![\"Pirate](\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/09\/sydney_pirate_janey01.jpg\")
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Meet Pirate Janey<\/a>. Janey is manufactured by Fisher-Price, and she comes in a little set with a turtle, a raft, and a treasure chest. Fisher-Price didn’t name her Janey; I suggested to Sydney that she could be named Pirate Jenny (after the classic Kurt Weill song<\/a>), but Sydney either misheard or mispronounced, and so the pirate became Pirate Janey.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Anyhow, what’s special about Pirate Janey is this: She’s female. She’s the only female pirate toy I’ve found so far – and I’ve been looking for months. (I’m kind of pleased that she’s black, too).<\/p>\n Does it matter to Sydney? Maybe not. Sydney is at a stage where she latches onto pretty much any toy figures and uses them to enact little plays. Her imagination and storytelling skills are flourishing: She makes figures hide from each other, makes them fight, makes them kiss and make up. It’s very cool to watch.<\/p>\n A frequent theme is drowning and rescue; I don’t know where she picked this storyline up from, but her characters are forever falling overboard and being rescued by the other characters. None of them seem able to swim – not even the sea turtle.<\/p>\n So I don’t think Sydney needs a female pirate figure for her imagination to flourish. A better question is, does she need a female pirate figure to help imagine herself growing up to be the protagonist of her made-up storylines?<\/p>\n It certainly seems plausible that if the action figures kids play with are overwhelmingly male, then that will foster a male-centric view. Similarly, if all the action figures are white, that fosters a white-centric view.<\/p>\n How will this effect Sydney? I don’t know. Sydney’s an individual, after all. Maybe she’ll need female action figures, someday, to learn to reflexively imagine women having adventures and taking the lead part in stories. Or maybe she won’t – she currently has no problem seeing the genderless toys, like the sea turtle, as female. I prefer not to take the chance. Pirates hold a special fascination for Sydney (and about a gazillion other kids), and when she plays pirates I don’t want all of the figures to be white men. In 2006, it’s inexcusable that finding a girl pirate toy requires months of searching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Meet Pirate Janey. Janey is manufactured by Fisher-Price, and she comes in a little set with a turtle, a raft, and a treasure chest. Fisher-Price didn’t name her Janey; I suggested to Sydney that she could be named Pirate Jenny … Continue reading ![\"Sydney](\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/09\/sydney_pirate_janey02.jpg\")
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