BoysToys

Agreed Theydon't. What they see visually has a massive impact on children. Both my boys loved pink until they hit 3 and were told at pre-school that pink was for girls . They model the men and boys they see in films and on TVoo. It's really obvious. I'd love to be able to turn the tables for a couple of years and have pink and glittery stuff marketed for boys and see what would happen.

And I can't see what's wrong with the cats bum face for violent toys either? There should be way more of those faces. Male violence is a massive problem and it starts in childhood.

But what difference does that make to toys beyond liking sticks and guns? What about Lego? What about cars? And what kind of innateness leads girls to choose princess toys, make up and sparkly toys that have to do with looks? Girls didn't come out of the womb desiring to be pretty did they?

Look, after Brave there was a huge surge in girls wanting bows and arrows so much so they started producing them in pink. What that means is girls like that stuff but they need the catalyst of seeing someone just like them modelling it for them to think "wow I want to be like that too!".

and what Theydont said.

AllMy... you're correct. These studies lack validity. They sure do make the innate gender believers happy though.

Using animals in purported studies of human behaviour and citing them as evidence of anything other than, on this day, these particular primates fancied doing X is problematic. It says nothing whatever about why they chose those things and little about humans if anything.

OP, I think there are two questions to be asked here:

Firstly, is it true? Do boys and girls really prefer different toys? The study you cited is has since been widely criticised not least because it extrapolates from one study on monkeys to all human children. I seem to remember another study on monkeys which gleefully pointed out that the female monkeys chose cooking pots. But what use does a female monkey have with a cooking pot? When this was pointed out the scientists in question changed their tack to saying that the pots were red and reminded the female monkeys of baby faces. This is proof that even science falls prey to subjectivity.

Another cross-national study showed that when you remove the marketing message from toys the take up of them is more evenly distributed across gender.

Secondly, the question we need to ask is even if it were true that boys and girls have different toy preferences (which is not much more than a tendency at best) does it necessitate the force with with these differences are shoved down children's throats? Does it justify the kind of division you see in stores where one side is pink and looks-obsessed whilst the other is blue and full of adventure?

We'll never know really what the preferences are until we remove this intense socialisation. There was a documentary a while ago by Alice Roberts where adults were given what they thought to be a baby boy or a girl in a room of toys (they switched the genders) and without exception the adults gave the so-called boys' toys to those babies they thought were boys and the girls' toys to the pink babies. That intense socialisation needs to go regardless of innate differences.

As for the feminists with catsbum faces what really is so wrong with trying to steer your children away from guns? What is wrong with them trying to minimise violence natural or not? In the way that they see as best. No parent has all the answers and they don't deserve your judgement.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn25306-biology-doesnt-justify-gender-divide-for-toys/

But it sounds like the assumption is that the reason the male monkeys preferred the 'mechanical' toys was because they were male, rather than any other reason.

Not sure how two posts is classed as 'going on about' something though.

My girls have adhd/asd and girls are supposed to not have it as mych as boys. Of course they do, but people don't pay attention as much as it's a boy thing. Some people see what they want to see in terms of gender.

I know it's anecdotal but I don't think it's just testosterone, a lot is learnt behaviour.

Those going on about wheels and cars not existing until fairly recently, have you read the posts on the thread?

Whatever it is, what people have noticed is that some children (and usually boys, but not always) tend to be attracted to things that act or move. These days it's balls and wheels. In pre-history it could have been small animals, round rocks, arrows, etc

It's not only associated with one gender, but children do have innate preferences that show up from early on regardless of conditioning. And more of one gender tend to have preferences for certain types, but it's all an averages game. Not black or white at all.

I don't believe that children can have an innate preference for something that didn't exist until humans invented it.

I think that we can only know we like something if we have the opportunity to find out. I may have really enjoyed horse riding as a child, but I never did it so I don't know. (Not an anecdote, just an example)

Are you competitive though op? I am,so all my girls are. Same as they are all loud, hyper, energetic. They are bound to be like me as I am their mum.

I have all girls and they all hate dolls. They are all different personalities but they don't like baby dolls/barbies or anything.

I quite like cars, driving and watching motorsports too.

Not so keen on crafts, although I can fashion a fairly complex paper flower in 30 min.

DS can be quite interested in decoration, just as long as it's of his game cars.

But enough of anecdotal evidence.

I'm sure there's some innate preferences and quite a lot of cultural asociations.
But with most things there is a huge landscape. More of one gender tend to be associated with certain extremes, and humans like to put things in boxes, leading to the common associations.
I'd think it would be the sign of a more advanced society to get rid of such associations, but recently there was certainly regression to the dark ages of sexism regarding toys.

Both my DD and DS at an early age preferred cars and things that moved over dolls - because they moved and had things you could spin and push etc. Dolls didn't do anything. It's only as they have got older that they have become interested in dolls.

I don't believe in girls toys or boys toys but whilst I can understand why some people think girls will like dolls because women have babies, I've never understood why people think boys are likely to like cars and other mechanical toys.

How long have cars existed, in comparison to how long humans have been around? Were boys naturally drawn to wheeled and mechanical toys before the ideas for these existed? I just can't see how this is a 'natural' thing and not the effect of socialisation. Even if you choose not to buy so-called girls or boys toys, wider society still tells them that some things are for boys and some things are for girls.

DS1 is very much a "father hen" with his dolls and any real life babies. He will push a toy pushchair and is kind and thoughtful

DS2 hasn't show any interest and LOVES cars and tractors etc

Just 2 different people regardless of whats between their legs

They are 2yr and 3.5yr