(You can see the picture at Feministing here)
In my opinion, this is a hideous product. Giving a child a mobile-phone is, in my view, rather sinister. Presumably, this phone is marketed at children of around five or six; if I was a mother, there is no way that I would be happy about letting my very young child use such a device. From a feminist perspective, the product is even more insidious. This little pink phone is inaccessible to children from single-parent families or children with same-sex parents. For children who are growing up in "normal" families, it simply encourages little girls to continue thinking that this is the norm for everybody. Not to mention its colour: it seems that every toy for girls has become a great big pink sexist stereotype.
The product also seems to market itself based upon the sad fact that parents are increasingly paranoid about their children's safety. This is, of course, a problem in our modern society. We all know about how parents "wrap their kids in cotton wool." Obviously the world has changed, and giving kids the freedom they had thirty years ago is not really possible, but this is just a step too far. I can see the following happening: Paranoid mother sees the product on the shelf, imagines her daughter lost in the supermarket or in the back of a paedophile's car, then buys the product because it would be irresponsible not to. Surely some of the paranoia will rub off on the child? It's a sad world we live in.
Fortunately, I have never seen a girl with such a phone, and hopefully won't start seeing them everywhere in the near future.
J xxx
