• Member Since 28th Oct, 2012
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Pineta


Particle Physics and Pony Fiction Experimentalist

More Blog Posts440

  • 6 weeks
    End of the Universe

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    6 comments · 143 views
  • 9 weeks
    Imponable Update

    Work on Infinite Imponability Drive continues. I aim to get another chapter up by next weekend. Thank you to everyone who left comments. Sorry I have not been very responsive. I got sidetracked for the last two weeks preparing a talk for the ATOM society on Particle Detectors for the LHC and Beyond, which took rather more of my time than I

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    1 comments · 130 views
  • 10 weeks
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    3 comments · 188 views
  • 12 weeks
    Quantum Decoherence

    Happy end-of-2023 everyone.

    I just posted a new story.

    EInfinite Imponability Drive
    In an infinitely improbable set of events, Twilight Sparkle, Sunny Starscout, and other ponies of all generations meet at the Restaurant at the end of the Universe.
    Pineta · 12k words  ·  49  0 · 827 views

    This is one of the craziest things that I have ever tried to write and is a consequence of me having rather more unstructured free time than usual for the last week.

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    2 comments · 137 views
  • 15 weeks
    Secrets of Auroras

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    3 comments · 148 views
Feb
15th
2014

Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie attack Pony Princess Doll Marketing · 10:48pm Feb 15th, 2014

Hasbro's marketing of pony princess dolls is insulting, sexist, and is preventing children from reaching their full potential, Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie say.

At a press conference at Canterlot Castle, the two ponies, dressed in T-shirts proudly showing Pink Stinks and I'm no Princess logos, displayed a table of recent girly dolls, and outlined the many flaws.

Twilight began by using her magic to project a commercial for a Princess Celestia doll, then gave a damning review.

“This is blatant sexism,” she said. “Celestia is the ruler of all Equestria. She has bravely fought battles against Discord and Nightmare Moon. She is over a thousand years old, extremely wise and powerful, and an outstanding teacher and mentor. But what does the commercial say? 'My wings are so pretty' - completely ignoring her achievements and just talking about her body! Would they do that to a male ruler?”

Twilight had further scorn for the Canterlot Wedding toy set. Picking up a Princess Cadence doll and thumping a button to make it say, “My dress is so pretty”.

“Is that the best they can do?” she said, dropping the doll back onto the table. "Candence's wedding followed an epic adventure to escape the caves beneath Canterlot, then a prolonged struggle as we exposed Chrysalis and fought the Changeling Army – but they ignore all that as if the only important thing is that she got to kiss the groom at the end!”

Pinkie Pie then examined the Princess Twilight Sparkle doll and Crystal Princess Palace Playset, while her friend turned the other way scowling. “This is soooo- stupid,” she said, “everyone knows that when Twilight isn't off on adventures saving Equestria, she spends her time reading books in the library, or studying the stars with her telescope, or doing chemistry experiments in her basement. Not stuck in front of a vanity mirror. Anyone would think being a princess was just about making yourself look pretty. And they could have done a really cool Twilight's laboratory set, with lots of exploding stuff. Or an astronomy kit.”

Twilight made it clear that her concern was not just about a misrepresentation of her, and her friends' image. “These pink princess toys are sending a subconscious message to young girls that they should spend their time sitting in front of a mirror applying make-up, and leave building rockets and computers to the boys. This is stopping many girls from finding their special talent, and it's bad for society – we need more talented scientists and engineers.” In engineering, men currently outnumber women eight to one.

Pinkie Pie also pointed out, “It's so dumb that just market these toys at girls, when there are loads of boys who like ponies. And it's an insult to all the kick-ass female characters which Lauren Faust has created.”

This is not the first time Hasbro has been criticised for sexism in their toy design. In 2012 a six year old girl pointed out the unfair ratio of female to male characters in the game 'Guess Who'; and 13-year old McKenna Pope launched a successful campaign to ask them to stop marketing their 'Easy Bake Oven' as an exclusively girls' toy. The rest of the toy industry is little better. Recently seven year old Charlotte Benjamin wrote to Lego about the lack of Lego girls asking them to “make more Lego girl people and let them go on adventures”. The toy companies have also been recently attacked by government ministers, who point out that the gender segregated toy marketing is harming the economy.

When a reporter asked Pinkie Pie if the Pink Stinks slogan clashed with her own colouring, she rolled her eyes at him. “Duh! It's a slogan. It doesn't really mean there's anything actually odious about the colour. What stinks is the way the toy industry use it to force an archaic restrictive gender role onto young girls.”

