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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you brought to you by the reinvented

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Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you welcome to

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Speaker 1: stuff Mom never told you? From House top Works dot Com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,

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Speaker 1: and today we are talking about boys toys and girls toys,

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Speaker 1: especially because of a much beloved toy brand named Legos.

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Speaker 1: Legos hash has stir up some controversy with a new

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Speaker 1: line they're putting out called Lego Friends, and it is

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Speaker 1: targeted one toward girls, right, And it kind of looks

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Speaker 1: like if your barbies got it on with your Legos,

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Speaker 1: like your maybe your brother's Legos. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: we're playing along gender stereotype lines and things, or if

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Speaker 1: you blew up a Polly pocket exactly. It has it

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Speaker 1: has that look. Um. I first heard about Lego Friends

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Speaker 1: a couple of months ago in NPR did a story.

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Speaker 1: This was before the product was actually released, and you

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Speaker 1: can now find Lego Friends in your your local giant

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Speaker 1: box store. Um. And the thing that caught my ear,

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Speaker 1: I remember I was I was getting ready for work

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Speaker 1: listening to Morning Edition and they're talking about Legos process

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Speaker 1: of how they've been researching, you know, the types of

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Speaker 1: toys and Legos that girls would really like. And they

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Speaker 1: mentioned that the mini figs, those little figurines are bigger

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Speaker 1: with Lego friends to quote make it easier for girls

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Speaker 1: to put hair brushes and handbags into their mini figurines hands.

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Speaker 1: And I nearly spat out my coffee. Yeah, they have done.

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Speaker 1: You would think that the way that Lego is backing

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Speaker 1: this up, this effort to market two young girls, that

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Speaker 1: this is like the end all be all of toys

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Speaker 1: that they have figured out girls and women and that's it.

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Speaker 1: It's just little tiny figures and pink blocks for the

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Speaker 1: rest of our lives. And according to Lego friends, if

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Speaker 1: that is in fact the case, we love pink and

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Speaker 1: purple go figure, we really like baking, and we all

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Speaker 1: either want to be vets or hairstylists, and there's something

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Speaker 1: wrong with being I'm sure at some point as a

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Speaker 1: child I thought about being a vet and a hair stylist.

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Speaker 1: Don't if you look at my hair now, you can

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Speaker 1: tell at least one of those was off the table

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Speaker 1: from an early age. Um and it's people are not

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Speaker 1: too happy with what Lego has come up with. Right,

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Speaker 1: well there, I mean, this is not the first time

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Speaker 1: that Lego has attempted to mess with the formula of

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Speaker 1: a very successful toy. Um, this is what the fifth

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Speaker 1: or sixth attempt. There have been things called the Paradisa sets,

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Speaker 1: which I had as a child, and they were awesome.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know what's wrong with with palm trees. Okay,

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Speaker 1: look it's pink. The Para Desis that was pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: But if you go back to nineteen seventy nine, which

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Speaker 1: was when Lego first try to reach out specifically to girls,

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Speaker 1: they came up with something called these Stala bricks, which

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Speaker 1: were essentially legos decorated with birds and flowers, but you

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Speaker 1: could only make jewelry with them, because that's all girls

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Speaker 1: do though, right, yeah, we just want jewelry. And then

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Speaker 1: in two thousand three tried to make a comeback again

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Speaker 1: for girls with click It, which was more jewelry building

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Speaker 1: and legos you could stick on picture frames. Well again,

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Speaker 1: I mean, girls don't do much of anything else except

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I was playing with legos exactly.

