After our discussion of gender roles in class the other day, I began to think about where these gender roles start to make their appereance and when kids start to accept them. I think it all begins with what parents instil in their kids at a young age, specifically the types of toys they buy for their kids to play with. By purchasing toys that are geared towards one specific gender such as Barbies or Nerf guns, parents are showing their children who they should be and what they should like.
In an article titled "Guys and Dolls No More?" about gender-based toy marketing the author says that more and more toys have become gender-specific. Nowadays it is very hard to find a toy in a magazine that isn't geared to a specific gender. Parents buy these gender-specific toys because they don't want their child to be different; if all the other little girls like Barbies, they think their daughter should like Barbies too so she has something in common with the other girls. Interstingly, parents are less likely to buy their son "girl toys" than they are to buy their daughter "boy toys". They want their son to appear more manly and not to cross over into the "pink zone" possibly to avoid harassment for seeming gay. Parents think they are doing their child good by buying them toys that will keep them "within the lines", but really they are just adding to the inequalities between men and women. It makes it harder and harder to cross this "line" because children experience more peer pressure to play with the toys that are specific to their gender. I think that having gender-specific toys is a step backwards in terms of equality between men and women.
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