AIBU to think there is definitely way less gender stereotyping now (for children) than in the 70s?

[threemiaowingfaces]

Just reading the 'I'm happy to be having a boy' thread and some of the responses made me think of the 70s!

Were my family weird or was this normal?

In those days, there was general Lego and also sets of 'Space Lego'. I wanted Space Lego for years but was told it was only for boys!

Same with Meccano.

I remember being in a bookshop, must have been about 9, and wanting a book about space, but parents flat refused and got me one about animals instead!

Does anyone remember the 70s bikes like Choppers, Grifters (?), Commandos etc. Really wanted one for about 5 years, but on my birthday, they gave me a folding shopping bike.

Same with BMXs when they came out - only for boys apparently.

I remember one year, they bought my cousin an 'Evil Kenival' toy that was like a bike with a man on it and you pulled a cord and it could do jumps over ramps and had flashing lights. The cousin gave it back because he already had two. I still wasn't allowed to play with it and they gave it away to another (male) cousin.

Were my family particularly mad or was this normal back then? What did they think would happen if I played with an Evil Kenival fgs?

Definitely wasn't like that in my family. I had several brothers and we all played with the same stuff in the 70s. I was happily bought lego, and space toys alongside Sindy and other dolls. My brother happily played with my dolls too!

Hmm I don't know. I had Sindys and my brother had action men. But I think if we'd asked for the opposite we'd have been given it?

Wasn't like that in my family.
Boys and girls played with the same toys.
Overall I think toys were less gender segregated and marketed than they now.
I think clothes were more unisex too - with the exception of skirts/dresses. Short hair on girls was much more common.
That's not to say that as a society it had less gender stereotyping. But I don't think that extended as much to childhood.

i remember distinctly being told Meccano was only for boys. I wonder why they thought that? It's only plastic.

Your family might have been like that but I played with Lego and meccano, toy cars etc as a child in the 60’s and 70’s. And went on to do Engineering at university.

Sorry I disagree with the general point, though I recognise that your particular experience was of a sexist and restrictive environment in the 70s. However I had the opposite of a very non-sexist childhood with ready access to eg star wars toys etc in the 70s, and I think it's much more sexist now. Yesterday I was overhearing a woman on the train I was on, explaining to her companion that she'd had to return to the shops all the "gender neutral" baby things she had been given for her baby from people who made gifts while she was still pg and hadn't revealed boy/girl yet, because whilst it might be yellow, green or beige rather than pink or blue it still had pictures of things like tractors or space ships on them so "obviously" she couldn't put a girl into those clothes.

Your family was a bit odd!

In some ways kids are more gender stereotyped now I’d say - clothes were much more gender neutral than now and lots of girls with short hair. But obviously that’s offset by far more gender equality in society.

All female children in my house, we have space lego ( it was great) and star wars stuff, wore trousers/shorts 95%of the time although we did have long hair.

Have you seen the obsession with pink nowadays and around here anyway most teen girls and older are pretty much identikit looking - long hair, false eye lashes, shed loads of make up. The social pressure on them to look a certain stereotypical way has if anything got worse.

I think (hope) parents are a lot less gender stereotyping, the toys shops and advertising industries however are another matter!
At least in the seventies there weren't pink zones! Even if some parents still adhered to stereotypes.

Actually, no. Back in the 70s there wasn't all the pink, sparkly unicorn type culture for girls or an expectation that girls should have long, flowing hair. You were more likely to have hand-me-down toys and belongings that might have come from girls or boys. My childhood bedroom had curtains with soldiers on it that were a hand-me-down, for example. My favourite toy was a toy steam train!

I think you're completely wrong, sorry! The stereotyping and separation of toys has become progressively worse over the time.

Your family was very odd.

I grew up playing with multicoloured Lego - they didn't have the ridiculous 'girls' Lego back then. I had wooden blocks, a tool bank and my parents taught me how to use tools as well as how to cook.

Well I think it depends. I think your family were outliers and it makes me sad for little you! However I think that girls definitely have better prospects now. As much as people are insisting it was all gender neutral hand me downs back then, which may be true, it was still less likely for girls and women to go on to university and good careers. Girls nowadays have more protections and opportunities - even if they are also more likely to be wearing a pink top.

There are definitely fewer stereotypes in education. Back in the 70s it was still woodwork for the boys and cooking for the girls.

Not like that in my family. My parents were very traditional and old fashioned in many ways but I had a variety of toys. A peddle car, Britain’s farm set, space Lego, knights playmobil, a bucket of matchbox cars.I also had a lot of brown cordory clothes and short hair. I had baby dolls and Cindys as well but generally there were less ‘pink’ and ‘blue’ toys. I guess toys were relatively more expensive than now so had to do for all children in a family and be passed on to neighbours when grown out of.