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Speaker 1: I have tubs and my dad is constantly I'm going

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Speaker 1: to get rid of them, but my mother's like, we've

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Speaker 1: spent too much money on that, we're not getting rid

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Speaker 1: of it. Um. Yeah, I have tubs of of the

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Speaker 1: regular primary color boil Legos. But I mean as a kid,

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Speaker 1: I I mean, I could get into it about my childhood,

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Speaker 1: but I played with just as many boy toys as

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Speaker 1: I did with girl toys. I think since I have

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Speaker 1: two older brothers and two older sisters, the play closet

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Speaker 1: was just a hodgepodge of g I Joes and these

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Speaker 1: little animal figurines called Maple Towns, which were obviously more

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Speaker 1: targeted to girls, and I played with them equally, although

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Speaker 1: sometimes my brother didn't like it when I played with

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Speaker 1: his Gi Joes my monster trucks played with my Barbie

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Speaker 1: dolls in the same setting. I mean, what are they

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Speaker 1: gonna how are they going to get to the veterinary

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Speaker 1: clinic and the bakery exactly? Well, I want to talk

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Speaker 1: about the research that Lego did, um, because they keep

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Speaker 1: harping on this and every piece of every article about Lego. UM.

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Speaker 1: They did years of research, four years of research that

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Speaker 1: involved actually having researchers infiltrate families homes and shadow the children,

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Speaker 1: which sounds creepy, but they spent a lot of money

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Speaker 1: putting these researchers and homes to basically figure out how

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Speaker 1: children play. And they determined that um, while boys when

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Speaker 1: they played with Legos would put them together from start

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Speaker 1: to finish, like quickly, go through it, make it look exactly,

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Speaker 1: make it look exactly like it did on the box,

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Speaker 1: and then start playing, girls were more into role playing

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Speaker 1: as they went, you know, making up characters and storylines

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Speaker 1: as they built. And so they use this information to

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Speaker 1: not only create the Lego Friends line, but to package

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Speaker 1: it differently. So according to this research, they have packaged

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Speaker 1: Lego Friends so that girls can start playing before the

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Speaker 1: building is complete. And it looks like from I haven't

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Speaker 1: gotten my hands on an actual Lego Friends set, but

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Speaker 1: it looks like from the commercials. There are pre assembled

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Speaker 1: houses and little places in in the village or the city,

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Speaker 1: the Heartlake heart Lake City. I think it's yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think it's heart Lake City, so completely separate from the

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Speaker 1: Lego city, which is where all the other people live,

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Speaker 1: all the guys. I guess it's very gender segregated that

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Speaker 1: Lego town. And we haven't mentioned just the general stats

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Speaker 1: of heart Lake, which is predominated by not by primary

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Speaker 1: colors with normal lego towns, but it's a lot of pink,

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Speaker 1: purple and bright blue pastel and like living in Key

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Speaker 1: West a time or in what was it called Paradisa,

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Speaker 1: your paradise the beach kid there you go, bring my

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Speaker 1: horses from Paradisa over to heart Lake City, to the

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Speaker 1: veterinary clinic um. And it's dominated by five main characters, Emma, Stephanie, Mia, Olivia,

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Speaker 1: and Andrea. I wonder what your opinion of those characters is, Kristen.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're probably a lot of fun. Well, there

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Speaker 1: is Olivia, who is the as the writer and Wired

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Speaker 1: said in his article about this, she's the proto nerd

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Speaker 1: or proto geeks. She has a great little um science

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Speaker 1: lab and all of her tools are purple. But you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe she likes that there are people who like

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Speaker 1: purple tools. They sell emit stores. But again, all of

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Speaker 1: this this is a Lego just pulling these gender stereotypes

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Speaker 1: out of thin air. They insist that this is the

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Speaker 1: result of their multi year anthropological in home studies. And

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Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to point out though, and and

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Speaker 1: several other researchers and writers have brought this point up.

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Speaker 1: Is Lego supporting existing gender divisions or are they creating them?

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Speaker 1: Because they've marketed to boys so heavily in the past.

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Speaker 1: And you know, Legos definitely started out way back in

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Speaker 1: the thirties and forties fifties as a gender neutral toy.

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Speaker 1: Boys and girls were expected to play with them equally.

