The Gender Politics of Teddy Bears

[osprey_archer]

Sameer Mishra is in last week’s Newsweek. NEWSWEEK. ZOMG.

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My teddy bear is very, very happy to be home. He enjoyed college (except for the occasional threats to life and limb from the Bangladeshi contingent) but there’s nothing like breathing the sweet air of Indiana and being re-ensconced in his own personal chair.

Someone should do a study in the gender identity of teddy bears. Teddy (I have multiple teddies, but my favorite is Teddy, who is small and white and scruffy and has red plaid ears and foot paws) has mostly been male, although occasionally female when it was convenient.

Teddy bears are one of the few toys I can think of that aren’t generally limited to one gender (unless they’re pink). Both boys and girls are allowed to haul around stuffed animals and chew on their paws and send them on commando raids under the dining room table.

Also, teddy bears combine stereotypically male and female attributes: they’re protective and strong, but also cuddly and comforting.

But despite this androgynous nature, teddy bears themselves seem always to be male. Stuffed animals in books are almost always male: All the characters in Winnie the Pooh except Kanga. Almost all the characters in the Jolly Tall books. Corduroy. Paddington Bear. Clearly it’s a conspiracy of the patriarchy.

And it doesn’t help that society would consider it a bit off if a little boy had a female telepathic companion teddy. But a girl having a boy teddy? That’s just par for the course.

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On a sort-of related note. According to the Teddy Bear Encyclopedia, the collective noun for teddy bears is “a hug of teddy bears,” which sounds just right.

Are there teddy bear gender nouns? Bears have bruins and sows, which are way too macho for teddies.

Comments

[anait.livejournal.com]

the collective noun for teddy bears is “a hug of teddy bears,”

That is awesome.

My oldest stuffed animal is a dog called Benji. He's a wonderful dog who in real life happens to be a movie star. He starred in many movies such as 'Benji,' 'Benji's Christmas' and 'Benji in Space,' where he did heroic things, defeated the bad guys, saved his human friends, and generally won the day.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I LOVE collective nouns. They are quite possibly the most useless things ever. Really, who is ever going to use the phrase "bouquet of pheasants"? Or for that matter "storytelling of ravens"? But still. So. Much. Fun.

It's probably a good thing I didn't have a movie camera when I was a child. Otherwise I'm sure Teddy would be nearly as famous as Benji.

[girl-called-sun.livejournal.com]

When we were very young, me and my brothers had a whole extended family of animals; mainly bears. They used to have long running stories of what they did, secret places they went (there was a place in the woods that was the "bear club" where the bears went to socialise, but we could never find our way in).

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

My teddy bears formed their own underground railroad. Evidently they were saving teddies who were enslaved at the local factories by spiriting them off to, I don't know, presumably something like the "bear club." I never really thought about it; the point was that riding the Underground Railroads/hiding from the Nazis is fun!

Yes, I was a supremely odd child.