There is a lot of discussion about gender and toys. This article questions Lego’s sexist marketing strategies and wants to see lego do more to avoid gender-stereotypes in their lego sets.
However this article, offers a fresh perspective on the debate, questioning why we consider things that are “girly” bad.
As a parent of a boy and a girl, I have observed them playing with each other’s toys disregarding whether the toy was created to appeal to their gender or their sibling’s gender.
I do wish that toys marketed towards girls included more gender-neutral colors and incorporated less “traditional” female roles. I also wish that toys marketed towards boys included more nurturing concepts and less emphasis on superpowers and weapons.
But, I also think that the toy companies and toy stores are not the only ones to blame. We (both parents and society) fuel the idea of gender-specific toys. We buy the toys, we tell our children which toys are for girls and which are for boys. We also teach them that pink and purple are for girls and blue is for boys.
What would happen if we didn’t do that? Toy companies want to sell toys. If we stopped playing into the idea of gender-specific toys maybe toy companies would stop marketing them in this way.
As a child I played with Barbies and I played with Legos, Lincoln logs and cars. Nobody told me that cars were just for boys and nobody discouraged me from playing Barbies. I see my daughter doing the same. And, I want my son to feel the same way. There is a lot of emphasis on a lack of stimulating toys for girls, but there is also a lot of shaming boys for wanting to play with toys marketed towards girls. I want my son to feel as comfortable choosing to play with baby dolls and kitchen sets as he does with superheros and transformers.
Children have incredible imaginations and may turn a robot into a princess and vice versa if we let them. Maybe we should step out of their way and let them just play. Who cares which aisle the toy came from, what color it is and let our children decide what to play with. We might be surprised by their choices.
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