Gender Roles In Toys

The term gender role refers to societies concept of how men and women are expected to act and behave. We are taught gender roles from infancy, for example girls wear pink and play with dolls. Boys wear blue and are tough. For this socialization experiment, I have picked two different children’s toys; one clearly aimed towards girls and the other aimed towards boys. For the toy aimed towards girls, I have chosen the Barbie STEM kit. For the toy aimed towards boys I have chosen the DC Justice League action figure set. The purpose of this experiment is to analyze and discuss the possible implications these toys can have on a child’s perception on their role in society. With the findings of this experiment we can hope to answer the question do
The demographics that I fall into are white, female, between the age of 20-24. This experiment took place in toys aisles at Target. While walking though the toy aisles, none of them were specifically labeled for boys or girls, but there were clear indicators of who each aisle was aimed towards. The first three aisles were clearly aimed towards girls, they included baby dolls, princesses, and Barbie’s, etc. These aisles were mostly pink, included dress up dresses and mostly photos of females using the toys on the boxes. The aisles aimed towards boys included super heroes/action figures, hot wheels and trucks, Nerf Guns, and tool sets. Most of the packaging down the aisles are blue, and show photos of boys playing with these toys on the boxes. I walked through the aisles looking though toys and paid close attention to what aisles seemed to be popular among male and female children. While walking though many younger girls seemed to be drawn towards the Barbie’s and many younger boys seemed to be drawn towards the super hero aisle. I then picked a toy out of each aisle to analyze the possible gender implications. I chose each toy based on the ones that seemed to have the most stereotypical gender roles attached to them. The data collected for this experiment will be gathered by personal observations on these
When looking down the Barbie aisle, every large box on display included a girl doll, every photo on the boxes were young girls playing with the toys. There was very little male presence in this aisle, minus a few “Ken” dolls, which were displayed in the top corners of the aisles out of a child’s main view. I looked though the toys, and chose the Barbie STEM kit to analyze. When I first looked at this box, I really thought this was an awesome toy. STEM is a growing career field, but made up of mostly males. “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up 47 percent of the total U.S. workforce, but are much less represented in particular science and engineering occupations. They comprise 39 percent of chemists and material scientists, 28 percent of environmental scientists and geoscientists, 16 percent of chemical engineers and just 12 percent of civil engineers”. This Barbie toy seemed to go against gender role norms, and helped young girls see that they too can grow up to be scientists and engineers. I thought all of this until looking at the back of the packaging and realizing that the projects in this box included building a rotating closet, shoe rack, jewelry holder, and washing machine. Photos of this toy can be seen