I was released from grand-jury duty around lunch-time (huzzah!), and, in need of some catfood for the Dork-Dude Three, swung into a pet-supply store near the courthouse, where I happened to pause and see this:
A Pink Princess Castle "for thy hamsters and thy gerbils."
Amazing. Apparently, pink coloring is enough to make your Pikachu a princess (just like you!). I did not see any rodent-sized cone-hats, but I haven’t checked Etsy yet. I did, however, see this, right next to it on the shelf:
Well whadayaknow? It's the blue-tinted version of the same damn thing.
I can’t find a legible photo of it, but the box illustration shows an armor-clad young man wielding a sword while riding a rearing white stallion (stallion not included).
But the best part is the marketing blurb I found when I got home:
Once upon a time there lived a Pink Princess hamster and a Blue Knight gerbil. They searched for their perfect home, until one day, they found the perfect castle for each of them. Featuring their very own exercise wheel, water bottle, high-rising hideaway, plastic housing to help reduce drafts, an inner court yard with abundant room for sleep and play, and two levels of royal living, these castles have everything a fair hamster princess or brave gerbil knight could want. Plus, plenty of places to add more toobs and other fun accessories. Best of all, the castle colors match their personalities perfectly- pretty pink for the Princess, and bold blue for the Knight. Your adventure can begin with your very own Pink Princess or Blue Knight castle- the perfect home for your hamster or gerbil.
Girl hamsters are fair and pretty! You can look at them! Their personalities are best described as “pink”!
Boy hamsters–sorry, gerbils–are brave and bold! They (probably) do stuff! That’s totally a blue quality.
Despite my title, and the hamsters-are-girls, gerbils-are-boys bullpuckey, this isn’t about animals. This is about telling children, over and over and over again, that there are two (and only two) kinds of people, who behave–and should behave–in mutually exclusive ways.
Also, teaching kids to misspell ‘tubes’.
Once upon a time there lived a Pink Princess hamster and a Blue Knight gerbil. They searched for their perfect home, until one day, they found the perfect castle for each of them.
…and then the Blue Knight gerbil mounted the Pink Princess Hamster repeatedly and they had a gazillion gross little hairless wormy-looking babies every month until Pink Princess Hamster got sick of constantly procreating and devoured her litter, creating a bloody mess that was very difficult for Queen Mommy and King Daddy to explain.
What? Circle of life, amirite?
(I’m also weirded out by the random genderizing of gerbils as butch and hamsters as femme.)
LOL, Becky! Brilliant.
Although I think fear of chewed-up, worm-like rodent pupae is exactly why HRH (Her Royal Hamsterness) has her own castle. Or maybe she’s just tired of the Blue(balled) Knight’s two-pump-chumpery and disgusting seed-spitting habits.
ETA: I had hamsters and gerbils (see, I’m not sexist!) as a kid, and jeezus christ, cleaning this thing would be a fucking nightmare.
Lulz. Ok, I recently mourned the passing of my two hamsters, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Tina contracted some kind of Ye Olde Hamster Parasite, lost all her hair, got scaly, and died. Then Amy daintily ate her in Ye Olde Toob. So ascribing human virtues of either gender is moot when it comes to rodents. This annoys me beyond belief because it is so stupid and lazy…if they wanted to be exciting they could say they’re “under the sea” hamsters and “cotton candy factory” gerbils or something.
@MKP: Oh gawd, rodents are gross little cannibals. I don’t know why I thought they were so awesome when I was a kid. My future children will have to choose between fish and dogs, because I am not going through the stinky-cage, cannibalistic shit with rodents.
I once went on a blind date with a guy who, on the second date, rhapsodized about his two hamsters. On the third date, I was at his place and got to meet the hamsters and watch him play with them. Did I mention he was in his early 40s and worked for a hedge fund? There was not a fourth date. It was just too weird.
…naaaargh.
My 9yo got gerbils last year after a lot of research. For the record, they are adorable! I never had any as a kid, so they are new to me.
Anyway, we were stunned at all the glitter pink (for girls) vs. glitter neon green UFO (apparently boy) stuff there was. My son and I were both like WTF? in the gerbil toy aisle (ok, his was more of a confused ‘why?!’ expression).
I kid you not when I say there is a pink and white Cinderella carriage for your gerbil / hamster to run around in vs. a low to the ground blue racecar speedster.
I’d say it’s a problem when we don’t just anthropomorphize animals, but add rigid gender roles to the too.
