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Toys are marketed to children and only children. Fast food (to pick your first example) is marketed to basically everyone not specifically to people that have

by harryh 13y ago

Toys are marketed to children and only children. Fast food (to pick your first example) is marketed to basically everyone not specifically to people that have eating disorders. But this isn't black & white. Many people do, in fact, have moral problems with the marketing techniques of the fast food/junk food industry despite that fact that most of their customers are fully capable adults. These people have made efforts to limit what they can do, and I think most reasonable people would at least agree that their proposals are worth considering. Finally, I'm not sure about your last point about "more harm." Doll marketing is a part of a very serious sexism we have in our country. Surely it's only a small part, but it's a very serious problem. It's hard to quantify these things to make comparisons.

selmnoo 13y ago
Before we get farther into this, consider the results of the two. What's the worst that will happen if kids are being advertised toys? They'll ask their parents to buy them? Maybe buy them themselves? Okay. Maybe not a prudent choice, time is wasted, a little bit of money is wasted... but the trajectory of life is very rarely totally devastated because of this. This is unlikely to happen anyway, considering there are already safeguard measures set up in society to prevent things going wrong: kids can't buy Mature-rated game, they typically don't have money anyway... parents have to make decisions for them. Mentally challenged adults have very little, if any, resources and safeguards to save them from making poor decisions. I accept that it's only a certain part of the market in which participating adults are not mentally intelligent enough to make informed decisions. You (apparently) accept that only a small part of marketing (dolls) to children is a problem (though rayiner seems to be totally against marketing to children altogether -- and it was to that point that my original reply was to). It would seem that we two should agree on a conclusion: advertising for all needs to be re-thought fundamentally. Cut out sexism, racism, sexual appeals in ads, as well as the wide variety of carefully, psychologically constructed ads in adult market, and cut out advertising highly sexualized dolls. I want to make a note that only these sexualized dolls are problematic. If you have a daughter you know that girls just prefer dolls and other girly things in an innate way (I'm practically a daddy of two, and despite all my trying to get them hooked on cars, action heroes, computers, they just always opt for the dolls when given the choice). There's nothing wrong with girls having dolls of all sorts, just that they shouldn't be sexualized.

by harryh 13y ago

selmnoo 13y ago

Before we get farther into this, consider the results of the two. What's the worst that will happen if kids are being advertised toys? They'll ask their parents to buy them? Maybe buy them themselves? Okay. Maybe not a prudent choice, time is wasted, a little bit of money is wasted... but the trajectory of life is very rarely totally devastated because of this. This is unlikely to happen anyway, considering there are already safeguard measures set up in society to prevent things going wrong: kids can't buy Mature-rated game, they typically don't have money anyway... parents have to make decisions for them. Mentally challenged adults have very little, if any, resources and safeguards to save them from making poor decisions. I accept that it's only a certain part of the market in which participating adults are not mentally intelligent enough to make informed decisions. You (apparently) accept that only a small part of marketing (dolls) to children is a problem (though rayiner seems to be totally against marketing to children altogether -- and it was to that point that my original reply was to). It would seem that we two should agree on a conclusion: advertising for all needs to be re-thought fundamentally. Cut out sexism, racism, sexual appeals in ads, as well as the wide variety of carefully, psychologically constructed ads in adult market, and cut out advertising highly sexualized dolls. I want to make a note that only these sexualized dolls are problematic. If you have a daughter you know that girls just prefer dolls and other girly things in an innate way (I'm practically a daddy of two, and despite all my trying to get them hooked on cars, action heroes, computers, they just always opt for the dolls when given the choice). There's nothing wrong with girls having dolls of all sorts, just that they shouldn't be sexualized.