Before
entering WGS 2500 I never noticed how gendered children advertisements really
were. I always noticed that girls’ toys were always aimed at girls by being
pink and frilly and boys’ toys were blue or green and were more masculine, but I
never realized how bad it really was. The articles we read in class and the
video I cited in my blog really capture the intensity of this problem. The toys
for boys challenge their minds by allowing them to build and construct things,
while the toys for girls allow them to play with dolls and learn the basics of
child-rearing. At this early stage in life girls should be challenging their
minds as well as boys, but the toys that are made for them don’t allow them to
do that. They honestly make us look stupid and unimaginative. If a girl does
decide she doesn’t like the girly toy options given to her and she goes against
the gender norm and plays with a boy’s toy she is then seen as different or
weird. The worst part about it is that the companies making and selling these
toys are spending billions of dollars on these advertisements knowing all of
this. To them it is all about the money, they don’t worry about how it affects
these children as they grow up or how girls aren’t getting the same experience
playing with their girl products as boys are playing with their boy products.
In some places advertisement targeted specifically at young people has been
banned to stop the problem of such gendered advertising. Hopefully this will
spread everywhere and toys won’t have gender labels on them anymore.
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