are toy stores sexist?

[kranky]

They probably don't use this box illustration any more. "Guys fight wars, girls do dishes cheerfully." The bottom pic is a blow-up of the top right corner of the box.

 

[dank69]

Cooking and cleaning is fun to girls.

 

[JTsyo]

My 3 year old girl has no interest in Barbie but enjoys Lego's, Thomas the Train, Lighning McQueen, butterflies and PlayDough. I don't think she's a tom boy but she just doesn't dig dolls. We don't keep buying Barbies in the hope that it'll eventually "take", we just get stuff that she's expressed an interest in.

probably takes more imagination to play with barbie than cars or lego. My son is 2 and with blocks, he builds random things and wheeled toys just pushes them around. He has a stuffed Pooh and Tigger that he loves but doesn't really play with. He just puts them places and hugs them.

 

[alien42]

i used to work at Toys R Us and those Red Devil toy vacuum cleaners and Easy Bake Ovens sold like hot cakes. little girls would freak out over them like were a shiny new car.

the only question i had was it 100% natural or were they emulating their moms.

 

[corwin]

Stores do it because we (society) perpetuate it...buy them what they want to play with, just because you see it in a boys/girls section doesn't mean there's a law that you can only give them to a boy/girl.

 

[corwin]

the only question i had was it 100% natural or were they emulating their moms.

What would be the difference? Emulating their mom is natural isn't it? Boys emulate their dads...or should we be trying to force them into some gender neutral BS?

 

[HydroSqueegee]

kids grow in phases.

My nephew (now 6), wanted a pink unicorn pillow pet for Christmas last year. D:
It was his main request.

Now, only a year later, he's all "WTF is this girl's shit--Now defend yourself from a Nerf dart barrage!"

yep. it comes and goes. my 4 year old son got a La La Loopsie for christmas.

it was the pirate one at least

 

[lokiju]

I've always seen it as the general toys section and then the "traditional" girls section if someone wants like products grouped together.

Just because you don't agree or do not like it doesn't mean a lot of parents like having a spot that contains those items to simplify their search.

Clearly it works to sell the products or they'd not layout the store like that.

It's a business and it's about making money, not about feelings.

 

[swanysto]

Umm I don't know how many of you grew up with sisters, but they love to play house. My sister had kitchen stuff. It is natural for kids to want to be more grown up, and little girls want to have tea sets, kitchen sets, vacuums, cause it makes them feel like they are grown up and have their own house. We don't create fake babies that fake pee and eat cause we are pushing girls towards being subservient baby makers, we have them cause girls naturally want to have babies and take care of them, it is in their genes, probably where the phrase maternal instinct came from.

Really has nothing to do with sexism or marketing outside the fact that marketers know the above to be true. Obviously not every single girl loves playing house, but there are still quite a few girls that do.

 

[zinfamous]

They probably don't use this box illustration any more. "Guys fight wars, girls do dishes cheerfully." The bottom pic is a blow-up of the top right corner of the box.

bahahahhahahah!

 

[alien42]

What would be the difference? Emulating their mom is natural isn't it? Boys emulate their dads...or should we be trying to force them into some gender neutral BS?

relax there cujo, i posed a simple question. let me guess, you always wanted barbie dolls but your parents wouldn't buy them for you.

 

[corwin]

relax there cujo, i posed a simple question. let me guess, you always wanted barbie dolls but your parents wouldn't buy them for you.

Mine was a simple question as well, why wouldn't it be "natural" for them to emulate their mom? People nowadays are trying to say it's not "natural" for girls to do these things, they need to be "gender neutral"...your post seemed to reflect that BS

And damn you're a bad guesser...I got to play with any of my sisters toys I wanted, mostly her easy bake oven cause I got to eat yummy things

 

[MotF Bane]

My 13 year old has hated pink for years, refuses to wear anything pink. But, she's a girl, she can't stand boys right now

Don't worry. In three years, you'll get to meet her boyfriend john. He's, like, really cool. He even has a car!

.

 

[alien42]

Mine was a simple question as well, why wouldn't it be "natural" for them to emulate their mom? People nowadays are trying to say it's not "natural" for girls to do these things, they need to be "gender neutral"...your post seemed to reflect that BS

of course it is natural for girls to emulate their mothers and boys to emulate their fathers. according to you, if their mother is in construction and their father is a cook they will go for those toys accordingly.

again, my simple question was just how much is nurture and how much is nature. not sure why you translated that be "gender neutral BS".

btw, are you suggesting women working in construction wouldn't be "natural"

 

[AMDZen]

or am I just being irrational?