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Speaker 1: The parents would get in on the action sometimes. But

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Speaker 1: over the past couple of maybe decades, or at least

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Speaker 1: the last ten years, I would say that my Lego

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Speaker 1: marketing has really focused more strongly on boys. You know,

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Speaker 1: in the ads, it's all like, oh yeah, shoot them up,

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Speaker 1: create the missiles, fire the missiles, you know, build a

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Speaker 1: fire truck and go save people. It also markets Legos

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Speaker 1: as a father's son activity. It's something that groups of

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Speaker 1: boys can do together or just a loan in your room.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Um. And as a result of them

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Speaker 1: focusing exclusively on boys, Bloomberg business Week magazine reports that

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Speaker 1: revenue has increased a hundred and five percent since two

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Speaker 1: thousand and six, and in they topped one billion dollars

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Speaker 1: in US sales for the first time. So from a

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Speaker 1: marketing standpoint, they're there, you know, all boys all the time.

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Speaker 1: Strategy seems to have paid off, right, and the company's CEO,

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Speaker 1: Organ noodstorp Um actually brought the company back from the brink.

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Speaker 1: It was losing so much money, and so those sales

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Speaker 1: figures are are great for him, and it's his his

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Speaker 1: motivation for all of this research into getting the girls

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Speaker 1: back into the Lego. I don't like it. He says,

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Speaker 1: we want to reach the other fifty percent of the

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Speaker 1: world's children. And my response is, Organ, you already had

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Speaker 1: them before you split the Legos into pink and purple

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Speaker 1: and then primary colors. And it's so true. Among the

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Speaker 1: ten characteristics for Lego, these are official characteristics set forth

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Speaker 1: by the founder's son in nineteen sixty three four Girls

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Speaker 1: and Boys and the And there's this ad Lego ad

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Speaker 1: from night one that has been circulating all around Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Twitter and blogs, and it shows this adorable redheaded

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Speaker 1: girl in jeans and tennis shoes like proudly holding up

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Speaker 1: this bizarre Lego creation that you know, the types that

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Speaker 1: you and I probably both made, that really doesn't look

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Speaker 1: like much of anything um And the tagline reads what

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Speaker 1: it is is beautiful and everyone's saying, look, what are

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Speaker 1: you talking about. You had girls, we've been using this.

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Speaker 1: Why do you need to know? Recreate these mini figs

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Speaker 1: and with with tiny skirts and and they have boobs,

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Speaker 1: they have little boobs. I don't know about the little

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Speaker 1: contoured plastic boots. I don't like it. But again, that

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Speaker 1: supposedly goes back to research saying that girls tend to

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Speaker 1: endow their toys with personalities, that they would see the

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Speaker 1: mini figs as avatars of themselves, so it needed to

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Speaker 1: the you know, the the redesign needed to reflect more realistically,

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Speaker 1: you know, the beauty that little girls appreciate more than

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Speaker 1: anything else. Yeah, that's that's a drag, that's I mean.

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Speaker 1: And that's not that's what not what I'm saying. That's

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Speaker 1: what one of the lead researchers from Lego is saying. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And they talk a lot about the Lego phase and

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Speaker 1: boys versus the princess phase and girls. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying that, um, boys shouldn't build structures and girls shouldn't

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Speaker 1: dress up as princesses. What I think, uh, and this

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Speaker 1: is this has come up over and over again. Our

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Speaker 1: advertisers just exploiting this though I mean our our girls

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Speaker 1: wanting to play with contour little lady figs and which

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Speaker 1: sounds horrific, um and pink and purple houses and puppies

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Speaker 1: and cupcakes and stuff. Because that's something inherent or is

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Speaker 1: it something that's created that they just think, Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: a little girl, I'm gonna do this. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to be like those dirty boys. Well, all of this

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Speaker 1: reminds me of my how old is she now? Probably

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Speaker 1: seven or eight year old niece. Who is she? She

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Speaker 1: has three brothers and she is if you walk into

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Speaker 1: a room, it looks like, you know, like a princess

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Speaker 1: castle exploded in there. But her favorite toy right now

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Speaker 1: is her pink rifle that she goes out hunting with

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Speaker 1: her brothers. So it's you know, I don't I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I think it a real rifle. No, I don't know

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Speaker 1: what's going on in your family. She's a pretty extreme

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Speaker 1: little lady. That's what I'm saying, is she doesn't need Lego's.

