Toy Op-Ed Reflection

Clark May II
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
10/2/18
Op-Ed
Since the early 1900's toys have been marketed and advertised towards the gender that the companies believed would buy their product. For example, barbie dolls were always marketed towards girls because they believed that they would purchase it, while items such as nerf guns, hot wheels and many other toys were marketed to boys for the same reason. During the seminar we talked a lot about why it was like this, and who was to blame for it. There wasn't a clear answer on who's fault it was though. Some people believed it was parents fault's, while others thought it was companies faults. We also discussed how it could be stopped, and how we should market toys towards both genders. What I got out of it, was that there are a lot of layers to actually getting more gender neutral toys. We didn't go to in depth into this but after having time to think about it, I believe that it is going to be a long road before we can fix it fully. Let's say that tomorrow every toy became gender-neutral and was marketed to both genders, barbies dolls were marketed towards boys and girls and the same for nerf guns. I don't think that much would change. When your a little kid, the most important thing to you is making friends, and not being out of place. I still think it would be rare for a boy to buy a barbie doll and not be made fun of just because of how our society has been for the past 100 years. Kids won't stop picking on other kids if they play with barbie dolls or "girly" toys, the only way to fix that is for parents to tell their kids that it's ok to play with them. It's very unrealistic for every parent in America to tell their kids that they can play with any toy they want. It's not something that can change in 5,10, or even 20 years. It will take a long time no matter what because of how deeply embedded it is into our society. You can see this with the LGBTQ movement, even though gay marriage has become legal, and America has become more accepting as a culture, or at least I believe, you always hear stories of people getting bullied because of it. Toys don't sound as serious as gay marriage but I think that there are many people that would be opposed to it, much like gay relationships and marriage. There will still be parents that tell their kids it's wrong to play with toys "meant" for the other gender, which will lead to those children bullying others that do. While I believe the situation could become better, I don't think it could be 100% or even 90% solved. It would take a very large movement to even begin the process and I think the hardest obstacle they would have would be convincing companies to help them by making gender neutral toys. If those companies don't believe that they can make more money off those toys, then there's no chance that change can happen in America.

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