Dissatisfied with lacy elastic garters as a salve for gender-neutral panic in the carers of baby girls, the market has come up with this hideously hirsute scalpgirdle:
The splash page reads:
Baby Bangs – for the girl who has everything. Except hair!
I briefly wondered which was worse – the idea that baby girls need toupees, or this font abuse:
But wait! There’s more:
Our patent pending HAIR+band accessory combination allows baby girl’s (with little or no hair at all) the opportunity to have a beautifully realistic HAIR style in a SNAP!! It’s quick, easy and baby barely knows it’s there. Each Baby Bangs! HAIR+band has been made using only the finest ribbons and fabrics, PLUS our Baby Bangs! come to you pre-customized & size appropriate, cut, styled and ready for immediate wear. The wispy hair strands have been arranged in the cutest most adorable elfish coiffure! […]
“i’m Not a Boy!”
Our PhilosophyAt Baby Bangs! we believe in the beauty of childhood. Our unique designs are sprinkled with MAGIC! ~inspiring a world of whimsical wonder and mystical magical memorable moments for you and your baby girl to cherish Forever! For she is, and always will be,
Your LiTTLe PRINCESS!
But … yeah. In the end, the fanatical shoehorning of perfectly fine baby girls into particular facades of femininity? That wins. The apostrophe’s and capital letter’s are just the icing on the cake.
And the second testimonial kinda made me cry.
Categories: gender & feminism
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Shit, that’s appalling! I keep hoping against hope it’s all a joke, like the bonsai-cats gag that got everyone so outraged and wasn’t real…but I doubt it. 😦
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At Baby Bangs! we believe in the beauty of childhood
Err well obviously you don’t, well not for bald baby girls you don’t.
What a hideous product, topped off by ridiculous advertising. My girl was bald until she was 2 and even then her hair grew soo sloooowly, that now that she has started school it is only just long enough to be put up. I saw the baldness as a mixed blessing, it extended her baby looks for longer and it saved a lot of maintenance hassles, as there was little brushing and trimming for the longest time. Even though I looked forward to the day when my daughter’s hair was longer I think that putting a wig on a baby seems to be a cruel and unnecessary action, and would be a reflection of parental vanity.
So is there an address I should send my son’s hair too? Because he has an excess and people might think he’s a girl!
That’s a good point, Kate! None of these sooky la-la curls for our baby boys. And I think we should put a rottweiler in his playpen for an hour a day for that macho “Rocky V” battered look.
God how depressing.
(And the other side of the coin – I’ve lost track of how many people have told me that really now is the time to cut my baby’s hair – “he is a little boy you know” – ridiculous).
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This is just crazy. I’m with fp – I would so like to hear that it’s just a joke, to see how many people they can catch out.
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I thought the baby high heels were a joke. If you want to differentiate your satire from reality – it needs to actually be perceptibly different.
What price the toupee AND the shoes?
Also, those pink bow head-garter things are stupid. I never squeezed my darling daughter’s skull with one of those ridiculous things.
I’m not sure why my brain’s taking this seriously enough to look past the initial OH NO YOUR BABY ISN’T SUFFICIENTLY FEMINIZED issues, but … maybe it’s not the fringe that makes the baby look Like A Real Girl, maybe it’s the lacy/bejeweled/floral/pink FRACKING HEADBANDS.
I personally plan to take great delight in forcing people to ask what sex my baby is.
Someone on Etsy is selling baby onesies printed with the slogan I HAVE A VAGINA. Much more straightforward, not to mention comfortable.
On the plus side I imagine that the women who put those things on their babies are the ones most likely to to die of embarassment when their beautiful feminine babies decide that their toupees make great chew toys.
Well, at least the wigs aren’t long hair :).. but seriously, what everyone else said, and I just don’t entirely believe that the baby doesn’t feel it, those long fringes must get in the eyes, very uncomfortable I would think.
How do you find these things and WHY, oh why do I keep clicking on the link? That is just so revolting.
Oh, and my little boy has long golden curls. Despite the fact that I dress him very “boyishly” (hey, I happen to *like* blue, gray and green!) there is often confusion over his sex. I have been told on various occasions that he’s “just too pretty to be a boy” and once even: “he should be a girl with that hair!” *facepalm*
And a second thought: surely the kinds of people who are worried their girl-child isn’t perceived as “girly enough” are probably the kinds of people who dress their daughters in head-to-foot pink and buy Heelies anyway?
@Morgaine: A relative of mine insisted on having the lace removed from his child’s baptismal gown because it looked too “girly”. Sure, the child involved had gorgeously long eyelashes as an infant, but it’s not like anyone attending the baptism wasn’t aware of his sex!
Why do I just smell baby beauty pagents all over this product?
My spouse and I agreed that when we have kids, none of this gendered crap, and if people ask us the sex of our born baby, the response is “dunno, its not done developing yet.”
@ Melanie:
I reckon you’ve got it in one, there.
Ack, Ruth Moss, me too! Am always very tempted to tell the nay-sayers “His long hair has not in any way affected his penis. It’s still operational and attached. I get to check regularly, I know!”
Was also recently shocked by how many American Mommies on a forum I’m on seemed to also think piercing little girls’ ears was “cute” and necessary “because it makes them look girly”.
Several mums in my mothers’ group would probably consider a product like these headbands, given the rants against their pink from head-to-toe daughters being called boys by strangers. 😦
Seriously, I’m worried about what it will do to a baby’s scalp and actual hair to be put under a wig. Wonder how the parents are going to feel about ‘girly’ hair loss.
I’m glad a lot of people at the moment think my little boy is a girl (as above: curls, long eyelashes), because if they treat him like a girl it should balance off all the people who treat him like a boy, and he might end up with gender-neutral social conditioning for a couple of years. Yes? Perhaps?
You know what’s really weird? A recent episode of Saturday Night Live did an ad for baby toupees, because clearly the idea is absurd:
[hulu id=FAQWNgUITE1gw2Yk7mj75w width=500]
When dressing them in migraine-inducing shades of barbie pink just isn’t enough…
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I don’t think that my daughter would have left it on her head for very long, she pulled off hats almost from birth and this would be much the same. Also, wouldn’t you run the risk of baby overheating with something like this on their head all the time?
And wouldn’t their little noggins itch??
Most of us can’t get to Hulu – but here’s a video piece from the manufacturers:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/p2PRte-mAf4?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
If your baby daughter is wearing a hot pink onesie with “I’m not a boy” on it, and people are still calling her son, then there isn’t much you can do about it but get over it.
I’m just imagining the hours of fun my cats would have with one of those things. You certainly wouldn’t want to put it on your baby’s head after they’d finished with it.
“Also, wouldn’t you run the risk of baby overheating with something like this on their head all the time?”
Mindy, damn straight. Possibly a SIDs risk.
Can I just express my dislike of people who advertise their products as being “for baby” rather than “for the baby” or “for your baby” or “for babies?” Like there’s one omnipotent baby belonging to everyone?
The idea of wigs for infants bugged me in the first place, but it was this particular pet peeve that really convinced me of this company’s evil.
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It’s the sharp pokey combs and hairspray that freaks me out. And that testimonial:
I CAN’T BELIEVE THE CHANGE IT MADE IN EMILY. THANK GOODNESS SHE HAS HAIR NOW.
Who has the problem here? Not the baby…
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