This YouTube video has been making the rounds in the media the last few weeks – a little girl ranting about toys and gender – even calling it out as a conspiracy!
Go Riley!
I’ve thought a lot about gender stereotyping and conforming since becoming a parent. More than anything I don’t ever want my children to feel they can’t play or have access to something because they are not the “right gender” or because it’s traditionally assigned to the opposite gender. Here’s a bit of my experience with toys and gender, with a short video of my kiddos sharing thoughts on toys they enjoy.
I gave my son a toy kitchen set for his second birthday. He loved the one at daycare and he saw both his parents cooking, it didn’t seem one bit strange to me, although I felt a bit sensitive to the fact that people might think it was a “girly gift.” Just recently an adult who attended that birthday party (more than four years ago) criticized me for that kitchen set gift, that it was too much of a “girl toy” to give a boy.
He also had access to Bob the Builder and other “male-oriented” toys at the time, and plenty of gender-neutral toys, such as animals, balls, etc. Around age three he started to be more drawn to the more gender-assigned toys, such as cars, sports, etc.
My daughter loves playing with that kitchen set now. She’s had plenty of her brother’s “boy” toys to play with and often enjoys playing cars, Lego’s, etc. I’ve made a point to not push any princess movies or toys on her (as I’m a bit opposed to the princess mentality). Yet, she hasn’t expressed any interest in them. Or Barbies. Or baby dolls. All of which she has access to play with at daycare. The super cute babies I have bought for her have gone completely ignored.
A couple of weeks ago we were toy shopping for a birthday gift for my son’s classmate (boy). We were at Target and he pointed out to me that we were in the “pink” aisle and needed to move to the “blue” aisle for boy gifts. I had never noticed Target had pink and blue backdrop colors for the toy aisles, but my kids did! I used that as a teachable moment and we stopped and talked about gender and toys and how boys can play with anything and girls can play with anything.
It really bothers me that some toy manufacturers and retailers package and market toys by gender. I tend to get angry when shopping (especially Christmas shopping this year) when I see things that are only pink or blue… or when there are two versions of something based on gender.
We keep continuing the conversation – here’s part of one of them from dinner the other night:
Isn’t it interesting that my son noticed the horse toy was in the girl’s aisle? By the way, WHY is a horse in a girl aisle? Because it didn’t have a cowboy attached to it?
When my kids talk about loving animals, they aren’t kidding. Our activities are focused on very gender-neutral activities that often involve animals. We visit local zoos, farms, nature centers and other animal centers often and they have extensive stuffed animal and Build a Bear collections. And videos, we watch a lot of nature videos learning about animals.
I’m curious… how does gender and toys/activities play out in your parenting style? Do you think about it when making decisions? Do you ever not allow your child to do something because it doesn’t conform to typical gender roles?
p.s. are we hooked up on facebook yet? Let’s do that!
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We had an almost completely gendered-toy-free Christmas this year for my 22 month old boys. I’m not sure how it will play out when they’re old enough to ask for specific things, but I’m hoping we’re setting a good foundation. They did get a play kitchen, and they LOVE it.
Thanks for the note – sounds like you had a great Christmas! Glad to hear I’m not the only mama giving out kitchens to 2 year old boys.
My wife and I have no problem giving certain toys to both genders of our children. All three kids (2 boys, 1 girl) experienced great enjoyment out of the kitchen set we retired this year (after 5+ years). Our youngest on even has an American Boy doll that he uses to play with his sister and her American Girl dolls. Likewise, our daughter plays with her brothers and their Hero Factory. Its all about imagination and what on does with it.
Thanks for adding to the discussion, Howard. I agree it’s best not to steer children one way or the other, but to expose them to all kinds of toys and encourage imaginative and active play no matter which way they land.
Who cares? I have two boys and they can play with whatever they want. They choose, they have minds of their own. It doesn’t matter what color the toy companies steer them to, they still choose what to play with. Footballs are brown, baseballs are white, basketballs are orange, get outside.
Casey, apparently I care
It’s interesting being a parent of both a boy and a girl, so I have seen both sides of the coin. The toys for boys are primarily colors or gender neutral – but you don’t see any pinks or purples in there. All the girls toys are made pink (like wtf do they need different color legos than boys?). Interestingly, to your point about what color balls are… actually, someone gave my kids basketballs for Christmas. One is blue, the other is pink. Think I was pissed? Yup. If it were me choosing, they both would have been brown. Thanks for your comment.
I think kids naturally gravitate to toys and activities they are interested in and then it’s up to the parents to support (or monitor) that.
