Lucy is happily playing with one, an Etch-A-Sketch. It's unabashedly girly: it is pink and has little cartoon drawings of non-Disney fairy princesses on it.Dyami just walked over a minute ago. "Did you notice that the pen for that Etch-A-Sketch is a little, well, phallic?"
I looked and started cracking up.
Is this design ironic? Planned? Unintentional? (Sort of like the Teletubby with a purse?)
Now that I see it, I can't exactly let Lucy play with it, can I?
The question: do we tell the owner when we return it? (Maybe she reads this and the question is moot). Hmmmmm.
1 comment:
OK, at the risk of offending you, do you really think she can't play with it because it's phallic?
This is coming from me, who wrote a Master's thesis on the Vagina Monologues (and performed in it three times, with a great variety of women!), and has done a lot of thinking about how our culture puts shame on our bodies, particularly certain body parts.
If anything phallic is dirty and bad, are penises dirty and bad? Are vaginas? Do we want our children to think these parts are such, or that they are worthy of respect and to be treated lovingly and carefully, not casually or secretively? Do we want them to be able to talk about these parts and be responsible and comfortable about them?
On a side note, and appreciating your sense of humor about it, too, take a look at the castle in Disney's Alladin. SO phallic! And the Washington Monument. ;)
Anyway, just food for thought...
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