Source 1 (scholar article): Auster and Mansbach claim that girls have a greater variation in color choice of toys compared to boys. They are open to choices compare to boys too. It might be caused by “locational gender crossing strategy” used by some retailers to encourage girls to accept “boy’s toys.” For example, Toy R Us stores attract attention of girls to masculine toys by arranging boy’s toys department before girl’s toy department so girls must always pass by boy’s toys in order to get to their own…
Some examples would be Teen mutant Ninja Turtles action figures with playset, Pokémon cards and stuffed animals, Marvel Avengers action figures and Jurassic world Tyrannosaurus rex figure that are typically designed for boys. For girls it would include Bratz dolls, Frozen Elsa sing-a-long, Princess Character dolls, my little pony and Barbie movies with doll dream house with accessories. In general the toys most associated with boys were related to fighting or aggression and the toys most associated with girls were related to appearance. In the data I included, the toys that seem to be neutral gender are games like candy land, connect four, twister, rubric’s cube and hungry hippo which helps develop cognitive and social skills. The toys rated as most likely to be educational and to develop children’s skills were typically categorized as neutral. This data didn’t surprise me when just by looking at the toy aisles you can tell their gender segregated. The toy aisles meant for girls are covered in pink and vice versa for boys with blue. Also movies meant for boys tends to be more action type while girl movies for children tend to be based on…
It is said that girls generally gravitate towards the toys labeled as girls’ toys and young boys always choose trucks over dolls. This way of organization makes it easy to find the right plaything for each child. When given the choice between a doll and a truck, female infants are most likely to choose the doll, and male infants choose the opposite (Cherney et al., 2003). Girls seem to be attracted to pastel colors and role play toys such as dolls. Boys automatically want to play with guns and toy soldiers, things that are aggressive in nature. The separation of toys has never had an effect on children or their future. They have been marketed in this way for years without trouble, so why change these…
Gender plays an important role in the way children are raised in today’s society. The common stereotype that feminine toys are for girls and masculine toys are for boys is prevalent, even with all of the political advancements our society has made to try to free the world from these stigmas. It starts as early as when a child is in the mother’s womb. Most women will celebrate the arrival of their bundle of joy with a baby shower. Pink colors will be used for baby girls and blues for baby boys. In toy stores you will find aisles filled with toys separated by gender: baby dolls for girls and action heroes for boys. During ages three to five children enter their peak playing ages where their minds are most vulnerable to absorb everything and anything at once. Due to a failing economy, many more families are depending on early childcare programs to care for their children while they are forced to have both parents enter the workforce. During this sensitive, and impressionable time in a…
In the second section, also seemingly larger in size and variety, a not so vibrant color scheme appears using black, red, and lots of blue. The assortment of toys usually is vas compared to its counter part area of the store.…
Now they can start playing with different toys set for them, for example animal corner, kitchen corner, puzzles, blocks and Legos, small cars and colourful toys.…
Professor Blakemore of NAEYC did a survey. She asked people to check whether the toys she presented to them were very feminine, somewhat feminine, gender neutral, somewhat masculine, or very masculine. She found that toys that are very gendered are usually not conveying educational or positive messages - very feminine toys are focused on physical beauty, while very masculine toys focus on aggression and fighting. On the other hand, somewhat gendered toys help teach children skills for adulthood - somewhat feminine toys teach about cleaning, cooking and taking care of children, while somewhat masculine toys teach about building. No matter a child’s gender, they need somewhat gendered toys for both genders to teach them important skills for the…
Imagine going into a toy store and looking at how the toys are organized. Most places label the aisles “girls” and “boys”. Another way the division is visible, is by color; pink is what tends to pop out first, and this is the aisle where the dolls are. These methods are just the beginning of how dolls are sorted by gender. Next comes the clothes and the different roles that the dolls play. Gender bias with dolls plays a significant role in the world of a child by affecting their learning, behavior, and image of themselves.…
