Gendered Toys

[JunebuginDecember]

So on another thread, that has thankfully been deleted, regarding teens that identify as trans somebody made a comment about gendered toys being 'left in the seventies'. Am I alone in thinking that this is not the case at all?

I think parents have certainly gotten better at educating kids that toys have no gender but I'm still seeing toy aisles that are certainly separated by gender as well as tv advertisements that always have little girls playing with the barbies, my little ponies etc and the little boys playing with the hot wheels etc

I was curious about others' thoughts on this. Do you think we have made much progress there?

It is very gendered. The characters are mostly female, the boxes are purple and pink and a lot of the bricks and pieces are the same colours. The themes are all circus, cafe, vet/pet rescue, beach, glamping etc. There is even a cartoon that is based on it - all very girly and pink. This picture sums it up.

The characters are mostly female, the boxes are purple and pink and a lot of the bricks and pieces are the same colours. The themes are all circus, cafe, vet/pet rescue, beach, glamping etc. There is even a cartoon that is based on it

Many 'kids' lego themes have cartoons based on them.

What is wrong with mostly female characters? A group of friends with families?
In most of the 'boys' sets the ratio is usually 3 or 4 male to 1 female so why is it bad the other way round?

They also got schools, a hospital, a leisure centre, a supermarket. Normal every day things.

Yes, but it is blatantly targeting girls rather than boys. It has a definite feminine slant. My daughter loves it (only Lego she wants) and my son, who is only 4, already says it's made for girls.
Thankfully, they are going back to more unisex branding. I'm sure the sets will be pretty much the same, but there will be less focus on 'for girls' or 'for boys' encouraging all children to play with it all.

I remember asking my parents for a new bike and begging them please please not a pink one (I had a proper old choper and bmx before this)

I ended up with a boys bike - the difference between the mountain bikes back then boys blue girls pink. Absolute nightmare trying to do a paper round early 90’s on that bike!

I naturally didn’t go for the pink girly toys for my girls. My eldest loved her train set and cars! Untouched dolls and a few barbies. When my second daughter came along she brought with her glitter and pink. Loved her dresses and I fail everyday as I can’t do hair!! Those babies became her favourite toys.

Husband and I haven’t really thought much about it we buy them what they naturally want to play with and brings them joy. Though he has managed to make sure both have a love for Lego!

We did have to ban the use of tom-boy as family referring to my eldest (I had it growing up and hated it) . Now 19 and is all nails and eyelashes - complete 360 but is happy and we never pass comment.

No labels -let children play with the toy that makes their imagination grow. Let kids just enjoy and play.

Yeah it's still pretty rubbish

Dc3 was the opposite sex from my first 2 and there was a definite expectation that we'd need to get different toys as a result 🙄 despite having all kinds of toys already in the house.

I've observed parents in a toy store/supermarket toy aisle telling little children that "those are the boys toys, these ones are for you" 😡

As a football, matchbox car and action man loving little girl, who also shared all the Lego and Star Wars toys with my brother it's really disappointing.

My 3DC are pretty clear on the ridiculousness of toy advertising, after just asking them if they noticed any differences. It's kinda obvious that "pink sparky mermaids, unicorns and jewellery making bobbins" all have 99% girls in the adverts and "nerf guns, building shit and action Dino things" have mostly boys featured.

I remember when you didn't get pink versions of toys to make more money... Only the one Fisher Price Record Player. 😏

The shop sent the pink equivalent of the mountain bike I was supposed to get for Christmas, I wanted the Raleigh Lizard like my brother. 😭

We never found out the sex of our children. Before our first we painted the room a lovely soft blue. Everyone was convinced we knew it was a boy 🙄 We just liked it and thought it a suitable nursery colour! People will always stereotype unfortunately.

I wanted some stilts so my dad made me some. They were shit. I’m still not over it.

From the BBC: "How did Lego become a gender battleground?"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28660069

You could have made some from baked bean tins! That's what we had to do if we wanted stilts! 😂😂😂😂

At least that was equal in our house, we both got taught how to cook and bake and wire a plug and do gardening.

It blows my mind how stuck some families were, on only teaching girls about cooking and other household stuff.

I am an 80s baby. I can remember being 4/5 years old and my mam was going to do "the big monthly shop". She asked me what I'd like as a treat. My brother wanted a thundercat Liono figurine and I asked for a thundercat cheetaro figure. My brother got his figure and I got a Minnie Mouse dress up set as what I'd asked for was a boys toy. Still bitter 35+ years later.