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Speaker 1: She's moved on. No, it's a fake rifle. Um. Legos

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Speaker 1: have been shown to have a lot of benefits for kids. Um,

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Speaker 1: it really increased bill ding. All of those those structures

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Speaker 1: and spaceships and things really develop spatial, mathematical and fine

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Speaker 1: motor skills, and uh As Least Elliott, a neuroscientist and

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Speaker 1: author of the book Pink Brain, Blue Brain, says, Hey,

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Speaker 1: if it takes color coding or ponies and hairdressers to

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Speaker 1: get girls playing with Lego, I'll put up with it

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Speaker 1: at least for now, because it's just so good for

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Speaker 1: little girls brains. And that's true. They need to get

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Speaker 1: more girls, you know, developing their spatial skills, maybe eventually

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Speaker 1: leading to interests in science, engineering, physics. But other women,

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Speaker 1: such as Stephanie Cole, who is one of the leaders

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Speaker 1: behind an online petition on change dot org to get

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Speaker 1: Lego to commit to gender equity in marketing, their response

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Speaker 1: to LESA. Elliott might be, Hey, you know what, they

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Speaker 1: don't need to change the product. The product already appeals

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Speaker 1: to both boys and girls. They need to change what

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Speaker 1: kids are seeing in those commercials, because if little girls

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Speaker 1: are watching those Lego commercials and it's just boys playing

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Speaker 1: with them, they get the message that they can. And

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Speaker 1: I just want to point out that as of February,

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Speaker 1: more than fifty two thousand people had signed Stephanie Cole's

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Speaker 1: petition to get Lego to be more equitable in their marketing.

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Speaker 1: People are really upset about this issue, and uh and

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Speaker 1: listeners might be wondering why we have been devoting so

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Speaker 1: much of this episode so far exclusively to this Legos controversy.

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Speaker 1: But I think it's a perfect case study for UM

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Speaker 1: maybe how toymakers approached this gender issue, how it's used

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Speaker 1: in marketing, and you know, in whether or not it

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Speaker 1: matters at all, you know, in kids lives, I mean

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Speaker 1: does it you know, does it really matter if your

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Speaker 1: child just wants to, you know, play cupcake time versus

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Speaker 1: airplane building. Maybe give them the option of both and

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Speaker 1: the real world application of that option for both the

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Speaker 1: math ea versus the more creative, softer skills that are

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Speaker 1: associated with more female targeted toys. Is this extension to

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Speaker 1: stem jobs and careers and education as these kids age, because,

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Speaker 1: like you mentioned earlier, Legos have been shown to really

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Speaker 1: foster those spatial skills, the mathematical, fine motor skills, and

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Speaker 1: in doing so, UM it might help boys later in

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Speaker 1: life as they grapple with math and science in school.

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Speaker 1: Research from the American Association of University Women it did

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Speaker 1: it throughout there that boys and men consistently outperformed girls

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Speaker 1: and women in the area of spatial skills, but that

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Speaker 1: taking simple classes on these spatial skills really level the

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Speaker 1: playing field. And so if girls grow up in an

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Speaker 1: environment that provide spatial skills training, they're more likely to

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Speaker 1: develop their skills and confidence and consider a future in

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Speaker 1: stem jobs and a the end of the study, they

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Speaker 1: had a bunch of recommendations for how to level continue

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Speaker 1: to level the playing field, encourage girls to participate as

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Speaker 1: they get older, and they really encourage children and students

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Speaker 1: to play with construction toys. Legos take things apart and

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Speaker 1: put them back together again, Legos, play games that involved

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Speaker 1: fitting objects into different places. Legos and draw and work

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Speaker 1: with their hands. And um, this is something that's called tinkering,

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Speaker 1: which I thought was an interesting concept. Uh. This was

