A Plea For Self-Confidence and Sensible Chocolate

Hello! First things first, I must apologise to the (approximately) 0 people who read this blog for the reason that my blog posts are now few and far between. I am, admittedly, not as good at this as Vida. I would, however, like to share with you the events of last weekend's shopping trip with my beautiful and wonderful mother (I bought myself two new shirts and Haim's new album, in case you were remotely interested). The day did end with me moving all the Robin Thicke CDs to the Drum & Bass section of HMV, where nobody in their right mind would venture, but unsurprisingly, the first stop we made was the local corner shop. My mother and I alike are not able to go more than about an hour without stocking up our systems with chocolate, and it was here that I noticed the new packaging for Kinder Eggs- bear with me, this anecdote will gain some sort of relevance to the general theme of the blog at some point.

Kinder eggs are fab. No doubt about it. I mean, you get chocolate, and a toy. Possibly two of my favourite things, all wrapped into one cute little egg-shaped thingy. But here's the catch- and I'm not exactly sure if this is news, or if they have always been packaged in this way, but the foil wrapping now has a cute little pink or blue patch on, depending on whether you are a girl or a boy, respectively.

 How considerate of you, Ferrero!!!!!!!!!!!! Gone are the tedious days when a girl would have to put up with a free toy car or aeroplane, or when a boy would have to settle for a cat or  weird princess thing or whatever. How. Useful. Gender stereotyped chocolate. Chocolate. Ludicrous.

I am in no way of the opinion that this is the most important or offensive example of gender stereotyping today- but it has baffled me since I first saw the advert on television, and the product in the corner shop, that we would want to inflict the beginnings of expected gender roles on children so early on in life. Of course this does not affect me personally- I prefer a chocolate of substance- A Lion, or a Double Decker or what have you. But in general, assuming girls will favour one thing, and boys another, is always wrong.

This, in particular, is a minor issue when you consider the broader range of more poignant gender and sexism-related problems, I know, but I cannot ignore the implications that come with it. Small things like this are what indoctrinate young children into accepting what is 'normal' about their gender. And why should they? I worry that young girls- and boys (sexism works both ways, and don't you forget it!!!!!!!) who are not interested in what society, or Fererro, think they should be, will come to the conclusion that they are, in some way, not normal. And as trivial as relating this rather serious topic to chocolate may seem, the reality is, it's just not fair.

All I am saying is that small things like this are what bring children up to normalise gender stereotypes. They encourage a desire to change the things you enjoy and the things you like, which essentially make up what is important about who you are, to conform to the unrealistic expectations of our society.

So whether or not you buy Kinder chocolate is, really, irrelevant. What I'd like you to know is that whatever appeals to you, whether it conforms to gender roles or not, is really cool. My main message is- if it's not broken, don't fix it. And just as Kinder did NOT need to add these stupid pink/blue patches of patronisation, you do not need to change anything about your likes, dislikes, or hobbies. If you associate yourself with the pink patch, that's fine. And if you associate yourself with the blue patch? Also fine. But what about associating yourself with a combination of the two? I hear you ask. You guessed it- that is. Completely. And utterly. Fine.

-Daisy