Friday, December 4, 2009

Toys and Socialization

In light of the holiday season, in which our usual consumer culture gets pumped up into a frenzy of consumerism, and the focus is largely on children receiving toys, it's fascinating to take a look at toys and toy advertising: how they play a role in socializing children into gender roles, and how toys present certain ideals and limited representations to children.

I want to present a curious development in the advertising of children's toys: the increasing gender segmentation of toys. Take these ads from the 80s:




The toys are not presented as gendered (i.e. as a boys' toy or a girls' toy). The girl in the Lego ad is not styled as stereotypically feminine- she is just wearing denim overalls and a t-shirt. It looks like she's wearing the clothes she might be playing in, rather than being presented as particularly fashionable. In the Fisher Price ads, boys and girls are presented as playing together, with the same toy. A red sports car is not presented as a boys' toy. Girls are not the only ones interested in cooking (or, I suppose, working at a fast food restaurant).

However, it doesn't seem like this trend has continued and grown. In fact, we are more likely to see toys presented as girls' toys and boys' toys, with the same toy even coming in different colors and marketed as (or assumed to be) the boys' and girls' version.

We even have previously gender neutral toys/games suddenly being split up into the "original" and the "designer" version, with the "designer" version in pink and purple ostensibly being equated to the "feminine" version.


Does this mean that the original is now the "masculine" version? This doesn't do much to combat the normalization of hegemonic masculinity, if girls are encouraged to use special version of previously gender neutral products. It also serves to separate boys' and girls' play, to segregate them.

Why is this increasing gender differentiation in toys happening? One reason I would suggest is that there is simply more money to be made in creating more versions of products which are tied to more aspects of an identity which is shaped through advertising. If boys and girls aren't going to play with the same toys anymore, then someone needs to buy them their own unique, personal versions of each toy.

Also, take a look at these Nintendo DS titles. Who do you think they are for?

This goes really well with the Massoni article- what kinds of occupations are being presented as viable/desirable for girls? How realistic is it? How limiting for how we encourage girls to approach the world of work?

Finally, I also recommend this column on Jezebel today about the problem with Black Barbies- how inclusion doesn't include everyone.

I would really love to hear from you guys in your blogs. What kinds of critical readings of race, class and gender can you do of some contemporary media?

(Images from various posts on Sociological Images.)

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