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Gender And Gender Roles

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When I was a little girl, my neighbors and I would always be outside until our parents called us in for dinner. We would be playing football, riding our bikes, playing gas station and other games you played when you were little. Even when I was younger we were all in a stereotype of what we could and not do because of the gender roles placed on each one of us. Society has told us that we need to play with the toys that they label as appropriate for your gender. That is why we see even at younger ages the commercials on the television socializes you into what a girl should play with and what a guy should play with which puts us in the gender roles that we have in society. The boy toys were the action figures, blue colored, and more violent. While the girl toys were pink, sparkly, and mostly dolls. When I was younger sometimes I wasn’t able to hang out with the boys at recess for they would say it’s a boy sport and you are a girl. Looking back now, I realize that these boys at such a young age was putting me into a category of being weak and more sensitive. We see this every day, girls being labeled as a group of being more nurturing and sensitive and boys being more masculine. This can be contributed to the fact that as we were younger we grew up with specific gendered toys that could have impacted our life into how we label each other even today.

While I was researching what a seven year old would want as a birthday present, I pick something that was my favorite toy when I was a little kid, the Barbie doll. Barbie dolls give me a nostalgic feeling of being with my best friend and playing Barbies for hours on end. Picking this toy I knew how I felt about Barbies when I was seven years old that I knew someone who was turning seven as well would like this gift. When looking at the types Barbie dolls nowadays the only ones I could find on the Toys R Us website were Barbie Fashionistas Dolls, separate Barbie, or the different playsets for specific careers your Barbie doll had. The Barbies were all wearing different types of clothing, with different hairstyles and different hair colors. Now, Barbie doll manufacturers have made dolls that are actually normal

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