By Emily Claus
Intro
Christmas: the season of giving. For many people, including myself, it is one of the most wonderful times of the year. A big turkey dinner, gifts under the tree, and quality time with loved ones. Christmas traditions bring joy and create lasting memories, but they are also deeply intertwined with gendered expectations. Advertisements and holiday media shape our view and beliefs surrounding Christmas, but they often promote gender stereotypes and reflect ongoing debates about consent, agency, and women’s roles.
Christmas Songs
The popular Christmas song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was dubbed “The Christmas Date Rape Song” by Anita Sarkeesian for its lyrics, which exemplify what critics argue normalizes coercive behaviour. Lyrics such as “What’s in this drink?” and the male singer’s continuous pushing even after the female singer tells him “the answer is no” can and have been interpreted by many as sexual coercion. “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was initially banned by the NBC radio in 1949 for being “too racy”, for having lyrics with suggestive undertones, rather than for consent issues. In December 2018, radio stations including WDOK Cleveland, KOIT San Francisco, and CBC Canada removed the song from rotation, with station host Glenn Anderson stating: “In a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place.” However, KOIT later reversed their ban after receiving several complaints about the removal of the song. It is important to note that, according to historian Estelle Freedman, the song originally came out during “a transition period characterized by very mixed messages” about sexual mores. Feminist defenders have also argued that the song represents female sexual agency against 1940s social restrictions. The woman wants to stay, but faces judgment from “mother,” “father,” and “neighbors”. As Professor Joanna Milman of Ryerson University asked: “What does a sexually-interested 1940s woman contextually sound and look like? Perhaps… a lot like this woman in this song.” New variations of the song, such as John Legend and Kelly Clarkson’s 2019 collaboration replaced pressure with explicit consent, using lyrics such as “It’s your body and your choice”, and added practical support: “I can call you a ride… Your driver, his name is Murray.” There has also been talk regarding the gender stereotypes that are promoted by certain Christmas songs. EPJ Data Science used natural language processing to analyze 377,808 song lyrics from 1960 to 2010, and nearly 25% express sexist content. In “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (1951) the lyrics “A pair of hop-a-long boots and a pistol that shoots, is the wish of Barney and Ben. Dolls that’ll talk and will go for a walk, is the hope of Janice and Jen,” reinforces the stereotypes of “girly” vs “manly” toys. These stereotypes are also promoted in the song “Up on the Housetop” (1864), when the girl is given “a dolly that laughs and cries, one that can open and shut its eyes”, and the boy is given a “hammer and lots of tacks, a whistle and a ball and a whip that cracks”. There has also been some gentler critique regarding Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” for reinforcing the message that women primarily need romance to be happy.
Invisible Labour
Speaking of women, mothers bear the brunt of holiday prep work 97% of the time, according to a 2024 TODAY.com survey. This includes decorating, presents, gift wrapping, cards, packing, travel planning, and baking. Additionally, the American Psychological Association’s 2006 survey of 786 adults found that 44% of women experience heightened holiday stress, compared to 31% of men. There are also twice as many women as men who are responsible for shopping, cooking, decorating, and food shopping during the holidays. Furthermore, mothers handle 71% of household mental tasks, such as planning, organizing, and anticipating needs, which intensify during holidays when “traditions, family logistics, and cultural expectations pile on,” according to the University of Bath researchers Drs. Ana Catalano Week and Leah Ruppanner. What’s more, a 2017 study by Dawn O. Braithwaite at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found 91% of self-identified “kin-keepers”—those maintaining family relationships and organizing gatherings—are women. Christmas shopping is “most widely construed as ‘women’s work.’” A field study of 299 people found women start shopping earlier, spend more time, and are the primary gift-givers. According to YouGov data from the UK, 69% of women send Christmas cards, compared to 12% of men, and that 81% of women do the Christmas cooking. Eve Rodsky, author of “Fair Play,” notes that fathers “consistently report to us that they don’t feel guilt and shame” while mothers “feel punished for it if they don’t show up the way that they’re supposed to,” in regards to domestic labour and taking care of the household.
Christmas Advertising
The Christmas season is always accompanied by the question: “What do I get for Christmas?” Hence, brands step forward with advertisements that reflect the holiday spirit in hopes that, with the tradition of gift giving, they may be able to make some extra sales. However, some of these attempts to mirror the Christmas spirit have produced…questionable outcomes, in which, unfortunately, gender stereotypes continue to be reinforced. In the Conversation’s academic analysis of 2016 Christmas ads, the researchers found many advertisements that fell into this trap. John Lewis depicted a “progressively” Black family, in which a father “heroically” assembles a trampoline, while the mother stays inside, taking care of the house and putting her children to bed. Sainsbury’s ad centers around an overworked dad who dreams of family time with his wife and children, who are waiting at home. Both of these ads promote the breadwinner and homemaker stereotypes that we have spent so long trying to move past. Another Christmas ad by Peloton in 2019 depicted a husband surprising his already-thin wife with an exercise bike, followed by her yearlong vlog thanking him for how much “this would change me.” The company’s stock dropped 9-10%, losing $1.6 billion in value, following this advertisement, with critics calling it sexist, body shaming, and depicting a “controlling spouse” dynamic. Furthermore, LGBTQ+ Christmas advertisements are often faced with substantial backlash. Boots’ 2024 Christmas advertisement featuring Adjoa Andoh was put under fire for using gender neutral language, with one critic saying that the advert “alienates people, … because a lot of people get really hacked off with the pronouns business.” In addition, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media’s 2023 analysis of 175 toy advertisements found that toys marketed towards girls were 18 times more likely to demonstrate nurturing and domestic skills than toys marketed to boys. Furthermore, 75% of toys played with competitively or violently were played with by boys. This analysis also found that girls’ toy ads tend to emphasize physical attractiveness and nurturance; boys’ emphasized violence, competition, and danger. People have begun taking a stand. In June of 2019, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority implemented a gender stereotype ban. California’s Assembly has also stepped up, passing Bill 1084 in 2021 that requires large retailers to include gender-neutral toy sections.
