That said, I wanted to post this article that came from Growing Child today because I think it brings up a very real and important issue when considering toys for kids.
FREE TO BE YOU AND ME?
Those parents who were raised in the 70's and 80's likely remember the jaunty tunes from the Marlo Thomas album, Free to be You and Me.
Those decades were a time when adults were eager to avoid pushing children into gender stereotypes, and were quite conscious in their attempts to open wide the world for their boys and girls.
In the mid-70's, for example, very few toys were marketed explicitly for boys or girls. In fact, toy ads often defied gender stereotypes, showing images of girls constructing and boys playing happily in toy kitchens.
Yet today toys are marketed either explicitly or subtly (check the colors) according to gender—I challenge you to find some that are not.
What a long way back we have come! Wander down the aisles in a toy store today and you will find rigid segregation by gender. There are the pink (with hints of purple) aisles, where toys offer options related to beauty, creativity, and domesticity, and the blue aisles, with toys related to action, building, and aggression.
A commentary in the New York Times suggests how horrified we would be to find toys packaged in black or brown, such as a "Little Rapper" dress-up kit or a farm-worker-themed play set, marketed solely according to racial and ethnic stereotypes, yet we don't question the gender segregation).
Despite the huge strides made towards gender equity in the past 50 years, with over 70 percent of mothers in the work force and domestic responsibilities shared by both parents more than ever before, the world of toys reflects a very unequal past.
What's going on here? Sure, brain research shows us that biological sex differences exist, though they are so closely entangled with the cultural gender messages from parents and marketing that it is impossible to separate physical from social factors in kids' toy preferences.
Kids' toy preferences definitely play into the purchase decisions of their parents. One study shows that if parents are left to choose without their kids' input, they are less likely to choose rigidly gendered toys—at least for their girls.
"Parents tend to stick with gender-typed toys for boys, either because they understand that the social costs for boys who transgress into the 'pink' zone are especially high in a homophobic culture or because of their own desire for gender conformity" (Sweet, 2012).
So how do we bring our children's toy world more in line with our real world of increasing gender equity?
• We can talk with them about toys, pointing out ones with their creative and constructive value, as we walk down both pink and blue aisles.
Such conversations uncover kids' prejudices, and allow them to hear alternative views from their parents, thus possibly opening them to crossing the boundaries they have self-imposed.
• We can talk about ads, showing kids the subtle ways marketing may have influenced their thinking.
• We can make conscious choices that transcend gender, and ask grandparents to do the same in their gifts.
• We—both fathers and mothers—can engage in children's play, modeling less stereotypical ways of playing.
Let's consider how toy reality can more closely align with today's reality
Anyway, I think the way both of us were raised has allowed us to get to this point where we have successfully created a family and are very satisfied with our own individual roles in that family and career. It's sad to think that the message to kids these days has changed to include more strict gender roles.
We have that album if you want us to burn a CD.
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