Uh, bad news for you on the cannibalism front with fish, Becky. In my experience it’s rare to find an intact dead fish in a community fish tank. For some reason they always seemed to like to go for the eyes too. Algae’s pretty darn annoying to get off of a tank…
I don’t think I’ve seen these before, but I haven’t looked for hamster cages either. I do look at the hamsters though. I actually don’t know quite what to say about it.
Ditto on fish cannibalism…I had a bunch of mollies in college who loved to have babies and then eat them like chex mix.
Becky, that was awe-inspiring. It should be mandatory in every pet store.
Are we really so terribly unsure of our genders that we have to assign rigid, cliched gender roles to every single bloody thing on the planet? Some folks out there need to grow the hell up.
Good grief. Your little girl lion and boy lion, in their gendered lion costumes, can play with their similarly gendered rodents when they get home from trick-or-treating.
Sorry to hear about your little babies, MKP.
I had a pair of freshwater angels that mated, which meant that the female laid eggs and the male fertilized them. Except that he would fertilize a few, eat them, fertilize a few more, eat them, and so on. I was lucky to get 5 good eggs, and none of the hatchlings ever made it to adulthood.
I’m famous for naming boy cats with girls’ names. I’m just giving them names that seem to fit them, and I know they couldn’t care less. It’s fun to watch people coo and say “Aw, Nutmeg, what a pretty little girl you are!” knowing it’s all in their minds.
if it’s no longer fish on account of the cannibalism as well, Becky – remember that dogs also don’t do heterosexism particularly well either..
My mum explained using the correct terminology of what happened when our two “boy” dogs (one was called “fluffy” and the other “sunny”) decided they really liked each other and became stuck together.
Let’s just say mum got called up to the school, after a couple of her kids wrote and draw a stories about two “boy” dogs who liked each other that they got stuck. I think the word “penis” is what got the teachers’ each time.
@Mackey: No dogs of mine will be getting stuck together, as the vet will be knackering them at the earliest possible opportunity. Although in my experience, that doesn’t entirely solve the penis issues…all of the male dogs I grew up with were constantly getting boners and lying around slurping their own ‘nads. I think it’s something that’s carried on the Y chromosome regardless of species.
My 6 y/o stepdaughter really wants a gerbil. I’d get her one today if it would ride around on a little miniature horse. If it would do that, I wouldn’t even care which gender script it performed. Princess? Knight? I don’t give a fuck as long as there’s a little rodent horseback- riding action goin’ on.
We have a male cat named Jessica and a friend had one named Chloe. It’s notoriously hard to sex kittens, so I’m avoiding personal pronouns altogether with the stray kittens we’re fostering until the vet makes a call.
Becky, do you think male humans are jealous of male dogs? (I bet Kevin Smith would say they are. *grin*)
@mischiefmanager
There’s an old joke told here in Georgia: Two UGA fans (both men) go to a game. They see Uga (the UGA mascot, a bulldog) hanging out on the field. As the game goes on, they get drunker and drunker and start talking about how amazing Uga is. Uga then sits down and starts licking on his nether regions. One of the fans says, “Man, I wish I could do that,” and the other responds, “THAT DOG WOULD BITE YOU.”
…might be funnier when my dad tells it, since he does voices.
I’m always disturbed at the hot pink/baby blue binary in the accessories I get my cats. Sure, my female cat Persephone has a pink collar, and my family’s male cat, Charlie, has a blue one, but that’s more about what looks cute and less about gender. I see no point in getting anything in specific colors for animals since they can’t tell the difference, anyhow.
@mischief manager – oh yes – when we adopted a kitten, the vet nurse told us it was female, so we called “her” Moya, only to find out months later that she was a he. The kids got used to calling the cat “her”, so she gets female pronouns from them and male pronouns from us. Cat doesn’t care, of course.
Yay for accidentally messing with gender binaries!
wow. some of these posts really had me cracking up! funny!
Last “pets” we had were some reptiles, among them 2 lizards, turned out a male and female. Next thing we know there’s a tiny lizard. It didn’t take long for dear old dad and baby boy to start having the lizard equivalent of pissing contests. I, meanwhile, am writing a dissertation on Masculinity in/& the Conquest of Mexico and just *knew* that dad was going to off his “competition” –lo and behold…. daddy made sure that mommy would be “faithful” to him, and him alone. I was fascinated and horrified.
As for the puke pink and bully blue, wtf on the lack of imagination amongst the toy-makers? To me, just another argument against the corporate-ification of our lives. As we approach the toy-shopping extravaganza that is late December, I shudder at having to actually look at what’s out there to spend my hard-earned money on for the assorted kiddies. ugh.