The Influence of Gender Specific Toys on Kids
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| Rachel Giordano - Unnecessarily Gendered Products |
"...Moms have noticed a 25% drop in the number of gender-neutral toys their daughters play with now compared to the toys moms,� reports Elizabeth Plank. Also according to her, companies have run out of ways to sell new toys, so they base new ideas that are specific for what we call (in society) �girly� or �manly� off of their original toys for children. The mothers then buy their children these new toys and give the girls the girly toys and the boys the manly toys. This all started in the 1970�s, when toys first started to become �gendered� according to The New York Times. Children then learn that this is normal and what they should like instead of the other, so they no longer play with toys together. For example, in the twentieth century, the Lego company only created normal Legos for both genders. The model Rachel Giordano, who is now a 37-year-old naturopathic doctor said, "In 1981, Legos were simple and gender-neutral, and the creativity of the child produced the message. In 2014, it's the reverse: the toy delivers a message to the child, and this message is weirdly about gender." In 1981, you would see boys and girls in magazines both flying helicopters they built together. Now I want you to picture something: a construction worker. Did you picture a man? Most people in this century do, because they were taught that men do the big and hard work, while girls do the chores around the house, which is why the Easy Bake oven by Kenner Products is now colored in pink for girls, at such a young age.
Also, baby dolls. When was the last time you saw an article and/or an ad with a boy holding a baby doll? Never, right? Do you want to know why? The marketing is telling us that a boy should not have a fatherly bone in his body, and he needs to act like a man with Nerf guns, and such. In a study reported by Peggy Orenstein in 2014, �Psychologists randomly assigned girls ages 4-7 to play with one of three dolls. Two were Barbies: a fashion Barbie... and a �career� Barbie... The third, �control� doll was a Mrs. Potato Head, who... doesn�t have Barbie�s sexualized curves.� They all played with the toys for 10 minutes. They were then asked about the jobs they think they could do. The results were that, �Girls who played with Barbie thought they could do fewer jobs than boys could do. But girls who played with Mrs. Potato Head reported nearly the same number of possible careers for themselves and for boys.� Knowing how many girls play with Barbie�s and not Mrs. Potato Head now-a-days, one may be able to see where all of this thought of what is �feminine� really comes from, and when. It comes from the first few days of life, from the toys the marketing tricks us into believing are good for our children�s growth and individuality.
On the other side of this argument, a lot of people say that it is okay that there are new toys for each gender. After all, the genders are different, so we might as well teach our kids the difference at such a young age, right? The English Columnist, James Delingpole, made the argument that if we now educate girls that it is okay and that they should do male jobs and vice versa, then they will only do those jobs and then the false assumption of what is masculine and what is feminine would just flip. He is making the argument that it is okay to let girls play with dolls, and to let boys play with action figures. Along with that, he is also saying that it is okay to tell a boy not to play with dolls and to tell a girl not to play with action figures. Also, he says that, �it appears that boys are the prime market for test tubes, chemicals and smelly potions, why waste time and effort trying to drag girls away from their hair and makeup sets... where exactly is the social benefit in frustrating their natural urges?� Just let boys be boys and girls be girls.
Also, baby dolls. When was the last time you saw an article and/or an ad with a boy holding a baby doll? Never, right? Do you want to know why? The marketing is telling us that a boy should not have a fatherly bone in his body, and he needs to act like a man with Nerf guns, and such. In a study reported by Peggy Orenstein in 2014, �Psychologists randomly assigned girls ages 4-7 to play with one of three dolls. Two were Barbies: a fashion Barbie... and a �career� Barbie... The third, �control� doll was a Mrs. Potato Head, who... doesn�t have Barbie�s sexualized curves.� They all played with the toys for 10 minutes. They were then asked about the jobs they think they could do. The results were that, �Girls who played with Barbie thought they could do fewer jobs than boys could do. But girls who played with Mrs. Potato Head reported nearly the same number of possible careers for themselves and for boys.� Knowing how many girls play with Barbie�s and not Mrs. Potato Head now-a-days, one may be able to see where all of this thought of what is �feminine� really comes from, and when. It comes from the first few days of life, from the toys the marketing tricks us into believing are good for our children�s growth and individuality.
