It only takes a trip to a toy shop to find out immediately how the world perceives the role of children - boys are adventurous, creative and have available to them an array of toys and games requiring intellectual involvement, when girls continue to be given the role of the house wife.
Today at Bien Magazine we will address the important issue - how and to what extent are toys harming girls, teaching them stereotypical roles and behaviours? Or perhaps it is not important what the child is playing with, but in what environment they grow and what behaviour adults show them.
Buy your daughter toys
Girls from the very beginning are shown where their place is, they are thaught to know their role – to became future housewives (working or not working). Look with the critical hat on, at the toys designed for girls - dolls, cots, doll houses, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, cookers, irons and more. And in addition, sets of plastic cosmetics and jewelery that you can apply yourself. Of course, everything in the aggressive, pink-violet-blue colours. Girls learn to be helpful and attractive. The question remains – can they not do anything better than this?!
Toys and upbringing
Psychologists point out that by the use of ceratin toys, the stereotypically attributed gender roles are already well established in the child's mind. Of course, the toys themselves are not guilty of the problem. The issue is with the upbringing of the child and the environment in which they grow in. The young girl knowing that her mom is at home ironing and that her dad will never be happy to take on that role, especially using a small pink iron out of the box portraying another girl looking happy, staring at the piles of laundry, unconsciously builds a stereotype.
Toy manufacturers promote fashion
Psychologists are wondering that the type of toys we have is a reflection of social beliefs. The apparently feminine, and in fact the caricatures of the Bratz or Barbie dolls are actually a manifestation of the growing body of worship (if a woman was built like that she would not be able to!). It turns out that modern society (this trend has been observed since the 80s of the 20th century) required the dolls to look much nicer than their predecessors. The dolls are to be taller, slimmer, sexier and clothed in roses and violet because that is how the world portrays an ideal woman.
And if this is not bad enough - even teddy bears are getting slimmer and have a coquettish look, and, of course, have big, round eyes.
Do girls prefer pink?
In the 80s of the twentieth century, there was a tendency to express the distinctive difference in the colours of toys - pink for girls, blues and other colours for boys. An example of this may be the famous LEGO bricks - they were once neutral in colour, no matter what gender they were intended for. Today - girls are offered sets of pink and pastel blocks.
It turns out, what has long been described by the researchers, that the colour division (pink for girls, blue for boy) helps the child to identify their own sex more quickly. However, if this colour separation had too much emphasis placed on it, it is possible to build in the child the feeling that there is space in the world "exclusively for females" or "exclusively for males" - and that in the future may lead to great problems with the agreement with the opposite sex.
Author: Bien Magazine
Photos: DepositPhotos
