Gender Norms : The Kid 's Toys

Children’s perceptions of how girls and boys have to act can be manipulated by their surroundings. Target and other toy stores teach boys that they have to like fast cars, jobs requiring manual labor, and sports. There was certainly a type of “manliness” portrayed at boys from the toys. Its almost as if they were influencing them to be aggressive and unkind. The toys are teaching girls that they need to enjoy playing house and that the ideal female role is to be a homemaker who takes care of the kids. Many people may think that it is ok for boys and girls to like different things, which it is. But, it is important to recognize that preferences don’t emerge out of each child’s unique personality but that they are shaped by nonstop pressures of different socializing influences. children are given roles of subservience or dominance before they can understand the words. Target is an example of how society is manufacturing products that ultimately encourage inequalities and gender

Scope – this essay is limited to how children toys enforce gender stereotype by the color and play function of the toys.

Toys play an important role in childhood development as children learn roles and skills from playing. As a result, the toys children are subjected to have an affect on which roles, interests, and skills are learned and practiced. Through Lego’s product Duplo, I will demonstrate the influence particular gendered toys have on children and their performance of traditional gender roles. Gender, which is a learned performance, is something society has been taught from a very early age and toy advertising has played a significant role in reinforcing the performance. One tradition that is reinforced and naturalized by society is the ideology of a male dominated society, representing strong characteristics of heterosexuality and masculinity; also known as hegemonic masculinity. Therefore, using Ideological Criticism, I will analyze how through the branding and design of Lego’s Duplo toys, children have been constructed to do gender differently, ultimately perpetuating and reinforcing hegemonic masculinity.

When you walk into the toy section of any store, you do not need a sign to indicate which section is the girls’ side and which section is the boys’ side. Aside from all the pink, purple, and other pastel colors that fill the shelves on the girls’ side, the glitter sticks out a lot as well. The boys’ toys however are mostly dark colors – blue, black, red, gray, or dark green. The colors typically used on either side are very stereotypical in themselves.

Thinking back to the days of my youth, many of us are brought back to the nostalgic commercials of girls playing with Barbies, and boys playing with G.I. Joes. These are just two basic examples. Since before 1997, commercials have been molding our youth to try to portray the idea of having the “perfect image” for boys and girls.“Kline’s research in Canada showed that the themes of television advertisements for toys supported traditional gender expectations in terms of types of toys with a focus on battles, action, and domination for boys, and nurturing, glamour, and domesticity for girls,” (Auster, Carol). I feel like producers of such products should broaden their gendered horizons and produce toys and entertainment that will not offend individuals. The article goes on to state how there is no location on the site that is sectioned

Many people can agree that the toys they played with shaped their childhood. A child should be allowed to play with toys of their choosing; however this is not always the case due to traditional gender stereotypes. There is a clear separation that girls should play with dolls and other domestic-like toys while boys should play with action figures and toys that are more educational or physical. This was not always the case. Before the 1990s toys were primarily gender neutral. But in the 1990s, toys became increasingly gender divided due to marketers seeing an opportunity to sell products to two different audiences, which would increase sales. Consequently, gender toys have lead to many negative effects including girls and boys believing

She backs up that statement by providing the static fact that in 1975, “less than 2% of toys were explicitly marketed to either boys or girls.” She dives deeper into how gender stereotypes and ‘gender norms’ are prevalent in present day society by explaining how marketing plays an influence on society, especially the children. According to the BBC documentary The Men Who Made Us Spend, children now are being targeted as mini consumers and that the average British child sees 10,000 adverts a year! Kessel also claims that advertisements on children’s channels are the “most explicitly gendered thing you’ve ever seen’ and that in the advertisements involving girls, the girls are seen “in a whirl of pink and high-pitched voices” whereas the advertisements involving boys, the boys are seen “[in a whirl of] blue with a backdrop of angry guitar music.” By evaluating how marketing influences children to gender stereotype, she was able to strengthen her argument.