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Speaker 1: from an article by Dana Goldstein, And uh, tinkering is

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Speaker 1: just this idea of, like you said, like playing with

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Speaker 1: your hands, having to use those different parts of your

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Speaker 1: brain which get toys like legos, erector sets, connects really

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Speaker 1: really exercised very well, which is why it's not a

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Speaker 1: thing of uh, you know, not wanting girls to play

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Speaker 1: with dolls, but just wanting to make sure that other

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Speaker 1: options are open. Like you mentioned earlier, um And there

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Speaker 1: was a pretty good example of how stark gender differences

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Speaker 1: are in UH in boys and girls toys even today.

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Speaker 1: There was an article in Good Magazine in December two

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Speaker 1: thousand eleven written by Christopher Mems and he was looking

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Speaker 1: at the hot toys from last year. And this was

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Speaker 1: judged by the Toy Industry Association's Toy of the Year awards,

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Speaker 1: and the Toy Industry Association divides toys into girls toys

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Speaker 1: versus boys toys, and the winner for two thousand eleven

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Speaker 1: for boys was the Hot Wheels Wall Track, which basically

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Speaker 1: is this crazy UH track that boys can build that

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Speaker 1: can go up a wall and around and again. It's

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Speaker 1: like a lot of those building skills, the spatial skills.

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Speaker 1: The number one girl toy that won the award from

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Speaker 1: the Toy Industry Association was Fidget Friends Interactive Figurines and

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Speaker 1: basically it looks like a strange kind of tellytubby ish

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Speaker 1: plush squeeze it that says things like you look fabulous

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Speaker 1: and my favorite, I live for the weekends. What a

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Speaker 1: what a little kids know about living for the weekends.

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Speaker 1: I ask you that a lot. Uh. Christopher MEM's wrote,

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Speaker 1: it's hard not to see the extreme gender polarization of

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Speaker 1: this year's best selling children's toys as the festering roots

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Speaker 1: stock of so much of the baggage men and women

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Speaker 1: are forced to overcome as adults. Because it was true.

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Speaker 1: If you look at all the girls toys, it's a

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Speaker 1: lot of the cooking stuff. It's bizarre, squishable figurines. You

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Speaker 1: look fabulous, and whereas the boys toys are more interactive,

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Speaker 1: sometimes more violent, and they look at least a little

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Speaker 1: bit more fun. Yeah. The one, the one that I

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Speaker 1: rolled my eyes at so hard they almost fell out

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Speaker 1: of my head, was Monster High. These are these are

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Speaker 1: young ladies. The figurines, the dolls are are the daughters,

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Speaker 1: the teen daughters of monsters, and so you know, they

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Speaker 1: look all hale and kind of gross like monsters do,

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Speaker 1: but they're still like stretched out, almost Barbie like, and

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Speaker 1: they're they're really into fashion. That's like the makeover for

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Speaker 1: troll dolls. Troll dolls now have a tween set with

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Speaker 1: the carrier around sassy handbags, as does Strawberry Shortcake and

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Speaker 1: what's the other one, Rainbow bright, rainbow bright. They've all

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Speaker 1: been sexualized. Their eyes have gotten bigger, their hips have

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Speaker 1: gotten curvier. Yeah, I don't understand what's wrong with having

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Speaker 1: a toy look like a little girl, like a little

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Speaker 1: round toy who cares like a little a little squish

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Speaker 1: it that I apparently don't like. But it's just because

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Speaker 1: it says things like I live for the weekends. But

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Speaker 1: it's it's not just us picking up us intelligent adults

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Speaker 1: picking up on these gender stereotypes and these these problematic

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Speaker 1: issues that arise when you change how children see toys.

