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No Girls Allowed

polygon.com

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Re: No Girls Allowed

#91

Post by michalu »

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 am not sure there is evidence our brains are wired differently http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/02/men-women-bra...

and different behaviour can be observed among girls and boys in a very young age (<5) J. Medina describes it in his book "Brain Rules" women have some areas of more developed and vice versa, therefore they perceive some things differently, such as they they tend to process information in more complexly. So I am not sure it's "all marketing" although I think it plays part.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#92

Post by gadders »

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…

I think it's good if they have a balance. By all means wear pink party dresses and have tea parties with your dolls, but encourage them to climb trees, ride bikes and have rough and tumble time with their Dad [1]

I always remember some research about when parents are watching their sons and daughters on a climbing frame. With the boys it was "See if you can reach the top!" and with the girls it was "Be careful!". Don't do that.

[1] http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/02/07/the-importance-of-r...

Re: No Girls Allowed

#94

Post by bryanlarsen »

As a parent of two pre-school girls, this is a concern of mine. But in some ways I think this issue is worse for boys than girls. Girls are "allowed" (but not encouraged) to shop from the boys section. My daughters have and use some boys' clothing, toys, furniture, etc. But a boy wearing pink clothes or dancing or playing with dolls is setting himself up for extended teasing.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#95

Post by chongli »

crntaylor wrote: post #4

I like the article. I think it's well written, an important subject, and the world would be better if more people read it and digested its message. I still wish it didn't repeat the myth that Coca-Cola invented the modern image of Santa Clause, though. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp

No, it didn't invent the image but it popularized this one particular incarnation out of the many that existed.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#96

Post by knowitall »

dsirijus wrote: post #89
knowitall wrote: post #29

While I think the history of marketing of games is interesting, to be honest to me this read like "bla bla bla... Video games were heavily marketed as products for men, and the message was clear: No girls allowed.... bla bla bla" Meaning the conclusion "no girls allowed" is just randomly inserted somewhere in the middle of a wall of text. Just because boys and men were identified as a large audience and targeted with…

To my eyes, they're trying to bring attention to a non-existant problem (that has been solved pretty darned well with casual games ages ago) to increase readership on a pretty flamey topic, together with their twitter buddies. I believe there are very fundamental differences between males and females and that the optimal game design would target very specifically those differences (or at least be very aware of them),…

Psst, you are not allowed to say that :-)

I don't know - there certainly are women who play "hardcore games".

The more I think about it, the less understand what the problem is? For whatever reason, women seem to play less hardcore games. OK - but what is their problem? Do they think women unfairly miss out on all the fun? Then why don't they just tell women "hey, there is this thing called games, it's fun, try it" instead of whining that society made them miss out? Or do they complain that the wrong games are being made - which would be rather weird, because people are apparently buying these games. Or in other words, to me it seems a bit like saying "I would really like spinach, if spinach would taste like chocolate". Yeah, but spinach doesn't taste like chocolate, if you want chocolate, eat chocolate, but leave people who like spinach to their spinach. No need to convert all spinach to chocolate.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#97

Post by aestra »

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…

Does one presume there is a "pink gene"?

Pink is an artificial societal constrict of recent invention.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#98

Post by probably_wrong »

Sorry about the off-topic: does anyone knows whether the caricatures that illustrate the article belong to a concrete category and/or are associated with a particular style? I'd really like to read more about it, but the books I've found about cartooning are very different from this style.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#99

Post by chongli »

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…

Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values and barely significant, temporary changes in behaviour, if any. And when they do show something more, they're impossible to replicate, or straight-up fraud.

You're right in that these studies do not support the article. The question I have is this: how do you study this alleged phenomenon in a controlled way? Culture, by its very nature, is a vast and complicated mess of interactions between individuals in society. If you take a group of people out of society and study them in isolation, you aren't going to see the same effects. It's like trying to analyze a drug in vitro and then draw conclusions about it in vivo; it just doesn't give you the whole picture.

Re: No Girls Allowed

#100

Post by trothoun »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #69
k__ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

And he posted some evidence that yes, it really does. The diamonds marketing campaign shows that marketing really can completely change cultural norms

Would examples of large, unsuccessful marketing campaigns, be equally strong evidence that marketing does not affect our perceptions of cultural norms?
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