938 De Beers decided that they would like us to. Prior to a stunningly successful marketing campaign 1938, Americans occasionally exchanged engagement rings, but wasn’t a pervasive occurrence. http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-b... I think it's naive to think that marketing doesn't in some way shape an…

The point OP made is the opposite.

Everyone already thinks marketing shapes our idea of what is "normal". The question is "Does it really do this?"

Re: No Girls Allowed

#55

Post by [deleted] »

junto wrote: post #37
spindritf wrote: post #24

Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it? I hear this a lot lately. Some people believe that media have an almost magical power of shaping culture and behaviours. Beauty? Cosmo propaganda. Boys liking different toys than girls? Marketing. Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values and barely significant, temporary cha…

Having a daughter about the same age so it gives me a bit of insight. She doesn't get to watch TV. Her playgroup has no major bias towards pink for girls (actually even deliberate in their avoidance of such stereotyping). My wife secretly detests pink and girly stuff and is/was a tomboy at heart. We do not discourage or encourage any particular colour or style. There are no obvious factors in my daughter's life that…

[deleted]

Re: No Girls Allowed

#56

Post by AlexandrB »

booyaa00 wrote: post #40
chalst wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You moved the goalposts there a little: why the "completely" in "It doesn't completely change their desires"? What children want is influenced by what their peers want, and what peer groups find desirable is influenced, among other things, by merchandising-related children's TV programming. When I was young, there was far less difference between boys toys and girls toys than there is now.

Woah there. Even when a child is 1 or 2, they start to exhibit the traits that show what they want. Way before they have any peer group, before they can be advertised at etc etc. Girls want to care for things, communicate, etc, and boys want to blow stuff up or build stuff. It's preprogrammed into our DNA.

Whoa. Programmed into our DNA, that's a pretty extraordinary claim. Consider feral children:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_children#Reality

http://planetark.org/wen/53118

> "When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks," the police said.

An extreme example I admit, but if it's preprogrammed into out DNA shouldn't she be "caring for things" instead?

Re: No Girls Allowed

#57

Post by rmc »

spindritf wrote: post #24

Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it? I hear this a lot lately. Some people believe that media have an almost magical power of shaping culture and behaviours. Beauty? Cosmo propaganda. Boys liking different toys than girls? Marketing. Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values and barely significant, temporary cha…

Gay people. There are considerably more open gay people today than 50 or 100 years ago.

Either there are more gay people naturally today, or the societal pressures 50 to 100 years ago to marginalise gay people were successful and were able to convince lots of people to stay in the closet.

If society can do that to gay people, can the same happen to gender roles?

Re: No Girls Allowed

#58

Post by rmc »

junto wrote: post #37
spindritf wrote: post #24

Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it? I hear this a lot lately. Some people believe that media have an almost magical power of shaping culture and behaviours. Beauty? Cosmo propaganda. Boys liking different toys than girls? Marketing. Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values and barely significant, temporary cha…

Having a daughter about the same age so it gives me a bit of insight. She doesn't get to watch TV. Her playgroup has no major bias towards pink for girls (actually even deliberate in their avoidance of such stereotyping). My wife secretly detests pink and girly stuff and is/was a tomboy at heart. We do not discourage or encourage any particular colour or style. There are no obvious factors in my daughter's life that…

Peer pressure?

Re: No Girls Allowed

#59

Post by ZeroGravitas »

I thought the more important point was how much these differences were in the eye of the beholder rather than actual objective facts.

For example, the various farm sim, candy crush, peggle, word game, social things that many "non-gamer" women in my life seem obsessed by get quietly excluded from discussions about games and gamers because they don't fit the stereotype.

Similarly, Barbie is a "doll", she lives in a "doll house", and boys don't play with dolls or doll houses. No, the small minature people my son plays with are action figures and have "bases", or are "knights" and have "castles", or are lego people, who do have houses (though usually of fairly avant-garde design). Could you explain to a martian why these are supposedly such different activities that were encoded for back in the hunter-gatherer days?

Re: No Girls Allowed

#60

Post by TheLegace »

tomp wrote: post #28
spindritf wrote: post #24

Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it? I hear this a lot lately. Some people believe that media have an almost magical power of shaping culture and behaviours. Beauty? Cosmo propaganda. Boys liking different toys than girls? Marketing. Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values and barely significant, temporary cha…

I remember all the fear mongering about violence in computer games (especially first-person shooters). Now, there is a whole generation of 20-somethings that grew up staring at the screen and shooting people and monsters, and crime rates have not gone up (in fact, they are falling IIRC). Accordingly, I don't think marketing can change our desires and behaviour. Sure, it can change what we buy through brand-perception…

Makes me think of this, obviously causation != correlation but it's a funny graph1[1] nontheless.

[1]http://blog.sid3windr.be/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/crimegam...

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