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Speaker 1: Children themselves are picking up on this, and several studies

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Speaker 1: point out that children as young as three can apply

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Speaker 1: gender stereotypes and directly quote unquote identify toys as being

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Speaker 1: either for girls, are or boys. Both boys and girls

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Speaker 1: end up showing a stronger preference for boy toys as

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Speaker 1: they get older, and that sort of leads into something,

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Speaker 1: you know, the whole topic of it's okay for girls

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Speaker 1: to like boy related things, but if boys show an

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Speaker 1: interesting girl related things, they're called sissies. Well, yeah, you

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Speaker 1: think about it. Girls can be tomboys, but boys can't

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Speaker 1: be tom girls. You know, Yeah, what's the term for

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. And not only do

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Speaker 1: children from a very early age internalize those gender norms.

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Speaker 1: A two thousand seven study published in the journal Early

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Speaker 1: Childhood Education found that three year olds and five year

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Speaker 1: old kids expected parents to judge their play choices based

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Speaker 1: on gender roles, even though when the parents were surveyed,

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Speaker 1: they'd say, no, no, no, we're not big into gender stereotypes.

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Speaker 1: Susie can play with whatever she wants, or Harry can

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Speaker 1: play with whatever he wants. But when you ask Susie

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Speaker 1: and Harry whether or not their parents would be okay

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Speaker 1: with them, you know, playing princess or hammering something, they

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Speaker 1: they expected to be judged negatively if they broke those

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Speaker 1: gender norms. These are children to these are three and

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Speaker 1: five year olds, Well, they pick up on it really quickly.

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Speaker 1: And anybody who's looked into all of this lego business

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Speaker 1: out there has probably seen the YouTube video of that

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Speaker 1: adorable little girl throwing up a fit in the toy

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Speaker 1: aisle because she, you know, she's basically saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: why do girls have to like paying princess stuff? Boys

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Speaker 1: can like it to girls can like superheroes, and you know, well,

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Speaker 1: and the thing is we're we've talked so much about

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Speaker 1: how uh you know, this marketing might be harmful towards girls,

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Speaker 1: but really all of this UM, these psychological studies reflect

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Speaker 1: on the fact that those the gender schemas are more

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Speaker 1: rigid for boys. So we're doing a disservice to both

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Speaker 1: boys and girls by by restricting, you know, what they

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Speaker 1: can and can't play with in a lot ways and

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Speaker 1: speaking of what they can and can't play with. UM

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Speaker 1: In the International Journal of Gender Science and Technology UH

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Speaker 1: study out of the Netherlands showed that they talked to

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Speaker 1: a couple of girls, I think it was like nine

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Speaker 1: or ten girls, and the handful of girls that they

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Speaker 1: interviewed felt free to play with masculine connoted games. But

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, they also spend time and effort

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Speaker 1: trying to justify their choices. So, you know, they were

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Speaker 1: really excited to play violent video games and they thought

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Speaker 1: like shoot them up games are really cool, but they

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Speaker 1: made sure to say things like, oh, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't like it that much. And they

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Speaker 1: made sure too to depict other girls who really liked

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Speaker 1: it as being weird and out of the ordinary. And

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Speaker 1: the same study that you reference cited other studies that

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Speaker 1: associated the toys that kids play with with their career

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Speaker 1: preferences and spatial versus verbal abilities. So they do seem

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Speaker 1: to be real world implications of the kind of toy

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Speaker 1: marketing and development that is being catered to these kids. Um,

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Speaker 1: and we we do have to reference this one study

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Speaker 1: that has been it's often touted as a scientific basis

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Speaker 1: for gendering toys, and this was came out in two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight, and this was a study led by psychologist

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Speaker 1: Kim Wallen at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center here

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Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia, and they the researchers gave toys an

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Speaker 1: option of wheeled toys such as dump trucks and then

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Speaker 1: plush dolls to a set of eleven male and twenty

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Speaker 1: three female Reesus monkeys, and they found that the young

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Speaker 1: male Reesus monkeys spent more time playing with those wheeled

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Speaker 1: toys versus the plush dolls, whereas the female Reesist monkeys

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Speaker 1: played with both equally. So they're saying, hey, you know what,

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Speaker 1: it's it's okay because boys, you know, are naturally our

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Speaker 1: primate instincts say that boys are just naturally drawn to

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Speaker 1: these different kinds of toys, So so we should that

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Speaker 1: that should be fine, build your lego friends, no big deal.

