Toy Op-ed Reflection
Brooks Farish
One Monday our class assignment was to read some articles on toys and were gender falls into the market. During class on Monday our class seminar on this topic and covered a broad spectrum of ideas revolving around toys and gender. Some of the biggest things we went over were the period in which the toy market made the gender separation, the importance of color, society norms pallet, the dominating companies and some of our favorites toys. Near the beginning of the seminar, we use nerf as an example with their nerf rebelle company that is there to appeal to girls. We covered how they have bow and arrows with pink and purple and advertise with girls (In black leather jackets). This really showed the shift. Later we moved on to Hasbro and Mattel, the leaders of the toy industry. They are the ones who have master the area of gender categorized toys. The other interesting thing is that they own almost all toys you can think of. Towards the end of the seminar, the class started coming up with solutions. I was confused because I don't really see this as a problem to begin with. It is definitely not what previous generations are used to and it is a bit different. Besides, I doubt that you can convince the big toy companies to stop what's making them profit. These toy separation does contribute to social pressure. An example would be a boy playing with a “girl” toy and then getting bullied because that's “weird”. Finally, after looking at different Sociological Theories, I think this situation falls under Karl Marx's theory. If you take the different classes and replace them with gender, you have a similar idea.
One Monday our class assignment was to read some articles on toys and were gender falls into the market. During class on Monday our class seminar on this topic and covered a broad spectrum of ideas revolving around toys and gender. Some of the biggest things we went over were the period in which the toy market made the gender separation, the importance of color, society norms pallet, the dominating companies and some of our favorites toys. Near the beginning of the seminar, we use nerf as an example with their nerf rebelle company that is there to appeal to girls. We covered how they have bow and arrows with pink and purple and advertise with girls (In black leather jackets). This really showed the shift. Later we moved on to Hasbro and Mattel, the leaders of the toy industry. They are the ones who have master the area of gender categorized toys. The other interesting thing is that they own almost all toys you can think of. Towards the end of the seminar, the class started coming up with solutions. I was confused because I don't really see this as a problem to begin with. It is definitely not what previous generations are used to and it is a bit different. Besides, I doubt that you can convince the big toy companies to stop what's making them profit. These toy separation does contribute to social pressure. An example would be a boy playing with a “girl” toy and then getting bullied because that's “weird”. Finally, after looking at different Sociological Theories, I think this situation falls under Karl Marx's theory. If you take the different classes and replace them with gender, you have a similar idea.
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