Toys play a major role in socializing young kinds into “appropriate” gender roles. The first obvious characteristic that separates toys for boys and toys for girls,

When it comes to advertisements promoting certain toys and products to children, companies are not afraid to advertise gender targeted products, because they know children are vulnerable. A 2017 study report titled “Gendered Advertising to Children: An Analysis of Differences in Male- and Female-Targeted Television Commercials” written by Meredith Ford mentioned that, “When children realize that the toys they see advertised are only meant for one gender, they latch on to that group of children and do not socialize with the other gender. This sets a detrimental precedent for child development and socialization skills.” When children are exposed to media at a young age, their brains first start to develop and they learn to adapt to their environment. As soon as the child is fully developed, however, there is no way of causing them to forget what they learned or were surrounded with whether it was something good or bad. Additionally, and interestingly, children are capable without even realizing that they are pushing themselves away from the other gender because they were vulnerable to learn from the media that their gender is only supposed to like what they are advertising and not the other genders’ products. Sure they may come to the realization that some of the

The purpose of the project is to explore how gender differentiation is all around us even in minor things that involuntarily participate in our lives such as toys in a store which makes us start thinking about how humans psychologically react against gender differentiation in a way that makes them apply it to minor things such as toys arrangement for specific genders. This project is aimed to make us know how psychology is studied by giving us an example of the human complex thinking such as arranging toys according to gender.

Influences of gender typing and stereotypes are continually bombarding us wherever we are. Both types of gender processes are shown everywhere in the media which includes commercials, billboards, music, television shows, movies, and books. Advertisements for gender specific toys give children gender typing where they think a certain toy is cool if an older boy or girl is playing with the toy and that makes the toy more desirable. An example of this would be if a commercial shows a teenage boy playing with Nerf guns with his friends or teenage girls playing with Barbies.

In my household growing up, I was always told that girls should play with girl toys, and boys should play with boy toys. I do not remember challenging this gender ideology, I just complied and played with my dolls and ponies. In today’s society, I believe we have begun start the process of moving away from these gender cultural norms, but we still have quite a ways to go. For example, Target has now taken away the signs that state girl and boy toy isles. However, I feel like I have seen an influx of “boy” toys being made pink so that girls can play with them. My daughter loves to play and make Lego creations. If she were only to play with the “girl” Lego sets that are pink and marketed towards girls, her selection would be very limited.

For years children’s toys have always been segregated, with it being overtly clear that the blue and more physical action type toys are marketed at a young male audience, while the pretty pink domestic style toys such as kitchens and babies are aimed at little girls. But has this always been the case? Are toy manufacturers stuck in less modern times when a man would go out and work and a women would keep the house respectable? Are children’s toys what’s holding us back from achieving complete gender equality? Through research, surveys, interviews and making my own observations in local retail stores this investigation looks at the prominence of gender differences and stereotypes in children’s toys and their marketing today and comparing that

Pink is girls and blue is for boys is what society particularly the media has told use to accept. In regards to child entertainment, children are told by the media that there are gender stereotypes to follow. Girls are told that they should objects such as dolls, make-up, slippers, feathers, and anything princess or housewife related. Some modern examples, of female targeted toys are Barbie’s, easy bake oven, and princess costumes. Hence, the media is try to imply that girls in an early age should develop the roles they will have to fit into when they grow up. “Make the girls ready while they are young”, this is the social yet, psychological message the media is implying to little girls. On the other hand, the media tries to sell boys toys that demonstrate aggressiveness, strength, a love for cars, guns, and violence. Some modern examples for boy toys are; hot wheels, nerf guns, superhero figures, remote control appliances, and even Legos. Not, only market sexist toys, but movies and television shows. Such as girls targeted in movies such as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Hannah Montana, and Mean Girls. In the other hand, boys are targeted to watch movies such as The Avengers, Fast and Furious, Cars, and Lego the movie. In objects such as toys and television, the media finds ways to tell children to learn and accept this gender

Most People do not realize what gender specific toys are. They are toy that were designed with one gender in mind. Most of the time when you walk in a store you will see that girls toys are pastel colors and boys toys are darker colors. The boys toys are mostly action based and violence while the girls toys are based on beauty or taking care of a home . A very good example of gendered toys are dolls and cars because most people expect to see a young girl playing with a beauty set and a young boy playing with a car. They are toys made to be overly feminine or overly masculine.Some people find it odd when they see a boy with a doll or a girl play with a construction butt this is what we have been brainwashed by the media to think.