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The gender division in the world of toys

Coordinating Professor: Sylvie Hauser-Borel

Student: Anca-Elena Budu

Abstract

Nowadays, the adult world is moving closer and closer to gender equality. Besides the freedom of speech

and expression that LGBT are winning every year, one can sense that the difference between the two genders is

diminishing, according to their position within the society, the working environment, their rights or their purpose.

One living example of the line between men and women becoming thinner and thinner is the fact that American

retailing shops have removed gender-based labeling from several departments, especially from those dedicated to

children1. However, even though departments are becoming unisex, children items, especially toys, are becoming

more and more divided by gender. Therefore, I started wondering if there is any basis on which toys are gender

divided and engaged in conducting a research.

1. Boys and girls do prefer different toys

When I first started this research, I was thinking that I was going to discover that male and female

children have more similar brains and that this entire toy gender division is only a marketing tool used by

corporations in their attempt to target every products to a particular segment of buyers. However, it seems

that the predisposition to choose a boy or girl toy is biologically determined.

In a research on this subject, conducted on baby vervet monkeys, the two authors started from the

documented hypothesis that biological factors during early development (e.g., levels of androgens) are

influential2 in the sex differences in childrens toys preferences. What they discovered when offering girl

and boy defined toys to the subjects is that female monkeys tended to prefer dolls and male monkeys, to a

slightly lesser degree, tended to prefer trucks, even though they were not aware of the gender symbolic

choice they were making. Another research, made on Kanyawara chimpanzees, conducted by Richard

Wrangham, biological anthropologist at Harvard University, and Sonya Kahlenberg, biologist at Bates

College in Maine, has shown that young females of the [...] community in Kibale National

Park, Uganda, use sticks as rudimentary dolls and care for them like the group's mother chimps tend to

1 http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/08/09/target-remove-gender-based-labeling/31375863/

(last accessed 6/09/2015) 2 Gerianne M. Alexander, Melissa Hines Sex differences in response to childrens toys in nonhuman primates. in

the Official Journal of Human Behavior and Evolution Society, November, 2002, available online at

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(02)00107-1/fulltext (last accessed - 6/09/2015)

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their real offspring. The behavior, which was very rarely observed in males, has been witnessed more

than a hundred times over 14 years of study.3

These two findings and, probably, more researches like these, made on nonhuman subjects, prove

that gender divisions in choosing toys are natural, biological, but we shall ask ourselves why. The answer

might be related to the results of a research published in 2002 in Infant Behavior & Development, which

reveals that attention in males is drawn more to mechanical motion, whilst attention in females is drawn

more to biological motion. These findings are discussed in relation to social and biological determinism.4

Thus, a boy will be attracted by a video of moving cars, while a girl will be more attracted by videos of

moving faces.

2. The way toys are assigned by gender

We found out that man and women brains are different and that the predisposition for choosing

one gender determined toy or another is biologically influenced. However, as we will see further on, the

way the toy industry assigns boy and girl toys has nothing to do with these scientifically proven

differences.

According to a study published in Sex roles, made on over 100 toys, the two researchers found

out that girls' toys were associated with physical attractiveness, nurturance, and domestic skill, whereas

boys' toys were rated as violent, competitive, exciting, and somewhat dangerous. The toys rated as most

likely to be educational and to develop children's physical, cognitive, artistic, and other skills were

typically rated as neutral or moderately masculine5. Therefore, we can see that toys encourage indeed

one certain stereotype of masculine and feminine behavior, but they are certainly not assigned on genders

according to what scientific research has proved that children brains prefer. For example, at the 2015 Toy

Fair held in New York, the `Boy Toy of the Year` was appointed a robot dinosaur that responds to vocal

and motion stimuli, while the `Girl Toy of the Year` was a doll checkout counter, with a functional

register6. This assignment is totally opposite to what the previous research cited in this paper has shown

the boys have received a replica of an animal, while the girls have received a toy based on mechanical

3 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/101220-chimpanzees-play-nature-nurture-science-animals-

evolution/ (last accessed 6/09/2015) 4 Svetlana Lutchmaya, Simon Baron-Cohen, Human sex differences in social and non-social looking preferences,

at 12 months of age, published in Infant Behavior & Development, no. 25, pp. 319-325, available online at http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222401837_Human_sex_differences_in_social_and_non-

social_looking_preferences_at_12_months_of_age (last accessed - 6/09/2015) 5 Judith E. Balkemore, Renee E. Centers, Characteristics of Boys and Girls Toys, published in Sex Roles, vol.

53, issue 9-10, pp. 619-633, 2005, available online at http://opus.ipfw.edu/psych_facpubs/9/ (last accessed 6/09/2015) 6 http://geekdad.com/2015/02/2015-toty-awards/ (last accessed 6/09/2015)

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motion. We can see, thus, through this example and many others, that the gender assignment is made on

purely arbitrary basis.