Lego used to be much less gender based back in the 70's!

I think in some ways in the 70s there was less gender stereotyping, for practical reasons if nothing else - clothes and toys were expected to get handed down to younger siblings so tended to be much more gender neutral.

Girls quite often had shorter hair, for convenience; and boys often had their a bit longer, as that was the fashion. "Tomboys" were known and accepted.

Rampant sexism still existed of course! I remember at school, the junior boys had a playground to themselves, the junior girls had to share with the infants, because the boys were "too rough", whereas we could be trusted to look after them. After lunch, it was the girls' job to clear plates, and the boys' to stack chairs and move tables. When the school got its first computer, the girls were instructed to sit and watch the boys use it and make notes - the assumption being that they'd be the bosses and the ones who actually need to use it, whereas we'd just be lowly secretaries.

This latter policy sent my mum, a rampant feminist, down to the school in a fury, and she did managed to get it changed so we all took turns.

So it definitely existed, but I don't think it was as visually obvious - certainly not in poorer communities when things had to do for more than one child.

My parents were not like that. They encouraged us not to be influenced by the traditional gender stereotypes. I am thankful to them for it.

And I'm not sure that things are better now at all tbh. In the 1970s, if you were a boy who liked pink/disliked football etc, people might have described you as a boy who liked girly things. Or they might have said that you were effeminate or something. Not great, of course, but these days, they would be more likely to start encouraging you to think that you actually are a girl.

I find the opposite. Growing up in the early 80 (south Africa maybe that makes a difference) all the kids I knew just wore shorts and T-shirts. There were no princess dresses and tutus for little girls.

Lego was not gendered, no Lego friends for girls and other lego for boys.

We all played out riding bicycles.

I had older sisters but was between 2 boys so played a lot of cars and he-man. We all also played with barbie normally all in one game

My parents definitely didn’t have strong gender stereotypes - maybe it was because things were expensive so lots of hand me downs and sharing toys. But my friends seemed the same.

now it seems every toy has a girl and boy version (lego, cartoon character toys even toy kitchens) little girls are dressed for normal day to day play in fairy tutus and dresses. Way more emphasis in particular on girl stuff.

I have no belief that one way is better than the other. Glad girls get to be focused on these days with more catering to their interests. I would have loved to have a pink fairy tutu. But I am also very glad for myself that I got to be a generic kid and just play and do whatever I felt like. My parents were very liberal so maybe it was just us though 🤷‍♀️

Does anyone remember something called 'crash cars?' They were plastic cars that had a friction strip and when they crashed into walls all the doors and the roof would fly off? I remember, for some reason, there was a tangerine orange one in our house that they bought for someone but didn't give him, and I wasn't allowed to have that either. 'Don't be silly' everyone said!

Have you looked in children’s clothes shops recently?

Heres a thread about M&S, but it is every shop pushing these regressive notions https://twitter.com/volewriter/status/1643277743579119619?s=46&t=X1ma7_QJJ_PDVp-SdExAEg

Toys are no better, there was no pink Lego when I was a kid!

Add to that the fact that many schools teach kids that if you don’t adhere to regressive stereotypes then you might really be the opposite “gender” and I’d say it is far worse than it was in the 80s when I grew up.

Actually, no. Back in the 70s there wasn't all the pink, sparkly unicorn type culture for girls or an expectation that girls should have long, flowing hair. You were more likely to have hand-me-down toys and belongings that might have come from girls or boys.

Exactly. The Lego was unisex, my bicycle was yellow and I don't think I had any pink clothes at all.

I think there’s more gender stereotyping now (and I was born in the 70s). Back then, Lego was Lego. Now, we have pink Lego and sets marketed exclusively for girls. My brother and I played with dolls, cars, fisher price action figures, Etcher Sketch and Evel Knievel. All our toys were interchangeable and my parents didn’t bat an eyelid. I wore hand-me-downs from male cousins.

I think that the fight against existing gender stereotypes was stronger, but that was because there were a lot of sex based barriers for women in society. Women couldn’t train to be pilots in the RAF. Husbands filled in their wives tax forms, women’s pension entitlements worsened on marriage (hence the WASPI women fighting for their pensions now).

I also blame marketing segmentation for the stereotyping that goes on today. Any business class will tell you to group consumers into types which can be regressive and ageist etc. The Pink Pound, Boomers etc

Theresa May banned advertising children’s toys in a sexist gendered way.