Gender Roles Seen in Toys Essay

Television is the mainstream of our culture. Violence on television has been a topic of conflict since before 1950. There have been repeated debates on how to protect children from the harmful effects of violence on television. Television is one form of modern media that influences the everyday lives of people. Televised violence has a major effect on how children perceive the world and how they behave. "American television has become the most violent in the world. It is for this reason why researchers have focused their attention toward television violence" (Cantor & Hoffner 424-4-25). Children enjoy watching television and now with the increased technology of cable and movie

In the United States children watch an average of three to fours hours of television daily (Cantor & Wilson, 1984, p. 28). Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. Studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may become insensitive to violence. Consequently, they tend to gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems by imitating the violence they observe on television; and they identify with certain characters, good or bad. Therefore, extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater

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.

Envision yourself entering a toy department and noticing numerous diverse aisles. In one aisle, you encounter toys packaged in complementary and color triads colors that include building sets (such as “LEGO”, “LEGO Super Heroes”, and “Angry Birds”) and a wide selection of action figures—Spider Man, Transformers, The Dark Knight, Power Rangers, etc. In the next aisle, adjacent to the aisle with complementary and color triads colors, you find toys packaged in shades of pink and purple. These toys range from “Hello Kitty” dolls to “Barbie Dream” house play sets. Inside a toy department, such as Toys R Us, it is extremely difficult to retrieve a toy that is not marketed explicitly or subtly by gender. If toys were marketed only according to

Gender norms today have become a big part of our society as they are present in our every day life from advertisements, clothes, to the way we are supposed to act, and even in toys. In order to appeal to a certain customer, advertisements use many gender norms that apply to customers. One of the most impactful gender norms that I find to be is in the kid’s toys because I believe that it’s teaching these kids about how to act. Kids ranging from very early ages know what types of toys they should play with and what toys they aren’t supposed to play with. For example, little boys would play with cars and action figures while on the other hand girls would play with dolls and a tea party set. Many of the toys for girls have been shaped to show them that are supposed to be more friendly and kind. These toys have made it so that there are certain way’s little girls should act and also what things they should like.

What did the toys received or played with during childhood do to reinforce or break those patterns of gender socialization? In my opinion if you are a boy, you played with trucks, action figures, toy weapons, or sports equipment. If you were a girl, you played dress-up, played with dolls, or pretend kitchen sets. As we grow, we learn how to behave from those around us. At a very early age, children are introduced to certain roles that are typically linked to their biological sex. The term gender role refers to society 's concept of how men and women are expected to act and how they should behave. These roles are based on norms, or standards, created by society. expects different attitudes and behaviors from boys and girls.

Practically since the beginning of television many, parents, teachers, legislators and mental health professionals have desired to grasp the impact of television programs, mainly on children. Mainly on the concern has been the portrayal of violence, predominantly given by psychologist Albert Bandura's work in the 1970s on social learning and the tendency of children to imitate what they see. In general,” the more aggressive the people or films that children observe, the more aggressive the children act. Learning by watching and imitating others, rather than through one's own personal experiences, is called social learning. Later research has shown that viewing violent acts on TV and in the movies affects people in other negative ways: (1) It

Often when a couple becomes pregnant and finds out the sex of the infant, stereotypes begin to form. If the child is female, their room will often be painted pink with cutesy borders. The crib will have pink blankets with ruffles on them. The baby girl will be presented with soft toys and cute stuffed animals, as well as perhaps a baby doll or two. At the baby shower, the mother will typically be presented with pink and purple clothing, the colors of choice for a female child. When the baby finally comes along, she will typically be treated as a gentle princess. When it comes to girls, adults are often more careful, as if the baby girl will break.

The media in today’s society is very influential on children. There are many things that children at a very young age are learning, for example violence. Many children learn violent behavior and they become violent and aggressive children because they are exposed to so much mature content. Many parents are not aware of what their children are watching, and without knowing it, their children are raised by the media. Many television shows contain a lot of violence, for example kids fighting each other, kids bullying other kids and kids yelling and disrespecting their parents. Unfortunately, at a very young age children are learning to be aggressive and violent because they are spending more time watching television than spending it

Television is especially influential on the children of today. Thirty years ago, not every home had a television; they were considered a luxury that only the rich could afford. Now, most households have two televisions and children watch them incessantly. Many children's programs are extremely violent and a child can learn violent behavior from watching these programs. For example, about a month ago, in Norway, a small girl was beaten, stripped, and left to die by three boys aged 5, 6, and 6. When asked why

These results correlate highly with the social learning theory on aggressive behavior. Those exposed to substantial violence and aggression were likely to imitate it later on in life. However, while an observational study can elicit enlightening results, they do not provide much on practical, empirical evidence. What the researchers did was observe behavior exhibited by the individuals they studied; they did not control the amount of violence the individuals were being exposed nor were they preventing others from being exposed to such programming. Thus, this study can not be deemed as an “experiment”. While they tried eliminating the lurking variables that may plague the results of their findings, it would be impossible to eliminate every possible influence other than the television exposure through an observational study.

          Due to violence on television, children become less sensitive to that pain and suffering of others or to become more aggressive to others. It also makes children more fearful to the world around them. (Abelard 1) Viewing habits of children observed for many decades deduced that violence on TV is associated with aggressive behavior, more than poverty, race, or parental behavior. It also reported that a TV show contains about 20 acts of violence an hour.

Children view violence in different ways when they watch it on television, whether it is cartoons or a type of drama and action programming. After children have watched these television shows, they may have interpreted the meaning into a negative behavior. It could influence them by becoming aggressive, afraid of the world that surrounds them, or it may lead to confusion. When it is said that children may become confused because their parents teach that violence is wrong. When they view someone in a “superhero” position participating in violence, they may see that as it is all right for the simple fact the good person does the action. According to the American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry, “the impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child's behavior or may surface years later (AACAP, 2011).”

As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the

Media is also being tied to the increasing violence in US children. “Children are increasing anti-social and aggressive behavior, become less sensitive to violence and those who suffer from violence, children may view the world as violent and mean fearful of being a victim of violence. Children may desire to see more violence in entertainment and real life, and children will view violence as an acceptable way to settle conflicts.”( Buchanan, A.M., Gentile, D.A., Nelson, D.A.,Walsh, D.A., Hensel, J. 2002) Astonishingly, more time is being spent on watching television then homework which differ from child to child. A child’s interpretation of what they watch depends on of their attention spans, the way in