to be fucked off that stroes still feel the need to define toys by gender?

[GretaGip]

I've been wandering around all day looking for inspiration.

And it seems that within toy sales it's imperatiove to be prosciptive.

Surely one of the major retailers could realise that cupcakes and butterflies for grils and transport and dinosaurs for boys is just ouutdated and break free from the molud and then just sit back and wait for hoards of satisfued MNers to boost their sales.

AIBsimplistic?

Sigh.

Some of this thread really scares me, do some people honestly think girls are born loving pink glitter whereas boys love cars and pirates?

I saw a toy advertised in a catalogue the other day, a dressing up box one for girls and one boys. The boy's one had a fireman, a doctor, a cowboy etc. The girls contained a princess, a model, a fairy, a film star and a prom queen. Five pink dresses, I kid you not. I could have wept at least in the 70s I could be a nurse or an air hostess. The messages that are being sent by these toys are frightening!

Oh and I saw a 2 year old

I agree with MrsDeVere

It's hardly overthinking to recognise the relatively recent phenomenon that is toy manufacturers marketing their products in a sexist manner. Making boys and girls think that some toys can't be played with as they are for people of the other gender. Domestic themed toys are for girls, dinosaur themed toys are for boys.

I find that most people underthink things.

Does it really matter how things are stacked in a shop? It makes it easier for people to shop that way.

Yes it makes it easier to shop if you're happy to shop as the marketing men and women want you to. i.e. buying into their sexist twaddle.

I agree with you OP but happily DD1 has recently informed me she is a tomboy and therefore now hates pink. Her only concession to girliness is a fondness for zoobles and I have to admit to thinking they're pretty cool myself. She doesn't known it yet but she's going to be an engineer

But Fakebook, did you have to go to the pink painted 'girls toys' section or the blue painted 'boys toys' section? Or just go to the shelf where they stock a variety of different coloured v-tech cameras? Because in our local Entertainer it wouldnt have been the shelf with the different coloured camera option

Why would your daughter 'mind' getting a blue camera, Fakebook? Possibly because there is an expectation that you should have chosen pink? Why do you feel getting the blue rather than the pink is even noteworthy?

Because you know the pink expectation exists.

If there is an expectation you should follow suit over colour, there must be an expectation over the other, harmful stereotypes too.

And regarding making it easier to shop, the opposite is also true.
It is therefore harder to shop if your daughter wants anything remotely unstereotypical.

A few months ago Morrison's had magazines such as National Geographic and New Scientist in the 'Men's Interest' section.

Good for Morrison's though they realised this was sexist and outdated and changed it.

Gender sterotyping isn't just a problem for small children although of course it's more important that we challenge it on behalf of children as they don't realise that the subtext behind the messages that they're being fed.

I am jealous of the little girls of today that have such a huge selection of toys to choose from. As a child, I would have loved the pink aisle in Toys R Us.

People are saying that we didn't have such gender stereo typical toys around when we were growing up in the 60's, 70's and 80's, and it's true. I grew up in the 80's and hated how there were so many toys designed for what boys like but there was hardly anything designed for girls. Some of us played with the typical boys toys because we had to, not because it was better for us to.

I take my two sons to toy shops and despair that so many boys toys are in depressing colours like camouflage green and black, at least pink is bright!

I think manufacturers need to rethink the way they package/advertise products. My dgs loves playing with a dolls house at nursery and has recently said he would like one for Christmas which we are all fine with but on a recent trip to a toy shop he spotted the same dolls house and the packaging only shows girls he immediately said he couldn't have one because it's for girls. We have never told him their are girls and boys toys but encourage him to play with whatever he wants but because of the packaging now doesn't want one. He will get one for Christmas but we will probably take it out of the packaging before wrapping.

Pink doesn't stink but pink, pink, pink, pink, purple, pink, pink, pink . . . . that stinks.

Don't forget the sparkly pink and purple squoosh!

Sorry OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos I think I'm reading your post wrong.
It sounds like you are lamenting the lack of stereotypical girls toys in your youth!

I didn't get that right, surely?

squoosh, just started browsing that site, and it's fantastic!

I know that Halloween is bigger in the states and all, but looking at how far they have travelled along the stereotype journey is ridiculous...

It isn't so surprising that this
is what you get when you have started conditioning it around here

I don't mind pink and purple and blue and green.
It's pink or blue that's the problem.
I have two DDs invariably the older one ends up with a blue camera etc and the younger with pink.

Actually DD2 would like purple and DD1 a choice!

I hate it too and find it depressing.

Gender stereotyped toys do matter. They are shrinking the world for our daughters by limiting the 'socially acceptable' choices they have.

It's a miserable state of affairs. YANBU!

"People way over thinking this."

The cat call of the terminally blinkered and unquestioning...

For the love of God, people, stop thinking!!

God knows what might become of us all if we give anything any thought.