My paper titled toys and gender, is based on the toys of today and how they relate to gender socialization. I decided to go to the local Wal-Mart in Cookeville, Tn. I chose this store because it is a worldwide known large retail store. I concluded that it would be a good store to analyze because it is thought of as a family store where many families go to shop. Therefore, I knew that there would be a wide variety of toys to analyze and collect data. I went to Wal-Mart December the 3rd. I analyzed the toy sections of Wal-Mart and how the toys are associated with gender, color sound, types of play they encourage, types of interactions they cause, and what they prepare children for. With the exception of preschool toys that were sometimes offered in gender-neutral packaging, kids’ toys were largely segregated into different aisles according to gender. And within those aisles, the markings of gender were clear. The “girls’” section resembled the aftermath of an explosion of Pepto-Bismol. In the “boys’” section, there seemed to be a profusion of aggressive, hyper-muscled, weapon-wielding action figures. And in both realms, the majority of toys seemed to be explicitly tied to movies and television…
Inside Toyland, written by Christine L. Williams, is a look into toy stores and the race, class, and gender issues. Williams worked about six weeks at two toy stores, Diamond Toys and Toy Warehouse, long enough to be able to detect patterns in store operations and the interactions between the workers and the costumers. She wanted to attempt to describe and analyze the rules that govern giant toy stores. Her main goal was to understand how shopping was socially organized and how it might be transformed to enhance the lives of workers. During the twentieth century, toy stores became bigger and helped suburbanization and deregulation. Specialty toy stores existed but sold mainly to adults, not to children. Men used to be the workers at toy stores until it changed and became feminized, racially mixed, part time, and temporary. As box stores came and conquered the land, toy stores started catering to children and offering larger selections at low prices. The box stores became powerful in the flip-flop of the power going from manufacturers to the retailers. Now, the retail giants determine what they will sell and at what price they will sell it.…
Shop layouts target gender specific children by colour coding their aisles. The sections normally begin with newborn/baby toys which are generally gender neutral. This changes as it progresses into toddler toys for young children. Girl sections are filled with bright pink toys such as dolls, dress ups and household appliance sets. These are associated with vanity and domestic and nurturing skills. Boy toys consist of masculine action figures, building machinery and engineering toys. Three popular stores were visited and their toy aisles were investigated and documented. All three stores used gender targeting techniques such as colour coding and likes and dislikes to separate the boy’s and girl’s toys (see figure 1 and figure…
Like stated before, identifying the girls’ toys and the boys’ toys, is still very easy. Toys for girls are usually pink and/or purple and are right by each other with their own aisle. The boys’ toys are also grouped together on an aisle, but the colors are usually always blue, red, and/or green. The toys that are more gender neutral don’t ever have pink on them (which I find very interesting). They are multicolored and are more common among the section for the youngest ages. So, the colors are what catch everyone’s eyes first, whether we consciously recognize that we do it or not. Now, the kid models that are on the packaging of many of the toys are either boys or girls, or both. This is the next most obvious sign of gender identity since they aren’t as noticeable to the eye as colors are on every single toy. But looking at the kid models really does help the initial clarification of the gender identity of the product. I remember toys like the Corn Popper, Mr. Potato Head, and all kinds of instrument, which are still being sold. There are also some new additions, though, like the cell phone and laptop. As a whole, the kids section in Target still looks very similar to what I saw…
For example, girls get baby dolls and tea sets as to where boys get building blocks and tools. Dividing us into two groups,…
We started to get more information on the toys and prices from Target since we considered it to be more of middle to upper middle class store. We initially thought of Target to be a lower-middle class and classify it to be similar to Big Lots. After going through the toy section in Target, we soon realized that the prices were way more than those at Big Lots. The variety and selection of toys Target had to offer were far more extensive than those at Big Lots. We started from the first aisle of the boy section and went through it to see what they had to offer. At first, we were able to spot easily how gendered the toys were. Boys toys were mostly boy, red or even black colored. When we got to the Lego aisle, the boy’s section had mostly action figures and superheroes. It took us about 8 aisles to go through until we had reached the girls section. We knew we were entering the girl’s section by the way the colors were displayed and the specific colors of pink, purple and light blue they had used. The girl’s aisle was mostly filled with princess themed toys like costumes, princess dolls and princess products. Even in the Lego aisle…
By this time, I’d found my way into the Men’s Clothing section, but in actuality, I was searching for the toy…