Toy Op-ed Reflection

Blake Peterson
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
2 October 2018

    Toy companies market their toys heavily around gender. Toy companies use colors like pink and purple for girls toys and blue and black for boys toys. Toys like Barbie dolls are marketed toward girls because they have colors like pink or purple, while toys like nerf guns are more marketed towards boys. There are some kids that want to play with the toys marketed for the opposite gender, but if someone plays with a toy marketed towards the opposite gender they may be made fun of or bullied by other kids. Some toy companies that are more gender neutral like legos have recently started making a lego that is advertised for girls and uses colores like pink and purple. Nerf also tried to make a toy that was marketed towards girls. The new nerf guns were pink and sparkly, with only girls in the commercials. These companies making toys and marketing them for specific genders just reinforces the stereotype that boys should play with toys that are marketed for them and girls should play with toys marketed for them. These stereotypes for toys cause kids to feel like they can only play with a toy for their gender even if they want to play with a different toy. It is bad because then kids feel like they can't really choose the type of toys they want to play with.  

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