Children Will Continue Learning Gender Roles

Throughout my blog I have been explaining how genderized toys negatively affect children and in the past two posts how it reflects on other aspects in life. Therefore I have been trying to reach out to identify that these affects result in continuous problems for children and adults that do not recognize the toys influential gender role characteristics. When children are born they are just little body vessels that are assigned genders and are expected to grow into those traditional roles of their gender. Then parents buy their children the genderized toys that are "appropriate" for the child's assigned gender. But that is when the problem begins with gender toys, children seem forced to play a role that may or may not be suited for them and will have to figure out their true indentity as they grow into a world that is based on these gender roles.

Like this above picture shows, children are all born as similar little babies and gender roles are what forces them into the stereotypical charateristics as they grow. Wouldn't it be better to allow children to explore other characteristics so they grow up understanding that they do not have to follow these traditional roles? Such as my example in a previous blog post with the boy Dean who wanted to play with his "girly" FurReal Friend toy dog. By playing with a toy that came with pink accessories, he was able to enjoy different gender characteristics, being caring and nurturing, that boys usually do not experience with most genderized boy toys.

Going into this project I realized that it is not only the toys that influence children into traditional gender roles. Toy companies have to relate to their audience to sell more products. The easiest way to do this is with genderizing toys for specific consumers. Even with new technology, new toys are still produced for specific genders such as colorized nintendo DS's, iPad cases, and genderized app games for kids. Children are becoming exposed to newer technical toys as generations go by but they will still receive these gender role characteristics. The problem with gendered toys will continue unless we recognize that gender neutral toys are beneficial and just as fun for children. Children need us to encourage them and teach them about gender equality. Once we realize children's genderized toys are a problem for their growing minds, we can make a change to gender equality acceptance and gender neutrality.