Its not just toys though. I was once stood in Greggs and a little boy asked for a pink donut. His mam said they were just for girls and refused him one. Crazy!

@AdditionalCharacter
God I loved Thundercats! Also, my sons favourite doughnut is pink with sprinkles. We even have a Xmas tree decoration to honour his love of them! 😆 What does eating something pink do to a boy? Take away some testosterone?

A donut? Holy shit. It’s not as if they have an obvious boy equivalent either - maybe he’ll grow up thinking boys have sausage rolls and girls have pink donuts? 🙀

I remember worrying about the Raleigh Bianca/Raleigh Grifter gender divide but I got a second hand bike that my mum spray painted silver so no need to fret about that after all!

Lego never said that. They simply said that they would be more inclusive, so they've gotten rid of the Boys and Girls categories on their website and some advertising will probably change in the future. They're not ditching gendered themes, and they'll do what all toy stores have done, ditch "boys" and "girls" and instead have blue and pink departments.

Honestly you can't blame Lego for tapping into the pink market.
They have obviously done their market research and realised they had a gap in the market.

Their first attempt at girl lego, Paradise, failed, so they tried again with Friends and more doll like figures rather than standard mini figures. And it's been a success.
Who really cares if a girls intro to bricks and building is pink. The important bit is they are building 👷‍♀️ and who knows where that will lead?

Born in the 60s I had dolls and prams and wore dresses and ribbons in my long hair when little. From about 10 I preferred shorts and T-shirts and had short hair. I played with my brothers action men, train sets and toy cars and nobody thought anything if it. I was a tomboy but only because boys things were more fun.

In the late 90s early 00s when I had my boys it was beginning to be pink/purple aisles in the toy shops for girls toys, but I bought polly pocket for ds2 as he liked little things. It was already difficult to buy clothes with zoo animals on for boys because for some strange reason that was deemed girls only (wtf?)

Definitely worse now than in the 70's/80's. Whilst there was still some stuff aimed at girls and boys (Star Wars/Holly Hobby etc) a lot of toys were unisex. I remember Lego, Sticklebricks, Etch-A-Sketch, Lights Alive, ET toys etc all being shared between me and my brother.

In contrast, it's virtually impossible to buy an arts and craft kit for my son that doesn't come in a pink box with pictures of girls on it. Why the hell is art suddenly a girls' thing??

It's all very well with this "let toys be toys", but a lot of people who practice it then send their son down to the gender identity clinic as soon as he plays with a Barbie doll.

No we don't. Where are you getting this from?

Reading the Mr Frosty posts is bringing back memories. 😂😂 I pleaded and pleaded with my Mum for a Mr Frosty and she, thankfully, saw it for the overpriced shite that it was and brought me a space hopper instead....

I remember books called "101 things a girl can do" and "101 things a boy can do". The boys' one was much more interesting. A girl could make peppermint creams (need that now, though, now Sainsburys don't have them), biscuits, or decorate a mirror with barbola flowers. Boys could punch a hole in a syrup tin lid, put a piece of coal in it, heat it over some sort of flame, and set fire to the gas which came out of the hole. We didn't have a suitable heater! These books were pre-war.

www.notonthehighstreet.com/giftrepublic/product/100-things-to-do-with-mum-bucket-list-scratch-poster

www.notonthehighstreet.com/giftrepublic/product/100-things-to-do-with-dad
….#3: Make a Fire. You don’t get to make a fire with mum!

Your mum is a wise and noble woman.

spacehoppers are murder on one’s coccyx though.

now happily thinking about sticklebricks and fuzzyfelts.

I grew up in the 70s.

Girls hair was short or long (my DD was told in Reception she had boys hair as it was short).

We still have some of my old board games with instructions. Boys & girls playing looking similar in terms of clothes, no pink anywhere.

These days you have 'chemistry sets' for boys in blue and 'perfume sets' for girls in pink. Music players in blue or pink. Prams in blue or pink. Car seats in blue or pink. Toys R Us was a sea of pink down certain aisles. When my DDs were young say 2007-2014 I had to really try hard to not buy pink stuff so they had a variety. Default was pink for everything.

I honestly think that though there was more visible sexism in everyday life, children weren't pushed the stereotypes they are now.

These days although children are overtly told they can do anything the subliminal messages of toys is that actually they shouldn't want to.

Did you have to take all the syrup out first @Treaclemine ?
I really want to do it now but a foaming vat of exploding syrup might be a bit of a drawback.