Likewise Twilight Sparkle clarified the use of the Princess title, “A Princess in Equestria is a title which is granted after extended study and the discovery of new magic; not a silly little girl dressed in frou-frou pink outfits. Just because I am a princess it does not make me a princess any more than you need to be a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist.”


(Authors Note: I am not connected with Pink Stinks I just copied their logo and slogan as I think it's really cool.)

Update 2018

Comments ( 14 )

Just because I am a princess it does not make me a princess any more than you need to be a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist.

:rainbowhuh: Um...

Oh! Holding the actual title does not imply one fits the qualifications for the colloquialism. Got it. Still, hell of an antitautology. You're basically saying "A does not necessarily imply A."

Aside from that, great mock article.

Then you got UK royalty that realise just how badly things can go if they screw up too badly, so te sons get thrown on the front line, rescue flights, on the ground charity work, and in doing so have one of the most psychotic supporters groups going, and then theres the armed forces bodyguards.

We need more queens from Disney, that are like Queen from Shrek. We Are Leaving. Headbuts prison cell wall. Then headbuts prison wall. Once outside, gets minor headache.

Next Princess Celestia toy. Hello There. Im Princess Celestia, and if you ever threaten My Little Ponies, I will vapourise your capital city. Enjoy your stay. :trollestia:

In fact, Celestia, Cadance and Twilight are all "princesses" -- it's just that being a "princess" doesn't mean one also can't be brilliant and able to kick flank.

1838648 1839075 Or, just because she's a princess, doesn't mean she's a Princess.

1839222
Exactly. In fact, adding the capital (or quotation marks, or some other differentiator,) makes the point that much clearer.

Now, all of that's true as far as it goes, but keep in mind there's another level here. If you focus too hard on nonstereotypical gender roles, and fill the airwaves with girls rollerskating or hiking or inventing, then you're neglecting the nontrivial number of girls who do enjoy make-up and pretty frou-frou dresses. Then the message becomes 'girls can do anything they want to, as long as they want to do the things that boys do'; which is more subtle but just as dangerous. The problem isn't pink itself, but the fact that everything is pink.


(And that's why Rarity is best pony. :duck:)

1839342

Absolutely. This campaign is all about increasing the choice available to children. The show has a great range of characters showing how girls can excel in both :rainbowdetermined2: and :duck: roles. But there's a major discord between the show and the toys which Hasbro choose to mass-market.

In an ideal world, instead of a narrow range of "girls' toys" and "boys' toys", we would see a full spectrum from which children of both genders can pick what they like.

Recently seven year old Charlotte Benjamin wrote to Lego about the lack of Lego girls

There was a little less gender bias in Legos back in the old days, I think. When they just had yellow smiling faces, and no other gender characteristics except hair. But once they were wearing head accessories--like a space helmet--they could be boys or girls.

That having been said, I often wonder if the toy department watches the show.

1840887
Lego used to be gender neutral. What seems to have happened over the last twenty years, is not that the toys have changed so much, but that the industry have started marketing everything as either a 'boys toy' or a 'girls toy'. So the Lego spacemen were put in the 'boys' category, and the 'Friends' range was introduced for girls. The theory is that this boosts sales, as the parents of brothers and sisters now have to buy separate toys for each.

1842151

I wonder if that's accurate . . . the first Lego figures we got that were gender differentiated were the original pirates. That was about when I stopped playing with them for a few years (you know, college and all that business); when I got re-interested in Legos was when they'd expanded their franchise to have licensed products. Obviously, if they're making LotR legos, they would have specific males and females, since the movie did.

But, my curiousity is whether the Friends Legos are intended to appeal to girls over the regular ones, or if they're just meant to expand the market towards girls who wouldn't be interested in regular legos, in much the same way that they have had the Duplo --> Lego --> Technic progression for decades? I also wonder if Playskool has a similar marketing strategy. I don't really follow their products that much.

I haven't played with Lego sets for years either. Just got thinking about it as there's a lot of discussion about it in many of the blogs I read at the moment - see http://www.themarysue.com/girl-in-old-lego-ad/ for example.

Are you fucking kidding me. MLP is a show where 99.9% of the characters are mares, and you think it's sexist towards women? Pathetic.

4772648

Are you fucking kidding me. MLP is a show where 99.9% of the characters are mares, and you think it's sexist towards women? Pathetic.

No I do not think that. I have written a great deal on why MLP is a feminist show. This post was highlighting the fact that while the show does a very good job at challenging stereotypes and promoting positive female roles, this was not matched by the early toy commercials, which just went with the old pretty-pink-princess model. This post is nearly four years old and the industry has moved on since then. More recent toy commercials have been better.

4772666
Sorry for being an asshole. I shouldn’t have attacked you like that, even if I was in a bad mood.

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