This

 

[JimKiler]

Loki, maybe they just know they customers and align the aisles to match the needs of customers.

 

[corwin]

of course it is natural for girls to emulate their mothers and boys to emulate their fathers. according to you, if their mother is in construction and their father is a cook they will go for those toys accordingly.

again, my simple question was just how much is nurture and how much is nature. not sure why you translated that be "gender neutral BS".

btw, are you suggesting women working in construction wouldn't be "natural"

Yep, if they did those things then it's entirely possible and completely natural that they might choose those toys and there's not a damn thing wrong with it...so you're not asking if they might be "nurturing" (pushing basically) her to do "womanly" things instead of what she really wants? Like maybe they should be more "gender neutral" in their "nurturing"? If not I misunderstood, happens all the time...for reference anytime something like this comes up I remember that couple in Europe somewhere that refuse to tell anyone the sex of their baby so it won't be "influenced" into a "gender stereotype", they want it to be "gender neutral"...which is utter horse shit.

And what field you work in has nothing to do with "natural" in any way shape or form, it may not be common but is perfectly fine with me, anybody can do whatever they are capable of doing...a woman doing construction is no different than one doing secretarial work or being a nurse

 

[DominionSeraph]

Don't worry OP, there's hope.

See? No girls' toys.

 

[xSkyDrAx]

i used to work at Toys R Us and those Red Devil toy vacuum cleaners and Easy Bake Ovens sold like hot cakes. little girls would freak out over them like were a shiny new car.

the only question i had was it 100% natural or were they emulating their moms.

I'd probably say emulating the mom. This is what kids like to do. Think about it:

Girls are probably more likely to look up to their moms. Kids will largely see their parents interacting in the home environment so they will not see their parents at work.

If a daughter sees a mom at home and the mom is say vacuuming then they probably get the impression that that's what mom likes to do. Great thing about being a kid is that before a certain age you do not have chores. When you don't have chores anything can look fun including vacuuming.

Haven't the posters with kids ever notice their kids wanting to do whatever it is that you are doing. You're hammering in a nail, they want to to try. You do laundry, they want to try. Just try getting them to do it when they're older

If your kids see you in the office I bet you they will play office too. Pretend to pick up the phone and bug each other about TPS reports.

 

[sjwaste]

What's wrong with being sexy?

 

[BladeVenom]

well they've even found gender toy preferences with chimps and stuff, so its genetic.

Yep. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19890-wild-chimps-make-their-own-dolls.html

Feminists, as usual, are completely wrong.

 

[Ryan711]

You really think Toy r us or any other huge chain hasn't poured millions of dollars into finding out how to exact the most money out of people who go inside their stores? Here's a news flash for you, the way that stores are set up isn't random, in fact, it's quite the opposite. Toys r us has pink crap and "domestic" toys because that's what little girls want. So if you want to bitch at anyone for being "sexist", talk to the little girls that are wanting it.

 

[LumbergTech]

They are about as sexist as the rest of society. That stuff is just a reflection of how society organizes itself.

I'm not criticizing your thinking, because as I have raised my daughter I have thought very carefully about how to present things to her so that she doesn't feel obligated to be one way or the other. If she wants to do the girly thing that's fine and I don't interfere, but I also push her to do some of the more traditionally masculine stuff too so that she will be a bit more rounded and not have to rely on a man for things.

 

[LumbergTech]

Yep. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19890-wild-chimps-make-their-own-dolls.html

Feminists, as usual, are completely wrong.

That article doesn't prove anything necessarily. Many men have a strong desire to take care of children as well. Nothing special to see there. The more interesting thing is that chimps share our traits.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Anyone else find it interesting that it's people with daughters that raise there children as "gender neutral" as possible but there's no such attempt at offering or encouraging feminine behavior from boys?

It's inauthentic to encourage or even fail to support the predisposition of you children's autistic selves, as seen in their heart of care. Surely we should accept a masculine girl or a feminine boy for what the're true selves are, but we should not try to make our girls more masculine because of some inauthentic other.