This article, published by the feminine forward website –
Jezebel.com – exposes the blatant gender role ideologies perpetuated by society
and largely in part by the commercial market. Infants will probably play with
anything you give them. I’m sure toddlers out in rural Alaska aren’t throwing a
tantrum because they don’t have the latest Barbie or G.I Joe. The minds of
toddlers are so imaginative that you could give them a stick and they would create
it into an airplane in their minds. So why the excessive gender typing of toys?
This article shows numerous toys out in the market, geared toward toddler-aged
girls, that are centered around make-up. Products like Fischer-Price’s “My
Pretty Learning Purse” the Oskar & Ellen “Beauty Box”. These products
instill in little girls the reigning ideology that women are supposed to be
pretty and wear make-up. I’m surprised they don’t sell these purses as a combo
deal with the Easy-Bake Oven to really hammer home the idea that women are
thought to fill one role, homemaker. Not to say that wearing make-up is evil or
that it pigeon-holes a women, but to thrust these ideologies upon children at
such a young age is to strip them of free thought about what it means to be a
man or a woman.
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/swedish_company_publishes_gender-neutral_toy_catalog_for_the_holidays
ReplyDeleteI think you would be interested in this article about how a Swedish toymaking company published a 'gender nuetral' toy catalog. The advertisement of the beauty salon kit, similar to some in your article, show both a boy and a girl playing with it.
The company has said, "We want our catalogues to reflect the way boys and girls play in real life, and not present a stereotype image of them. If both girls and boys in Sweden like to play with a toy kitchen, then we want to mirror this pattern."
They are purposely going against the gender roles and genderization mentioned in your article in order that toys be more inclusive to both genders, an effective marketing strategy.
However, if you look closely you'll also notice that the 'girl' toys tend to be pink, so perhaps they have not reached the point of gender nuetral colors too.