sexism: books for tinies edition

[psocoptera]

Someone (who is hopefully not reading this) gave us a "Baby Einstein" book for Christmas (of the "press buttons and play annoying sounds" type, which is on the one hand annoying but on the other hand successfully enticed Q away from a power cord earlier this evening, so hey. But that is not actually what I am writing about.) What struck me is that it features five little animals, Baby Galileo, whose (trite and poorly-scanning) rhyme mentions the stars, Baby Mozart, who plays a flute, Baby Monet, who sees colorful flowers, Baby Vivaldi, who is taking a bath... and Mimi, who is eating breakfast. Now, setting aside the question of why Vivaldi is taking a bath, one of those names is not like the other ones. I couldn't come up with any cultural reference for Mimi - Wikipedia suggests the heroine of La Boheme, but a) I've personally seen Boheme three times and I didn't think of that, so I just don't think she has the same level of name recognition as Mozart or Monet, and b) she's a creation, not a creator. I really can't think of another explanation here besides "someone pointed out that there were no women in this book, so they stuck one in in the most half-assed way possible". Which is all a slow build to my actual point: what female "culture hero" *should* they have name-dropped (and if we can't come up with one at the Mozart/Monet/one-name-famous level, how fucked up is that?)?

Comments

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

I'd go with "Baby Austen is reading a book", probably, Jane Austen is pretty high-profile.

[asmanyaswill.livejournal.com]

Second one I thought of, after Dickinson, and before Lovelace, Curie, and Oakley. (Hah! Ok, so I'm prone to track-jumping in my trains of thought.) I also find the names and attributes of the males in the book to be head-slappingly absurd. Baby Vivaldi?? Shouldn't he at least cook? With seasonings? (Oh, wait, that's Baby PDQ. Oops.)

[mst3kforall.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Ada Lovelace and Annie Oakley. Nice.

::shame mode on:: I can't think of any Dickinson, except for Sandra Dickinson (the most vapid and talent-free actress; she played Trillian in the original "Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"), Janice Dickinson (a messed up former model who thinks her multitudinous disastrous plastic surgeries make her a perfect woman), and Camilla Dickinson (fictional Madeleine L'Engle character). Oh, must be Emily Dickinson. Okay. I don't even want to think about what this means about my culture or my knowledge.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole project is ridiculous - labeling a purple zebra on a swingset "Monet" has got to be about the thinnest possible veneer of cultural content, and yet it's just enough that someone could try to delude themselves that this is an educational object, superior to electronic noisemakers that don't feature the names of any famous dead guys.

[tanyareed.livejournal.com]

The first names that came to my mind were Madame Curie (does it have the 'e' in this context? It's almost 2 am, and my French isn't the best when I'm awake) and Margaret Thatcher...not sure what this says about me...

[eastgategirl.livejournal.com]

Marie Curie was at the top of my list, but if we're including political leaders, I'd prefer Elizabeth I or Golda Meir or Indira Gandhi to Maggie Thatcher.

[mst3kforall.livejournal.com]

punter chiming in to agree here!

[prof-fran.livejournal.com]

In addition to the ones mentioned--Baby Cassatt? Baby O'Keefe? Baby (Isadora) Duncan?
There are 1000s of women. Mimi doesn't seem to cut it. I missed when the Baby Einstein company was acquired by Disney; that may explain some of the rampant sexism.

[mst3kforall.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's blatant.

I thought of Marie Curie, Harriet Tubman, George Sand, Simone de Beauvoir.

[brasssun.livejournal.com]

Oof. Yeah, that is seriously half-hearted at best and pretty insulting. My first thoughts were Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace. But Jane Austen probably has better name recognition. You may need to write the company and point out that they have options.

[brasssun.livejournal.com]

It also occurs to me that there's another sexism issue that men tend to get referred to by their last names while women tend to get referred to by their first names.

So it might have to be Baby Jane for Jane Austen or Baby Marie for Marie Curie, both of which are fairly generic first names.

Baby Bronte might work, but that's kind of awful alliteration. Or maybe Baby Nightingale for Florence Nightingale?

[jaipur.livejournal.com]

Baby Curie was the first one I thought of, though Baby Teresa or Baby Nightingale or Baby Ada (Lovelace) are also good... Write a letter to the book's publisher! ;)

[cereph.livejournal.com]

I also thought of Curie first, but Austen would be good too to include more than just one. I thought Baby Einstein was supposed to be good/better about stuff like that?

[sofer.livejournal.com]

I'm sure someone would write in to complain about baby Sappho, but wouldn't that be awesome? Plus, it solves the first vs. last name dilemna.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, you officially win. That is excellent.

[antimony.livejournal.com]

It really ought to be baby Archimedes in the bath.

The first one I thought of was Madame Curie, but science bias is science-y. Baby Joan of Arc springs to mind next, and avoids the name issue since she is known by her first name, except that brings religion in. (She's European and historical, IDK.)

Austen didn't spring to mind because Austen's works aren't generally consumed by children, whereas basic astronomy and classical music are.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Good point about basic astronomy and classical music being a lot more kid-accessible than Austen's (or anyone's) novels.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Also, yeah, talk about a missed opportunity to put Archimedes in the bath.