On the other side of this argument, a lot of people say that it is okay that there are new toys for each gender. After all, the genders are different, so we might as well teach our kids the difference at such a young age, right? The English Columnist, James Delingpole, made the argument that if we now educate girls that it is okay and that they should do male jobs and vice versa, then they will only do those jobs and then the false assumption of what is masculine and what is feminine would just flip. He is making the argument that it is okay to let girls play with dolls, and to let boys play with action figures. Along with that, he is also saying that it is okay to tell a boy not to play with dolls and to tell a girl not to play with action figures. Also, he says that, �it appears that boys are the prime market for test tubes, chemicals and smelly potions, why waste time and effort trying to drag girls away from their hair and makeup sets... where exactly is the social benefit in frustrating their natural urges?� Just let boys be boys and girls be girls.
Although Delingpole and people like him make a point, the children�s natural urges would not have been the same if we didn�t lead them to believe that the natural thing to do is have a certain type of toy because of your gender. The original natural urge would have been to pick up one of the toys, depending on the person and their mood, and that would be that. Also, since we have started to notice the changes in toys, we have been pushing people to do the opposite of what marketing is telling us to do. That is good, but we cannot completely go opposite, or else marketing would have won, just in another way. Girls would then think that they should be tough and that playing violent games is the right thing to do, while guys would think that playing with baby dolls and not violent games would be normal. In order to get to an equal gender world properly, and just have it to be normal for kids to play with toys in general, we must find a balance between these two arguments. We must stop buying kids certain toys based off of the color of the aisle in the store, and buy whatever we think they would truly like based off of their personality. If we even switch the first toy for a girl to be a dinosaur, or maybe keep it a baby doll, but dressed in blue, we are already twenty steps closer into a gender-equal world.
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Conclusion. Updated May 24th 2014
Writing this blog was a ton of fun! Also, I did learn a lot, and my whole thinking about society has changed drastically over the course of creating this blog. I originally came in to this topic thinking, "Oh yeah, let's just write a paper about something the teachers would like so I can get a good grade." I remember one day in my class, my teachers were discussing genders and toys. I then thought, "why not mix the two?" Then this blog was created. It did not take me a while to get interested. The first article I read about toys and what it has to do with gender roles was actually just a picture I randomly found on the internet. It was of the makeover of Dora. They changed her to make her look more 'feminine.' I did not believe it! They changed one of my favorite childhood characters! They made her hair longer, and added more makeup! Makeup and long hair does not make you a girl. That is how I really got fired up and excited to do a blog with gender roles. But how did I get fired up for the toy part? Easy. I remember when I was a little girl, I would always play with boy stuff, but then my grandmother visited us one time and told me I needed to play with girl things. I didn't understand, but ever since that day, I started playing with Barbies more. When I found a picture of a little girl playing with Legos (the picture from above on the left) and then a picture of the new Lego toys just for girls, I immediately thought of when I was a little girl, and that is what triggered me into wanting to talk about toys. As I said earlier, I mixed the two together, and bam! This blog came out. At the end of it, I do care for my grade, but right now I care that people read this blog and learn from it. This is actually a huge thing in society that we could change if we all just become aware to it! Originally, my argument was to simply just stop telling girls what to play with and telling boys what to play with. If guys want to play with dolls, and girls want to play with action figures, then let them. Also, if girls do want to play with dolls and boys action figures, then that is fine, too. After reading comments though, I have realized that violent behavior is promoted with lots of toys that kids play with. For example, Nerf guns, and video games. I now do not think that we should be promoting violence as much as we do in children's toys. If you read Davin Mckinley's blog about violence and kids, I think you will agree with me if you don't already. Anyways, I would like to say thank you to my teachers for handing me this assignment and opening my eyes to the truth of society, and thank you for the people who read this and took it to heart. It means a lot to me.
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