Toys and Holiday Media
These gender messages from toys and media are absorbed by children. According to Brookings Institution Researchers, these kinds of social conditioning have led to gender-stereotyped play patterns emerging by 12.5 months of age. A UK “Let Toys Be Toys” campaign study found girls are twice as likely to be shown with domestic toys, seven times more likely with nurturing toys, and twelve times more likely with baby dolls in Christmas catalogs. Additionally, only 11% of children pictured with toy cars were girls. Boys’ toys are most associated with fighting and aggression; girls’ toys with appearance and nurture. There was once a time when these toys were separated by gender because they reflected men’s and women’s separate roles in society. However, this gender-based isolation is exactly what we are trying to move past in today’s age, but with children being conditioned to follow these gender “norms” from a young age, how are we supposed to make a real difference? A 2021 LEGA/Greena Davis Institute survey across seven countries found that 74% of boys and 62% of girls believe some activities are meant for only one gender, with 71% of boys worrying about being mocked for playing with “girls’ toys”. LEGO subsequently pledged to remove gender stereotypes from products and marketing through its “Ready for Girls” campaign. Modern Christmas movie protagonists, such as Santa, Scrooge, and Jack Skellington, are overwhelmingly male. The classic movie “A Christmas Story” has drawn criticism for depicting its female characters as killjoys and secondary to male characters. “Love Actually” cut its would-be lesbian storyline entirely and emerged as a “largely white and straight-washed Christmas tale that feminists have loved to hate.”
Broader Theoretical Framework
What’s the big deal? Shouldn’t people be able to enjoy a “traditional” Christmas if they want to? I mean… yes, if that’s truly what they want. But we all have to keep in mind that a lot of the Christmas media and traditions we hold dearly were created during a time when different genders were doused in stereotypes, and had strict roles in society. We no longer live in a day and age where all women must grow up learning to cook and clean for their future husband and children, or all men must earn money for their wives and kids back home, and I believe that this should be reflected in our Christmas traditions. Feminist scholars apply several theoretical frameworks to understand Christmas’s role in perpetuating patriarchal norms. Arlie Hochschild’s concept of emotional labor—”inducing or suppressing feeling to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others”—is widely applied to women’s Christmas experiences. Additionally, the Irish Times feminist analysis distinguishes three types of unpaid labor women perform: menial housework (repetitive tasks), mental labor (planning and management), and emotional labor (creating “magic” while suppressing stress). Furthermore, the concept of kin-keeping explains women’s disproportionate responsibility for maintaining social ties through cards, gifts, and organizing gatherings. JSTOR Daily’s research journalism traces this to 19th-century shifts when “women took over interpersonal relations,” and men focused on economic and political connections. What emerged was the “angel in the house” ideal that persists in Christmas expectations: women as creators of domestic warmth and harmony. This imbalance prevents us from moving past these stereotypes and expectations, even as we are trying so hard to shift our society into one that sees everyone as equals. Sarah Fletcher offers a radical critique of commodity feminism during Christmas. Gift guides marketing “feminist” merchandise, such as “male tears” mugs, and empowerment makeup, “defang feminism, turning a political movement into a fashion statement.” These products use irony as “the rhetoric of compliance,” allowing consumers to buy into oppressive systems “with an edge” without threatening the power structure. I also believe that people’s desires for a “traditional” Christmas cannot override the importance of giving minorities a voice, and as Xtra Magazine notes, a “traditional” Christmas is “about looping yourself back into a story that has been going on for generations… that likely never had any queer people in it because they weren’t welcome at the table.” Holiday traditions and media overwhelmingly depict heterosexual nuclear families, creating what one writer calls “the twang of heteronormativity in holiday commercials, [and] family events.”
Conclusion
These patterns span across the US, UK, Australia, Ireland, and other contexts, suggesting that they are deeply embedded in Western Christmas traditions. The tensions between nostalgia for “traditional” Christmas celebrations and evolving gender consciousness have yet to be resolved, as visible in the backlash to consent-aware rewrites of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as much as in feminist critiques themselves. However, evidence of progress is found within LEGO’s “Ready for Girls” campaign, as well as the gender stereotype ban, and California’s Assembly Bill 1084. More people have begun opening their eyes, and the consumer demand for more inclusive content is highlighted by the fact that women-led or gender-balanced ads and videos can generate up to 30% more views and better brand performance. Christmas is not a neutral cultural space but an arena where gender norms are actively constructed, contested, and—potentially—transformed.