How Toys Influence Gender Roles

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.

     I noticed the girls’ toys engaged fine motor skills more than the boys’ toys did. The girls have several different types and sizes of dolls to choose from – however, this also makes dolls or items used with dolls (Barbie clothes,

By looking through each aisle, I was able to determine what toys were presented for each age specific gender. The infant and toddler toys started off with not much difference and were gender neutral for the most part. They were even in the same aisle. The toys were generally plush animals, entertainment puzzles, and simple objects. As the ages moved up to pre-school there was more difference in what toys were for boys and what toys were for girls. The toys for boys were more vehicles while the girl toys were more play scenarios. This fit the description given in the textbook that, “by the time they are 12 to 18 months old, girls prefer…dolls, cooking sets, dress-up clothes, and soft toys, whereas boys choose vehicles, sports equipment, and tools (Etaugh & Bridges p 77).” Though the toys were varied, they still remained in the same aisle. The major separation of girl and boy toys began with the young school age kids. The girls’ section was focused on dress up, Barbies, and My Little Pony, whereas the boys’

Claire with help from sociologist Elizabeth Sweet, they attempt to go back in time trying to find the cause of all this. Before the 1960s, girl toys mainly focused on homemaking and boy toys were centered on the industrial economy. This research shows that all this changed significantly with the rise of feminist movements in the 1970s. The change did not last long as in the 1990s, and gendered toys came back with a bang! With action heroes and princess in the market.

In today’s society, there is a belief that only girls can play with Barbie Dolls while boys can only play with Action Figures. Parents believe if they allowed their sons or daughters to play with feminine or boyish toys that are not meant for them their child would grow up either gay or lesbian. It’s not fair for parents to restrike their children from playing with toys because one toy is meant for girls while the other is meant for boys. Children have the right to play with whatever toy they want. Society and Parents should stop reflexing their opinions and beliefs on children toys. There is nothing wrong with girls playing with Action Figures and there is nothing wrong with boys playing with Barbie Dolls.

Growing up, many Americans ' childhood consisted of playing tag outside, having cooties, and experimenting with as many toys as possible. Hundreds of thousands of toys flood kid stores such as Toys R ' Us, Baby Depot, and KB toys. With imagination, kids are able to become doctors, presidents, and princesses during the contents of one day. Television shows such as Barney or Blues Clues encourage having such imagination, thus inspiring kids to want to become one of the many options stores can transform them into. Walking into a regular toy store, people generally do not dissect the sexism that lays within the aisles, however, when walking in specifically to compare and contrast boys and girls toys

Children love toys because they find them enjoyable and help them in building an imagination. Toys are advertised on televisions and radios in order to get parents to buy them for their kids. Playing with toys helps to build character and teaches children the basics of early life, like shape-sorting or building things with building blocks. Some toys are educational and teach kids numbers, letters, and how to read using fun ways that they find understandable and delightful. All kids have their own preference of toys, boys like cars and Nerf guns and girls like American Girl and Easy-Bake Ovens. Girls and boys are different genders and have their own preference of toys based on what society says is “for girls” or “for boys”. Since the beginning of time, societies have made women out to be frail people that do “feminine” activities, such as: making clothes, cleaning the house, and taking care of the children. Today, we see these activities as “sexist”, women can other things when given the proper motivation. It’s demeaning to think of women as people who only love shopping, overly romantic tokens-of-affection, chick flicks, and etc. Stereotypes and demeaning rumors still go around today, it’s even shown in toys that young children play with. Toys in today’s society affect gender stereotypes.

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

Preschool children toys start to really draw a deep line between boy and girl toys. The first toy I found was the Baby Alive. This pink package certainly shows their target audience as female. Hasbro provides three races of these babies, Hispanic, Caucasian and African American. This toy line is marketing to all the little girls that want to be a mommy already. The research of Becky Francis (2010) in “Gender, Toys and Learning” describe the effect of toys towards a child’s development by gender bias, she shows that girls are given more nurturing toys . The Baby Alive doll shows this bias. These toys are specifically marketed to girls of all races to learn how to take care of a child.

