Post #1: Gender’s Role in Costumes and Toys
Do high school students even care about gender roles?
In high school I rarely paid attention to social justice issues because I felt that those types of issues were something adults only had to worry about, not teenagers. Social justice issues about racism, inequality, and immigration are touchy subjects I always avoid. I felt that if I avoided those subjects, I would It wasn’t until senior year when I became aware of social justice issues going on around me. In my English class, we ditched the mandatory books no one read and focused on reading articles about important issues. An important issue that I learned in class was gender roles. There was something about this topic that made me want to learn more about it. I love history so much; I wanted to learn more about where the idea of gender roles came from. The 1950s is a perfect example of the traditional gender roles for men and women. Men work while women stay at home and take care of the children. However, gender roles do not have to do traditional jobs anymore. In the New York Times articles, Boys and Girls, Constrained by Toys and Costumes and How Gender-Specific Toys can Negatively Impact a Child’s Development the authors go into detail that children are negatively exposed to gender roles at a young age through Halloween costumes, toys, and the colors pink and blue that reflect the expectation of each gender.
Skirts make everything feminine?
Halloween is a holiday many children look forward to each year. They spend all month long trying to figure out what to dress up as. There are a wide variety of Halloween costumes for children to choose from. Choices include: Captain America, Elsa, a doctor, and a princess. However, these costumes are targeted to a specific audience, or gender. In the New York Times article, Boys and Girls, Constrained by Toys and Costumes the author, Claire Cain Miller, claims “boy costumes (are) more likely to reflect jobs and girls’ to reflect appearance or relationships.” (3.) There is an obvious gender division for boys and girls costumes. Boys’ costumes are reflecting jobs such as a doctor or policeman whereas girls’ costumes have to involve a form of skirt or dress in order to make it look feminine. Miller also mentions that costumes for girls influence “how well you look” and sexualization. She provides the example of dresses with bustier for girls’ costumes. If you type up “girls superhero costumes” in a search engine, the costume will have either a bustier or a short skirt. Apparently if a costume has a form of skirt, it is meant for a girl. Costumes were never like this fifty years ago where they were gender neutral. In actuality, many things were gender neutral for children fifty years ago.
Gendered Toys
Toy stores are like paradise to kids. They light up when they see their favorite new toys and imediately run down the aisle to get it. However, the aisle they run to, contains toys that are considered “for girls” or “for boys.” Miller argues “toys are more strictly gendered today than they were 50 years ago…gender neutral toys or clothes are rare.” (2.) On television today, there are a lot of advertisements specifically for boy and girl toys. An example would be Hot Wheels toys that are targeted for boys and Easy Bake ovens that are targeted to girls. According to miller, in a 2012 study, “all toys were labeled ‘girls’ and boys’.”(2.) With the rise of the princess and superhero movies in the 1990s, there was a push to produce toys. Popular toys includes: WWE action figures, Teenage Ninja Turtles, Barbie dolls, and Disney princess dolls. However, prior to the 1990s, about 2% of toys were marked towards girls and boys. If you look at old department store catalogs there is no “for girls” or “for boys.” Also, not many toys had the pastel pink or bright blue aesthetic.
That’s so aesthetic
How do you know if a toy is meant for a girl or for a boy? Do you look at the section? Do you look at the type of toy? What about the color? Color plays a key part on what is considered to be “for girls” and “for boys.” Miller mentions, “Girl toys (are) mostly pastel and boy toys had mostly bold colors.” The pastel color of the girl toys reflects how girls have to be, soft, and delicate. Girl toys mostly relate to beauty such as a princess bag with fake jewelry and makeup. For boys, bold colors signify the toys are action packed toys. Hot Wheels, action figures, and building blocks are examples of action packed toys. This creates the expectation of how each gender should act. Little girls are going to be expected to be pretty all the time and boys are going to be expected to get jobs. Along with the soft and hard aesthetic of toys, the colors pink and blue also play a key role in determining what is “for girls” and “for boys.” The aesthetic of toys creates a negative effect on children because it helps create gender roles.
Negative effects of gendered toys
Robb’s article focuses on gendered toys and argues they negatively impact a child’s development. In the above paragraph about aesthetics, it was mentioned that girls’ toys are pastels and pink and boy toys were bold colors of blue. According to Robb, “color can be used to manipulate children’s perceptions of what toys they should play with.” If a girl sees a pink toy, she will mostly likely play with is just as if a boy sees a blue toy, he will most likely play with it. Robb mentions in her article about study where children between the ages of seven months and five years old are to choose between identical looking objects however, one was pink and the other was blue. The outcome of the study was “around the age of two, girls began to select the pink toy more often than the blue one (and) boys developed an aversion to the pink toy.” Naturally, each gender leaned towards their assigned color. This study has proved that children have leaned towards their preferred color, which then influences them to play with toys of that color. There is another negative effect about playing with toys that does not include color. Robb states:
“Playing with masculine toys is associated with large motor development and spatial skills and playing with feminine toys is associated with fine motor development, language development, and social skills.”
Motor development can be classified as two things: large motor development and fine motor development. According to LeapFrog, large motor development refers to “movements involving larger muscles, like those in the arms, legs, feet or the entire body.” and fine motor development refers to “ movements involving smaller muscles, like those in hands, wrists and fingers.” Masculine toys that involve large motor development include: balls, toy cars, and building blocks. Feminine toys that involve fine motor development include: tea sets, dolls, and jewelry. This shows that boys will play with toys with more movement compared to girls. What is interesting about this statement is that masculine toy are associated with spatial skills, skills that are needed to play video games, sports, and STEM jobs. This shows that masculine toys prepare boys for jobs and sports later in life. However, feminine toys are associated with language and social skills. Girls form these social skills through tea parties, role-playing with dolls, and dress up. Boys do not have that social and language skill advantage and girls do not have the spatial skills advantage, which reflects on the child’s development in later in life into future roles, occupations, and characteristics.
What has been done about this issue
Disney is one of the most popular brands in the market and has been known for having toys for all genders. However, the store has labeled toys to be just “for girls” and just “for boys”. Miller mentions in her article that Disney has recently “removed gender labels from its costumes.” (2.) There has been awareness throughout the past years involving gender that has grown throughout America. It is a big thing for Disney to get rid of labeling for their toys because toys do not have to be a single gender thing. Also, Target has stepped forward to taking away gender labeling in the toy aisles. The decision of these brands to remove gender labels is a big step into eliminating gender stereotypes.