Women Are ______. Men Are ______.
The idea of intersectionality that plays an important role of how women and men are viewed in today’s society, within pop culture and subliminal messaging.
In American society, we are taught at a very early age about gender. Even in the stomaches of our mothers, we are given the traditional placement of gender based on our anatomy at only a few weeks old. Even so, we are taught at such an early age to know our roles in this world through popular culture. The U.S. is constantly fighting for gender equality and have taken large strides to get there, but the toys industry is not expanding, they are retracting these new ideals and continuously enforcing traditional gender roles.
If you step into a Target or any other store like so, you can see the clear division of toys based on gender. Obviously, the girl’s section is bright pink, with toys that vary amongst household roles, such as kitchen work, caring for a baby kit, and clothes. Whereas the boy’s section is bright blue, with toys that display a very masculine type, such as race cars, superheroes and legos. Although companies like Target have removed the gender labels of these toys, there is still this division of color coordination that people associate genders with: blue is for boys, and pink is for girls. Today, parents put pink headbands on bald infant girls and give boys blue pacifiers to clearly delineate gender from Day 1.
But then you may ask, why does this matter? Children are influence by these toys to conform to their gender roles and only that. Girls would not be influenced to build or go into a science major because of the lack of representation in their toys. The obvious choice for women is to go into the fashion industry or be a stay-home mother. Whereas men go into these challenging careers and are forced to become a masculine figure in life. If they display any sort of feminine interest, they are seen as weird and unwanted in society. But, if women display more of a masculine interest, it shows society that this women is more capable and independent in society. This is because girls have leeway in American society that boys do not. “We’ve really defined a much narrower role of what counts as masculinity. ‘Tomboy’ can mean anything from neutral to great. ‘Sissy’ is not meant in a positive way among kids. Children and parents alike often police masculinity in ways that can magnify gender distinctions in toys; it’s hard to sell a boy a pink and purple play kitchen.
Thinking back to how I grew up, I constantly played with Barbie dolls and kitchen toys. I remember, my father surprised me with a birthday gift at the airport. I received a huge Barbie dollhouse that had a kitchen, a laundry room and a dining room table. Even so, my younger sister received the same thing, but with more gadgets, like an operating doorbell and a barking dog. But then, there was a period of time when I was really interested in boy’s toys, such as an operating Spider-man web-sprayer and nerf guns. My mom was probably scared for how I might have turned into, but she knew I was more of a tomboy than other girls at school. She let me get those toys, without lecturing me or telling me that these toys were for boys. She kept an open mind about it and only taught me to be open-minded about everything else in society. However, you have classmates or friends, who question why you are interested in those things. “But you’re a girl, why do you like spider-man?” And it could go either way, where they are cool with the idea of a girl being interested in a superhero, or think they are weird and bully you. Lucky for me, I was accepted by the boys in my classroom, who thought I was pretty cool for liking the same things as them.
I refer back to Lucinda Joy Peach’s “Is Violence Male? The Law, Gender, and Violence”, as she quotes, “sometimes, women suffer abuses such as political repression in ways that are similar to those inflicted on men. But since the dominant image of the political actor in our world is male, the
problem for women is visibility.” As a result of these set gender roles, women are forced to be the submissive gender, to work under the shadow of a man. Toys are only a reinforcer and the beginning to how women are treated in society. It just redefines what society wants women and men want to be. Men are continuously seen as the dominant figure in society, which leads to abuse in the work place and relationships, because of overly engraved mindset of masculinity. Whereas, women are constantly forced to undertake this level of abuse because of their lack of representation and dominance in society. They are invisible, even at an early age and to me, that is unacceptable.
Today, there is more discussion and debate about gender, and we have become more aware of what this does to our society. While it may seem like a trivial issue, toys help children to learn new skills and develop intellectually. Dolls and pretend kitchens are good at teachings kids cognitive sequencing of events and early language skills. Building blocks like Lego and puzzles teach spatial skills, which help set the groundwork for learning math principals down the line. If we only allow our children to play with a specific toy, it won’t help them expand their knowledge to develop these cognitive skills. Even from personal experience, it has only taught me to be open-minded to everyone and everything in life, and toys should not define a set path society forces upon us. Toys are gender, but we can change that.