3. The business-related advantages of arbitrarily appointing toys for boys and girls

As we have found out before, toys are not assigned according to the boy and girl brain needs or

preferences, but, rather, on gender stereotypes. According to Elisabeth Sweet from the University of

California, who has conducted a study on how different gender toys have evolved in time, the present

time is governed by market segmentations: stores are divided in pink and blue departments, dedicated to

girls and boys. If marketers know exactly where each child will go in a store, it is rather simple to control

what toys they will see and, thus, want. An example of Sweets research is the Lego Group brand who,

after two decades of marketing almost exclusively to boys, introduced the new Friends line for girls

after extensive market research convinced the company that boys and girls have distinctive, sex-

differentiated play needs. Critics pointed out that the girls sets are more about beauty, domesticity and

nurturing than building undermining the creative, constructive value that parents and children alike

place in the toys. Nevertheless, Lego has claimed victory, stating that the line has been twice as successful

as the company anticipated.7

But how is it possible, if it has been scientifically proven that, according to the gender, brain

biologically prefers a certain type of motion and, extensively, a certain type of toys, for boys and girls to

want these appointed toys, even if they do not have much to do with the natural determinism? According

to Greg Carpenter, Marketing professor at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management,

most of our preferences are learned and largely formed by social norms and expectations that producers

have a strong hand in shaping. Moreover, such preferences are anything but fixed, susceptible to changes

in technology, culture, fads and the business strategies of companies competing in the marketplace.8

Therefore, the more divided market segments are, the more easily producers can sell certain items to one

particular segment.

4. Children cannot avoid being exposed to toy gender division

Usually, admitting that this radical division between toys, based rather on societal gender

stereotypes, rather than on real, biological choices or needs, parents try to protect their children from

sexist marketing, with solutions like parental locks on televisions and internet, controlling their schedule

and friends etc.

7 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opinion/sunday/gender-based-toy-marketing-returns.html?_r=2 (last accessed

6/09/2015) 8 http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-we-live-with-the-dreaded-thick-chowder-and-other-

inferior-products/2011/07/25/gIQACqmWhI_story_1.html (last accessed - 6/09/2015)

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However, even if protected against social gender division by their parents, children are very

aware of the importance placed on the social category of gender, and highly motivated to discover what is

for boys and what is for girls. Socialization isnt just imposed by others; a child actively self-

socializes. Once a child realizes (at about 2 to 3 years of age) on which side of the great gender divide

they belong, the well-known dynamics of norms, in-group preference and out-group prejudice kick-in.9

Therefore, children, once they find out and understand their gender and its characteristics, try to settle and

comply with the position society assigns them.

One might wonder why children are so worried about how they act. According to a 2014 article in

The Guardian, which presents more attempts made by parents and researchers in explaining and

diminishing this gender gap, children understand the intangible parts of their gender before they

understand the concrete parts. They see what is characteristic to each gender, in terms of form, and, in the

surface, reject the other genders features as being inappropriate. Boys are especially stigmatised for

crossing the gender aisle in toys and clothes a fact that seems to arise from a deep misogyny,

homophobia and transphobia: a suspicion of any boy who embraces femininity, which is considered

synonymous with weakness and subordination.10 The gender division among the world of children

makes them understand their identity in a much delimited way and grows their fear of belonging to the

other group, as something unnatural.

Conclusions

We are living in a world where adult gender equality is coming closer and closer to reality every

day. However, the children of today are living in a more sexist world than any other age group and than

children in any age of the history have ever lived11

, especially as, when being a child, curiosity becomes

a predisposition to absorbing everything. The big question is how will these children perceive gender

equality when they will grow up?

The perception modeled by todays gender toy division teaches girls that a very specific type of

beauty and activities are the most important part of being a women, as boys are thought that being violent

represents a fundamental feature of being a man. Moreover, none of the genders would cross each others

boundaries, as they are thought that such a step would make changes occur within their personality.

9 https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25306-biology-doesnt-justify-gender-divide-for-toys/ (last accessed

6/09/2015) 10

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/22/gendered-toys-stereotypes-boy-girl-segregation-equality

(last accessed - 6/09/2015) 11

For example. according to fashion historian Jo B. Paoletti, in the Victorian Era, there was no attempt in pointing

out the gender of a child, as both baby girls and boys were dressed in white dresses (http://www.scoop.it/t/pink-and-

blue - last accessed - 6/09/2015)

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Therefore, a frugal observation I made during this research is that, while the LGBT and the

feminist groups are making serious progress in the equality in rights and freedom in the adult world, the

world of children is being modeled in a certain scheme of what women and men should be like. It seems

to me that the gender question is going in a circle, a circle driven rather by stereotypes and hate than by

love, acceptance and respect. I cannot help myself asking, without finding a real answer, but only a

pessimistic imaginary picture, how the male and female world will look like in 100 years from now.

Bibliography

1. Usa Today Journal (available online at www.usatoday.com);

2. Gerianne M. Alexander, Melissa Hines Sex differences in response to childrens toys in nonhuman

primates. in the Official Journal of Human Behavior and Evolution Society, November, 2002 (available

online at http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(02)00107-1/fulltext)

3. National Geographic Magazine (available online at news.nationalgeographic.com)

4. Svetlana Lutchmaya, Simon Baron-Cohen, Human sex differences in social and non-social looking

preferences, at 12 months of age, published in Infant Behavior & Development, no. 25, pp. 319-325

(available online at http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222401837_Human_sex_differences_in_social_and_non-

social_looking_preferences_at_12_months_of_age)

5. The New York Times Journal (available online at www.nytimes.com)

6. The Washington Post Journal (available online at www.washingtonpost.com)

7. The New Scientist Journal (available online at www.newscientist.com)

8. The Guardian Journal (available online at www.theguardian.com)