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Speaker 1: I'm skeptical. Yeah, the Cyberrows says that I'm skeptical, Kristen.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people are skeptical. But one thing that

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Speaker 1: primate study did not confirm at all is this whole

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Speaker 1: gender of the color wheel. And adults looking at the

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Speaker 1: normal pictures of toys marketed for girls judge the toys

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Speaker 1: to be feminine, passive, and uninteresting, while they judge the

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Speaker 1: toys for boys to be masculine, active and interesting. And

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Speaker 1: part of this study did include legos and talk about

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Speaker 1: the color of legos and the fact that toys targeted

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Speaker 1: for both boys and girls tend to be rated on

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Speaker 1: the masculine side of neutral suggests that for example, they

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Speaker 1: say pink legos would be considered to be for girls

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Speaker 1: and not for boys, but the yellow, white, orange, and

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Speaker 1: red legos would be considered for either boys or girls.

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Speaker 1: So he established these these notions very early in childhood,

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Speaker 1: as early as age three, and they are carried with

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Speaker 1: us into adulthood. But to end things, maybe on a

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Speaker 1: can we offer a positive note, please, because we have

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Speaker 1: been we've been uh, really hammering home the more negative

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Speaker 1: side of things, but Hamley's. This is coming from reported

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Speaker 1: by Peggy Orenstein in The New York Times. She points

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Speaker 1: out that Hamley's, which is the London equivalent of Fao Schwartz,

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Speaker 1: recently dismantled it's pink girls and blue boys sections in

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Speaker 1: favor of a gender neutral store with red and white signage.

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Speaker 1: So some people are paying attention to this. Obviously that

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Speaker 1: that fifty strong change dot org petition to Legos indicates

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Speaker 1: that people are paying attention. Um And again, this isn't

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Speaker 1: an issue of saying that the girls should not want

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Speaker 1: to play with dolls and princesses. I had tons of

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Speaker 1: dolls and enjoyed that, you know, the baking and the

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Speaker 1: pretending that I was a horse farm owner, and you know,

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Speaker 1: all of those kind of gendered gender norm activities. But

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Speaker 1: it's more what what these companies are promoting. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: really think that it would do quite a service to

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Speaker 1: kids if maybe the marketers took the lead. And I know,

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Speaker 1: I know marketers and advertisers are only responding to what

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Speaker 1: people say they want, so you know, they're creating these

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Speaker 1: products and marketing these products that are super pink and

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Speaker 1: sparkly for girls, super violent and you know, scary for boys?

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Speaker 1: Um or scary I don't know, um, but maybe if

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Speaker 1: they took the lead and just try to market and

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Speaker 1: create plane gender news not playing, but you know, gender

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Speaker 1: neutral toys that everybody could enjoy. Bring back the wooden blocks,

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00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 1: Lincoln logs for all. Thank you, hey stem stem jobs

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00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: creating things with their hands. But parents out there curious

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00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: to know what you've done in terms of this whole

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00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: gendered toy issue. I mean, is it something that you

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00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:56,680
Speaker 1: even think about, especially if you have little girls. It

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00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,400
Speaker 1: seems like this is often thought of a lot more

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00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,880
Speaker 1: in terms of like how it's affecting little girls rather

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00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 1: than how it's affecting boys. So we want to hear

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00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,439
Speaker 1: from from folks out there and also people's own experiences

436
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 1: with toys and when you were a child, did you

437
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: stick to your your blue aisle or your pink aisle?