When I was little my mom said I played with trucks (and called them “frucks” since I couldn’t pronounce my “t’s”). I have memories of my younger brother wanting to wear nail polish (which my mom allowed him to).
My kids have various interests, my son is a total boy who loves legos, trucks and cars but not that interested in sports. He however loves to dance (hip-hop) and sing. My daughter hates princess things, love science projects, art projects and both kids love animals (real and pretend). I agree, I don’t like the color assignment on toys for kids… my kids notice that and even then assign the crayon colors as “boy” and “girl” colors. Blues, greens and yellows for boy… pinks, oranges and reds for girls. Not a fan of this but they seem to be programmed with these assignments. A lot to think about Missy!
Interesting points, Beth. And the nail polish piece is particularly interesting – I’ve seen heated debates on this topic of painting boys fingernails. I’ve allowed my son to wear nail polish… although I’ve found the older he gets the more I try to persuade him to choose more “boy” colors such as blues, greens or black – rather than the pinks/reds/purples.
Of course, gender is important and I don’t think we should take away all options of femininity or masculinity from children, either – so providing opportunities to play with all kinds of toys, and eliminating “gender-based bias” such as buying pink legos, are important.
I originally read your post and thought to myself “no big whoop”..I have 3 boys and 1 girl and definitely noticed the gender thing through the years (and also had to defend myself when I had a toddler son pretend to “nurse” a baby doll in the gym childcare once…long story). But they all seemed to be turning out just fine.
But then I remembered, just THIS Christmas, the one like a week ago, all four kids received small little safe/lock boxes from my mom. Keep in mind, when I tell this, that my children are now 17, 16, 14 and 11. So the boxes are four different colors, and they were dispersed thusly: the 17 year old boy got a red box, the 16 year old girl got a pink one, the 14 year old boy got a blue one, and the 11 year old boy…he got a purple one.
I didn’t even notice, to be honest. I was instead thinking, “YAHOO now they have a place to keep their giftcards so I don’t have to keep track of them”. Then, one of the older kids said to the 11 year old:
“Ha! You got a girl color!”. Remember, his box was purple.
Luckily we are pretty p.c. in my household, I’ve raised the kids to be open to all colors/genders/preferences/etc. So the kid who declared purple to be a “girl color” was quickly shot down by another kid who said, “Really? The Vikings wear a chick color?”.
I don’t remember having any special “color” toys when I was growing up (back in the 70′s) but do remember it started becoming rampant when my first child was a toddler (mid-90′s). I remember thinking it was sad that some of my friend’s daughters wouldn’t play t-ball unless they had pink gloves and cleats.
Ok, done, sorry for the article…guess I could have written my own blog post about this subject, ha.
Hey Jenny, that’s an interesting situation – Love how the kids handled the conversation themselves and even associated purple with the Vikings! Thanks for sharing!
i noticed your comment about “like wtf do they need different color legos than boys.” i do agree with that, but this year my 9 year old female cousin wanted purple legos for christmas. she and her brother were very specifically raised with non gender toys, roles, etc. in fact, she’s a lot like your daughter and never has been interested in dolls/princess and her main love in animals (horses and dogs). she has played with regular legos her whole life. but, now that she’s 9, she wanted purple (and some pink) legos. so, my question is why they can’t have all colours in all the legos. legos are heavily marketed for boys, so this year when she got the purple harry potter night bus and the pink, purple and light blue “girl legos” she was pretty excited. i think that until legos become less male focused, the purples and pinks made her feel like they are something just for her.
Interesting point, thanks for sharing that Adrienne. I don’t think we need to remove gender entirely from toys, but I do find it strange when there are “boy versions” and “girl versions” of things. I guess that’s one example of it working to encourage girls to play, which I’m assuming is what the LEGO people were thinking to begin with.
Although I wonder why for little kids it’s “okay” to do that… but when I think of school and college and our careers as adults, we are not given gender-specific calculators, computers and cubicles, etc. Such a complex topic. Thanks for sharing this side of it.
Connie pointed me to this article via Facebook:
Barbies gone Wild – a review of “Cinderella Ate my Daughter”
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/barbies_gone_wild.html
Here’s an interesting quote: “…Orenstein finds that during a drawing exercise at her daughter’s preschool, boys imagined themselves as everything from animals to insects, snack foods to superheroes, while girls were uniformly princesses, fairies, butterflies, or ballerinas.”
For those interested in the subject, it’s worth a quick read. Thanks Connie!