Sugar, Spice, Etc: Do Toys Teach Kids How To Be Girls And Boys?

María Celeste Arrarás of “Al Rojo Vivo” [Ed. note: That is, by the way, not her in the photo. Just some pop tartlet whose name we're too tired / bloated / PMSy to remember.] recently lent her celebrity to promote “Color Me Gemz,” a toy that instills a love of jewelry and improper spelling in young girls everywhere. 2Kewl!!!1! Sell it to us, Maria Celeste:

“We Latinas love to look our best all the time,” said Arrarás. “The Color Me Gemz line is great fun — and more. Girls can combine creativity, imagination and self-expression to make jewelry works of art to dress up all their outfits, just like mom!”

Obviously, she has never seen us hungover on a Saturday morning, crying into an order of McDonald’s hash browns.

The Color Me Gemz collection is a brand new line that allows girls to create their very own fashion-forward jewelry with the touch of a pen. Creating dazzling Color Me Gemz pieces is quick, easy and fun. Girls simply use the included jewel-toned marker pens to color specially designed facets that create the appearance of an actual gemstone so they can sparkle and shine wherever they go.

Juvie?

Girls can choose from four adorable Color Me Gemz sets, including a Necklace Set, Bracelet Set, Belt Set or Decorator Set. They can even create and decorate their own fashion accessories including a purse or hat. Girls can store their Color Me Gemz masterpieces in the new Color Me Gemz Jewelry Box, which can also be gem-ified inside and out.

“Color Me Gemz is more than just a toy. It’s an ideal contemporary activity set, combining two things girls love - arts and crafts and the magic of jewelry,” said Chris Byrne, The Toy Guy(R)(R). “It’s easy and rewarding for kids to use, while inspiring focused creativity and giving girls something they can proudly display as their own creation.”

True. It is more than just a toy. It’s also a vehicle for establishing gender norms. Which can be fine, sure. As a little girl, we loved all things pink. We had Barbies, and Barbie cars and Barbie houses and Barbia pregnancy tests. We had baby dolls and My Little Ponies and one doll whose hair smelled like chocolate cupcakes. But we also played with our kitchen playset with our younger brother (we made pizzas) and with his G.I. Joes and batman action figures.

So why does a toy have to be marketed to a particular gender at all? Can’t boys also enjoying drawing gems? Or making jewelry? All the jewelers we know happen to be men anyway. And can little girls look at a sparkly pink box of “Color Me Gemz” and think, “Nah. I think I’d rather build a fort or finger paint?” Is that really so inconceivable?

We can’t ever be sure at what point we learned what it was to be a girl. Was it our first Christmas, when we got lots of dolls and frilly clothes as presents? Was it watching cartoons wherein the princess, time and time again, dreamed of nothing more than a handsome prince? Or was it reading about little girls like Alice, Mary Lennox or Sara Crew? We’re not sure, really.

But we do know that, now, hearing out sparkly jewelry kits marketed solely to little girls makes us sad - both for the little girls who don’t want any part in pink sparkliness and for the little boys who sneak into their sisters’ rooms to make their own Color Me Gemz Jewelry Box. Especially since both could be spending their times with less tacky toys, like Baby Thug Dolls.

Celebrity Mom Maria Celeste Arrarás Helps Launch New Fisher-Price(R) Color Me Gemz(TM) Line at Casa Casuarina in Miami [Hispanic Tips]