There is a reason why they aren’t saying “Boys will just have to settle for fewer Tonka trucks.”
The talking point that little girls have to settle for fewer dolls to soften the collapse of the consumer economy is genius. Women be shopping, and this whole thing smacks of gender.
May 7, 2025 00:16I just want to add an important note to this misogyny: it’s also about the deliberate infantilization of women as consumers. That's why they aren't saying, "Women will just have to settle for fewer lipsticks."
In other words, simply saying that ""Women will just have to settle for fewer lipsticks" would be a simple misogynist statement. But focusing in on girls as consumers adds an additional level of sexism that attempts to take away the agency of women.
In the past, politicians and reporters would denigrate working-class women who were "taking away jobs from breadwinners" by saying that they were simply working for "pin money" (or pocket money - a small amount of extra money that a person earns to buy things that they want but do not need).
Obviously ignoring that many, if not most, working-class women had to work to survive and/or to support their families. But it was a way to economically marginalize them in favor of married men.
Anyway:
Its not only ‘bitches be shopping’ but also: ‘caring about household concerns is girly’
