Language and Communication

Gendered Toys

Walk into any home with toddlers, and you will no doubt be able to tell whether the child is a boy or a girl by a quick peek into the playroom. Trucks, trains, planes, and baseballs will scream boy; while a room full of pink and frilly dolls and stuffed animals have little girl written all over it. Interestingly, toys have become as gender specific as clothes, and many parents are uncomfortable when their little boy chooses a doll over a truck or their little girl opts for cowboys over princesses. The truth is that it doesn’t matter, and the reality of gender specific programming is not something a toddler knows; it is something that is learned from the parents.

Newborn boys and girls, untouched by the forces of gender socialization, supposedly show stereotypical preferences for looking at hanging mobiles versus faces, respectively. And, we are told, girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, who are exposed to unusually high levels of testosterone in the womb, prefer "boy toys."

Moreover, developmental psychologists have found that 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 isn't 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 he or she belongs, the well-known dynamics of norms, in-group preference, and out-group prejudice kick-in.

Gendered toy and book marketing doesn't create gender stereotypes, roles, and norms, but it does reinforce them. It may be profitable to corporations, but there is a social cost—and science offers no moral comfort that there is a biological justification.