Asher's Toy Op-ed Reflection

Asher Forman
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
1 October 2018

    Today, there are still a lot of gender oriented toys. If a toy is portrayed to be meant for either a male or a female, it makes it so kids can't really explore their interests without society trying to make the decision for them. This can cause some conflicts between these social differences. This can also be known as the Conflict Theory. Today, some companies are moving away from portraying toys to be targeted for a single gender. Many people want this, but many people think it doesn't matter. This can turn into a huge conflict on deciding whether one or the other is right.
    Gender oriented toys are a huge problem, because this can pressure many girls and boys to pick toys they might not be interested in. Media has portrayed certain toys to be specifically for one gender. For example, having only boys in the hot wheels commercials playing with the cars, with no girls. This shows that girls might not be interested in hot wheels and that boys should like and play with these toy cars. Many people that don't believe in having gender oriented toys, want the media to not portray a toy to be specifically for a certain gender. A lot of cooking toys are directed towards girls because many people think that women should still be the people cooking for the men, taking care of the children, and more. This is wrong, as any gender should be able to do any job for a family.
      A toy that is doing a great job of not having it be gender oriented, are legos. Commercials today that are advertising legos, have both boys and girls playing with them. This is a good step into not having gender oriented toys. Although, there is one big issue. This issue is having kids being influenced by their peers into choosing what toy to buy. For example, if you were a girl, and all of your friends had dolls. This could make you feel pressured to get one, so that you could fit in. Although, if you wanted to play with legos, you wouldn't feel like you fit in with all of your friends who have dolls. These are all of the bad things that can come with gender oriented toys and the pressure kids can be susceptible to by their peers. This is why there shouldn't be gender oriented toys.

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