Is there such a thing as ‘Girl’ and ‘Boy’ toys?
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Since of late, every time of year, seems to be pressy-time of year. Not so long ago, presents were predominantly something we started putting a lot of thought and time into once or twice a year. The indiscriminate buying spree – for those who bought into it – usually centred around traditional and religious festivals which promoted the act of gifting and receiving tokens of appreciation and recognition, which is woven into the very fabric of most celebratory events.
Now however, gifting has become an almost all-year round activity. Whether it be housewarmings, general visits, meetings with friends and family, and of course the never ending parties for anyone who is on the kids party circuit. Most often we try and put a fair degree of thought into what we gift, especially when it comes to children. As a parent of similar aged children, the selection process is rather painless, with immediate association of things and activities one’s own offspring favour, and more often than not, we buy things out of….habit.
This is usually where gender stereotyping of children’s toys comes into being. We tend to go with what we know. What we usually associate with children. In a very broad sense, we will look for dolls, tea sets, dress up items, accessories, kitchen/cooking, arts and crafts and generally…’girlish’…things for the daughters. Our mindset changes with toys for boys, such as monster trucks, building blocks, mechanical sets, scientific experiments and anything slightly more….’boyish’ is a habitual choice for the sons.
Why do we have this preconceived notion of what girl children and boy children would prefer? Is it because of our own conditioning of what is considered feminine and masculine and an inherent association and involuntary allocation of this gender, to inanimate objects such as toys? The question then arises, do toys have a gender, and if not, why do we give them one?
Kashmira Gander, writing for The Independent in December 2015, observed that the latest study on the matter warns that “Most toy adverts are ‘sexist’ and show ‘narrow and limiting’ gender stereotypes”. She observes that “A study of adverts broadcast on UK television by the Let Toys Be Toys Campaign, revealed that adverts featuring vehicles, action figures, construction sets and toy weapons featured boys.The children in the adverts were shown as active and “aggressive”, with the language used emphasising control, power and conflict, according to the report. Meanwhile, girls appeared in adverts for dolls, toys focused around glamour and grooming, performance, nurturing and relationships. There was also a contrast in how the girls behaved when compared with the boys, as they were relatively passive and rarely active other than when dancing.The language in the adverts was concentrated around the themes of fantasy, beauty and relationships.”
“Research also showed that of 25 adverts for toy vehicles, only one included a girl, while adverts including boys and girls together were dominated by board games, arts and crafts, as well as soft and interactive toys.The study involved researchers watching a total of over 30 hours of children’s programming between September and October 2015.”
As Olga Oksman points out in The Guardian, in May 2016, “Are gendered toys harming childhood development?Research has found that dividing children’s toys based on gender can have lasting developmental implications”.
And the experts seem to agree:
According to Lisa Dinella, associate professor at Monmouth University and Principal Investigator of the Gender Development Laboratory, “While it may seem like a trivial issue, toys help children to learn new skills and develop intellectually…Dolls and pretend kitchens are good at teaching kids cognitive sequencing of events and early language skills. Building blocks like Lego and puzzles teach spatial skills, which help set the groundwork for learning math principles down the line. Both genders lose out if we put kids on one track and they can’t explore”.
“Dolls also teach kids empathy and how to take care of another person”, says Christia Spears Brown, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky and author of Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes. “Gender preferences for toys only show up after children learn about their gender. Babies show no preference…Between ages three to five, gender is very important to children, so when children see clearly divided aisles with reinforced gender cues like pink or blue toys, they pay careful attention. Children also take a lot of cues from each other…In experiments, if you take a truck and show a girl a group of other girls playing with the truck, that girl will be more likely to play with it and see it as a girl’s toy” according to Brown. She further explains, that little kids also tend to think in a “black and white way” and try to be “very typical for their gender”…Around ages four to five, children learn that their gender is constant and become more flexible with what types of toys they will play with…Some parents try to introduce other types of toys and get away from the strictly pink and blue divide.
In fact, when it comes to the actual toys kids like to play with, there is more variability within a gender than there is between genders, explains Elizabeth Sweet, a lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Davis.For example, she points out, that studies of young children have shown that boys are no more likely than girls to enjoy playing with a toy with wheels, something traditionally given to boys…It’s not just the pink and blue boxes that have invaded toy marketing in recent years: it’s also the proliferation of princesses and superheroes.Dolls for girls in the 1960s had traditional women’s roles at the time – like homemaker and mother – while boys’ action figures had professions like scientist, engineer or cowboy. In recent years, as women have become a major part of the workforce, you might expect that girls’ dolls would predominantly have professions that mirror those of the working mothers who buy them for their kids. Instead, says Sweet, there has been a move to fantasy roles, with many dolls becoming princesses and popstars and action figures becoming superheroes.While kids enjoy playing princess and superhero, the roles are “adult ideas of what kids want”, says Sweet. They are “exaggerations of masculinity and femininity”.
As a definitive ‘Tomboy’ growing up, I never understood why my older brother received cool, exciting and interesting gifts such as Lego, action figures and Meccano sets, whilst I received tea set, after doll, after kitchen set. It seemed absurd to me even then and much more so now. How then, do we pick the perfect gift? Do we throw out all our preconceived ideas of what little girls and little boys would like and choose something that is age appropriate which also ideally, suits the child itself? Personally, that seems so obvious and every instinct says yes.
Also in doing so, we find something that not only makes a child beam with delight and enhances their learning whilst giving them a sense of fun – but we also do so knowing all the while, that we are no longer propagating the absurd myth that toys too, have a gender.
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