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00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 1: Let us know, mom stuff at Discovery dot com is

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00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,199
Speaker 1: where you can send your letters. You can also let

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00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:25,199
Speaker 1: us know what's happening on Facebook, and we have a

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00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 1: couple of emails here just to shift gears in a

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00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: major way. We have a couple of emails here in

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00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: response to our episode on Volvadinia. I've got an email

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00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 1: here from Nancy and she writes, I just listened to

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00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: your podcast about this awful disorder and it needs a

446
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 1: lot of publicity. I would want to help any woman

447
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: who suffers from this and gets to run around from

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00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 1: her doctors who tells her there's nothing wrong and look

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00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: at her like she is neurotic or hysteric. I was

450
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: at my wits end until one gui In happened to

451
00:26:56,359 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: read about interstitial to side us and also volvadinia am

452
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: for six years, I've suffered in agony and I'm now cured.

453
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: And she writes, I had it all of us to

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00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: be elitis vaginitus and an imbalancing vaginal bacteria, a pelvic

455
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: floor prolapse, and intense anxiety and weight loss from the

456
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 1: NonStop burning torture. Some women are given paxxel and I

457
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:20,639
Speaker 1: happen to have Xanix for anxiety, and those meds do

458
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: something good with the prudendal nerve which is otherwise fired

459
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: up in this disorder. I'm cured with no recurrence for

460
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: about nine years, and it had come on suddenly, and

461
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: like so many I was treated for yeast infections, which

462
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: this was not. Let me know how I can help.

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00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 1: I've written to all the women's magazines to have articles

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00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 1: on this, and few have done so. And uh, Nancy

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00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: story is like a lot that we ever received from

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00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: women saying a thanks for finally talking about this and

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00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: also their extreme frustration with getting a diagnosis. Okay, this

468
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: is from Niche. I am twenty three and I have

469
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,439
Speaker 1: had volvedenius since I was thirteen. I could never use

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00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:01,400
Speaker 1: a tampon, have sex, or have a paps near. In fact,

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00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 1: doctors wouldn't give me full examinations because I would be

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00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: in too much pain. When I was twenty, I tried

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00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: to have intercourse for the first time, and it was painful,

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00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: but I just thought it was supposed to be painful.

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00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: After trying a few more times and never being able

476
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,199
Speaker 1: to successfully have sex, I started to seek out an answer.

477
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: I went to several kind of colleges who treated me

478
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: for a yeast infection and repeatedly asked if I was

479
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: sexually abused. Finally, I started to find the answers on

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00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 1: the wall of a bathroom stall U c l A. Coincidentally,

481
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: during my sophomore year at u c l A to

482
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,239
Speaker 1: kind of coologists were connecting a study on volviginia and

483
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: had posted flyers in the ladies restroom. I took partner

484
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: study that involved four very painful injections in places women

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00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 1: should never have to get injections every other week for

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00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: twelve weeks. The injections had nerve blockers that were supposed

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00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: to eventually train the nerves to not respond with pain

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00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: and sensitivity to any stimuli. It helped, but didn't cure

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00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: it entirely. I then went to a magnificent physical therapist

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00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: who specializes in internal pelvic floor physical therapy. Finally I

491
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: was able to use tampons and as of three months ago,

492
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 1: successfully have intercourse for the first time. I still have pain,

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00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: and I find that intercourse is more painful at some

494
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: weeks my minstrual cycle than others. My latest kind of

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00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: colleges wants me to have a himan ectomy, in which

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00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: they cut out all or some of a woman's time

497
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: and in the hopes that it will make intercourse less painful.

498
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: To say, the leaves full of dinny is extremely inconvenient.

499
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: I've lost and avoided relationships over it, and I think

500
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: the worst part is that, like you said, the desire

501
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 1: for sex is there, but there is no relief on

502
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: the up side. However, I've come a long way and

503
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: I have faith that if I keep seeking out experienced professionals,

504
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: I will find my answer. So thanks to everybody who

505
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 1: has written in and again, if you have any thoughts

506
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 1: to send our way. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com

507
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: is email address you can write to us um and again.

508
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook, slash stuff one Ever

509
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: Told You, on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and you

510
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: can check out the blog during the week It's stuff

511
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: Mom Never told You at how Stuff works dot com.

512
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

513
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stup Work staff as we

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