Toy Op-ed Reflection





In our seminar we talked about how toys have changed drastically throughout the years, becoming
more marketed towards gender stereotypes. With dolls and baking sets being classified as girls toys
with Nerf™ guns and videogames being marketed towards guys. This change began in the 1980-1990’s
when beliefs that males and females are fundamentally different grew. Before that, toys weren’t
marketed towards either gender, with children of both gender shown in the advertisements playing with
train sets, or science kits. Also around that time toys came in all sorts of colors for both genders.
Now there is a lot of differences in the color of toys with blue for guys or pink for girls that is seen so
much today. Even as girls toys shift from dolls to nerf guns, they stay bright, pink, and sparkly,
reinforcing the idea that girls need to be “pretty and pink”. We talked about how it is socially acceptable
for girls to play with “guys toys” such as nerf guns and videogames than it is for guys to play with
“girls toys” such as dolls. This gives of the impression that being feminine is bad. We talked about how
parents and toy companies should give more options for children to play with. More colors and things
like that, this would give children the ability to choose what they wanted to play with, meaning a guy
could choose to play with a doll or a nerf gun. Not to say that a guy playing with a “masculine” toy is
bad but to not force them to choose that. Interactionist theory states that actions have very symbolic
meanings and that the meanings of certain actions may vary. When related to this it shows about how
actions, such as a boy choosing to play with a doll currently would be seen as a weirder/worse child than
a boy playing with a nerf gun. Hopefully the action of a boy choosing to play with a doll will have a
different symbolic meaning, not be seen as something bad.

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