Lyris Lite :: Virgin Megastores recruit your children into their filthy gender-based inventory clearing plan!

Virgin Megastores recruit your children into their filthy gender-based inventory clearing plan!

Socially constructed gender is one of the more ridiculous concepts that people have come up with, and as far as I'm concerned should have been done away with long ago. It's true that men and women have clear anatomical differences (that's what my mommy told me anyway), but the extent to which most non-thinking people use these to justify all sorts of irrational and usually oppressive social rules is both puzzling and disturbing. Gender is one of the few areas where these people will actually actively enforce outdated stereotypes upon each other intentionally, almost always without being able to explain why or for what reason.

Anyway! This is all a little heavy, but fortunately for us, it creates some chuckle-worthy situations such as this sales promotion that I spotted in one of the Virgin Megastores here in Glasgow. Look! If you have a male child, it is encouraged that you buy it a black DS Lite, and one of two good to poor games that have men of some sort on the covers, plus a Pokemon game which is presumably included as part of the deal because it features aggressive-looking roaring monsters on the box art. Children of the female variety, on the other hand, are encouraged instead to be given a pink DS, and a game featuring a cute, fluffy animal.

Of course, I am reading into this more than the people who put together the promotional campaign ever would (hey, someone has to), and in reality, this is just Virgin Megastores' attempt to shift unsold/unwanted copies of "Pony Friends" and Simpsons promotional packs. But it still made me laugh enough to take a picture of it.

good post. I try to stay above it all (after taking a gender studies class in college) but I totally FREAKED last week when Amazon sent me a pink DSlite case/holder. That's the one pet peeve i have w/ them - no color selection as far as I can see for such items. I'm still too self-conscious to use it lol

I don't have any pink stuff that I can think of. It's not a very easy colour to make appealing-looking. It's either radiant enough to hurt your eyes or watered-down enough to look like diluted milkshake.

Those gender bundles are a laugh riot.

Personally, I'd never buy a pink appliance... but then, I'd never buy a brown one either, or a lime green one, or a... well, you get the idea. Nothing to do with gender at all, I just find pink to be an incredibly unappealing colour for the most part.

Not really worth to get upset by this. The fact is that young girls like pink, and many young boys like black.

Not a laugh riot. Just clever marketing.

Hey Newspaz

I doubt anyone was upset over this. You are right that many young boys like black and many young girls like pink. My point was that they are typically conditioned into doing so.

The idea of it being "clever" though is certainly debatable.

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