Gendered Toys

You thought Bratz dolls were bad...

Perhaps you shouldn’t have chosen this board then? It’s the one part of mumsnet allotted for talking about how the promotion of gender over sex impacts everyone, including children.

It's not derailing. It's completely pertinent.

It’s definitely still a thing. People talk about it a lot more and try not to do it, but people still end up buying the same sorts of things.
It’s still better though. In the 90s kids would take the mick out of a boy playing with dolls. No one does that to my son and he wears pink and everything. It’s more than lots of people still choose to gender them.
And although I try and be better I am in no way perfect. He loves dinosaurs and dolls atm so make what you will of that.

Susie Green, head of Mermaids, talks about 'gendered toys':

'Jackie's dad struggled, and he blamed me. His thoughts were that because I allowed the Polly Pocket and the My Little Pony, that I was facilitating and encouraging ...all the "girl toys" or "girly toys" as such were taken away and put away, and Jack was made aware that this was not appropriate. And suddenly, a confident, happy little boy became quite quiet, withdrawn, very clingy, and tearful.'

Really heartbreaking. And all because the child wanted to play with certain toys.

Its not even barbies versus cars. There’s lots of odd toys that end up either blue or pink. Vtech are the worst for it. I try and avoid buying either just because I feel so conflicted about avoided gender specific stuff but not overcompensating.

NC to avoid outing myself.

I didn't know about Maya's involvement with Let Toys be Toys - what an an amazing woman! FWIW, the Wikipedia article about that campaign was the second one that I created (Let Books be Books was the first).

Hi op. Interesting thought.

What do you think of charities like Mermaids using the criteria of a child liking the toys supposedly intended for the opposite sex (like they’d know) as an indicator that the child is ‘trans’?

This seems to be a common example given by parents of extremely young ‘trans’ children.

I actually really like Lego Friends. It has loads of detail in the sets and it usually does quite a lot of things. And there's nothing that says it has to be for girls - DS loves it as much as DD does.

It's a bit two steps forward, one step back.

Catalogues are getting better and showing kids playing with non-stereotyped products, and I think some childcare settings (which are super important in messages kids get) are becoming better at not imposing ideas on kids. There's still too many 'pink versions' of things, though.

But the way shops and websites are divided is still reinforcing things - I know some people get all 'But how are people supposed to find the right stuff?!' - uhm, divide it into 'dolls', 'construction toys', 'art and crafts', 'action figures' etc etc.

Yes ELC were particularly bad for this too. Luckily my great nephews are quite happy to play with dd's pink water and sand table. (We got it from the charity shop, I didn't specifically pick it)

One of my children is your age, OP. When he was little the Early Learning Centre had one cash register, one toy hoover, one ride on car etc etc - in orange and purple.

By the time his little sister was born there were two of everything and they were blue or pink.

I was wondering if the meme that says do you need genitals to play with the toy, no (it's for everyone), yes (it's not for children ) would now be considered transphobic because presumably children who like dollies and princess dresses MUST be girls and children who like tractors and diggers MUST be boys.

Yes, I know someone exactly like that.

Of course there were 'girl' toys and 'boy' toys in the 70's and 80's, and even before that.

What there wasn't and has been exploding on to the market since my eldest was born in 2006 was having every toy in a pink and blue colour way, Leapfrog is especially bad for this, as is Vtech.

I would agree that there is a lot more selling to specific niches, which I think is mainly a product of more advanced consumerism.

That being said, I'm a bit wary of defining "progress" in this area. There is something of a tendency to assume that the ideal would be no sense of toys being more associated with one sex or the other.

I'm not sure that it's particularly necessary or desirable to go that far with it. I'm inclined to think that as long as it's fairly low key, and there is room for actual children to cross lines and play with what they want at a given time, that's what's most important. Not strict adherence to some neutral ideal.

I have most of my childhood toys from the mid-80s complete with the instruction manuals that all have boys and girls dressed in dungarees, blue yellow green type colours and playing with the various toys which would now be seen as 'STEM toys'.

Nowadays the toy shops are pink aisle (dollies, pretend washing machines and mops) and blue (diggers, dinos, science kits).

Definitely not 'left' in the 70s, created in the 90s more like.

My son was born in 1990. I don't recall sexed toys aisles then. Types of toys were grouped together but they weren't marked "girls" or "boys"

Also I think the other thread got taken down because the op was trolling. Standard for the feminism boards.

I was always allowed to play with whatever but I remember my dad making fun of my brother for playing with 'girly' toys. Which I think came from a place of good old sexism. The whole "no son of mine will play with that pink crap" thing.

• even then there was stereotyping."

This is true- certainly my brothers got to do more things with my dad and he taught them to play golf which I was furious about. And they never had to cook dinner, which I could do from about 10 years old.

Yes, @ArabellaScott I think the OP means that one. Someone was being pretty vile to the mother of the bereaved child, who may have also been grieving.

Anyway, not to derail, ten-ish years ago I remember buying gifts for my kids friends and struggling to not buy something stereotyped. Nowadays, the stakes can seem higher, some poor child plays with the 'wrong' toys and mermaids are circling like sharks.

Lots of toys now also seem to have a website or even a game and a linked website. Often with a SM element. I'd be dubious about encouraging that with a child. The most innocuous SM, if poorly regulated, can be quite dangerous. Particularly, if it's aimed at children.

It's the pinkifacation of toys that is the issue. Toys were toys as in not colour coded in the 70s but even then there was stereotyping. I wasn't allowed scalextric because 'it's for boys' , my brother had a huge train set. I did have a football game though, not subbuteo though, a cheaper static player game, the players were on springs. It's weird though, my brother ended up with a shopping type bike and I had the same but a different colour. Probably because they knew I would be livid if he had a 'boys' bike and me a 'girls' style.