Specific stereotypical toys can force gender roles on children. This phenomenon has been going on for a while, for example, in Sears catalogs from the 1920’s to the 1940’s present toys such as, “The Little Women Homemaker,” and, “The Young Man of Industry.” Most big box stores today have separate ailes labeled, “Girl’s Toys,” or, “Boy’s Toys.” The aisle targeted for girls enclude vacuums, kitchens, and dolls that you can change and feed. The aisle for boys enclude, toy guns, trucks, cars, building blocks, and action figures.

I remember getting excited when I received a toy doll that came with diapers and accessories to care for when I turned 4. I was the only child at the time but somehow I knew how to care for the inanimate object, maybe from TV shows or from seeing how the women around me cared for their child. The toy section was almost like the equivalent to heaven for kids, walking down the girls’ toy section I was surrounded by toys imitating kitchen objects, there were many versions of baby dolls and the color pink flooded the isle, whether it were pink dresses or the pink vacuum cleaner. On the other side of the isle I saw soccer balls, Lego blocks and toy cars targeted for boys. Growing up, I realized the toy industry that targets the stereotypes of a gender was a sample of the gender roles that are expected to be followed in some cultures; and clearly the representation of a woman is one that does domestic work and has concern over their appearance.

I went to Walmart to search for toys targeted towards gender typing and what I found was not too surprising. Immediately, I found the girl’s section and I was surrounded by the color pink wherever I looked. There were many baby dolls in the aisles and this reminded me of the evolutionary perspective where women evolved to nurture and care for infants. Young girls are drawn towards babies perhaps from witnessing their mothers nurture and care for infants and children. Not surprisingly, there were tons of Barbies on the shelves that ranged from princesses, dance instructor Barbies, cooking Barbies, fashionista Barbie’s, mermaid Barbies, and even a superhero Barbie. The cooking Barbie reaffirmed how marketers are trying to target gender roles on young girls by thinking

The fashion doll Barbie came into the lives of children everywhere in America in 1959 when the toy company Mattel Inc. began producing them on a mass scale. These toys would create a huge gender stereotype at first where Barbies were just being made to look pretty and fashionable, it was not until later they gave Barbie many versatile roles to inspire girls to be much more than pretty. Pleasant Company later came out with American Girl in 1986 which were different from Barbie and typically came with a book. The books usually captured the past in a romanticized manor and but also had some very empowering messages for girls which was a step in the right direction. Then Bratz in 2001 made by MGA Entertainment which had an entirely new take on gender role orientation. Research presented by Karniol, Stuemler-Cohen, and Lahav-Gur (2012) suggest that girls’ gender role orientations have an impact on which doll they prefer. The study they conducted pertained only to younger girls who explained their preference as to why they might choose a Bratz doll over a Barbie doll or why they might not even have a preference at all and how their perception of gender coincides with their choices. Bratz were marketed to teens, or dolls for tweens, which appealed largely to older girl on their way to becoming teens. In their research they look at feminine versus masculine traits in the dolls and incorporate how the girls might associate those traits with the dolls they state that, “Feminine girls, who are more gender stereotyped, would be expected to indicate greater liking of Barbie, which is more stereotypical in her clothing, coloring, and appearance.” (Karniol et al., 2012, p.889). Karinol argued that the doll that the girls chose would be based off their gender role identity and that by following the four gender roll orientations: masculine, feminine, undifferentiated, and androgynous she

Toys are one of the greatest creations of all time, they come in all sorts of colors, shapes, and forms. Many people might not know, but toys, play a major role in children’s lives as they grow up. Through out years’ parents have been focusing on how girl toys impact them as they grow up, but haven’t noticed that boy toys affect their gender construction just the same. Legos for example created in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, most popular for boys, have always been portrayed as neutrally gendered toys. Legos has been creating gendered themed sets for boys and girls, but their main consumers have been boys. Parents have been buying plastic pieces and sets for boys, themed to build an aggressive war zone, skyscraper, cars, and airplanes. Encouraging the boys to play with Legos toys, Lego has created thousands of sets for boys to build from. People or parents do not see, but Lego help shape boys talents, skills, and value, which construct gender and creates gender gaps in society.