The toy catalogues are alarming! I don't reckon there's a typo on the Amazon page, though - men's watches have bigger faces so that looks like a women's watch to me (albeit one that's unusual in clearly being a timepiece first and jewellery second). And "wine = female" is confined to the US in my experience - white wine (particularly chardonnay) and fizzy wine are seen as feminine here but wine connoisseurship is seen as very much a bloke's thing.

That's true - choosing wine in restaurants, talking about wine and having wine accessories are considered very masculine in the UK.

I don't see anything particularly masculine about that watch...

ThinkGeek is generally very gender-neutral, these "for him" or "for her" things are under the "holiday giftstation" link, so there aren't even any his/her links on the homepage.  The only clear-cut gender thing regularly on the website is the "women's shirts" under their apparel tab - although there are some gender-specific items such as "The Girl's Guide to Dating a Geek" book (why is there no boy's guide?).

The only other noteworthy gender-ification from ThinkGeek is the mother's day/father's day gift suggestions, but I can't offhand remember what those might be and I delete the newsletters they send me after I read them.

I'm not saying there's no gender stereotypes at play, just that it's something ThinkGeek tries to be good about, at least in my observations.  They fail and succeed to varying degrees, but you'd definitely never see any "I'm too pretty to do math" shirts on their site, that's for damn sure.

To be fair, after working 6 years in a library, the only people I ever see in the 940's (war) area are old men. And I've always wondered why they enjoy reading about it so much...

The Star Wars for husbands/boyfriends thing really annoys me though. I'm a woman and I've loved SW since I was 9. Also I would have definitely preferred the model train and dinosaurs over the tea party stuff when I was a kid.

"I don’t know what that is, but wine is woman-y right?"

Not really helpful, sardonic or no. Wine is not typically gendered.

Also no comment on the "teenagers want gadgets" or "kids want nerf and stuffed animals" branding?

Think geek does have a Star Wars toy under it's gifts for her section, I guess if you call yourself a geek you've inherited a stereotype that trancends gender in certain respects.

What I personally find encouraging is that they have only one toys for kids section.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/giftsforkids/

I've been getting e-mails from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de for a while now. Having analyzed them I suspect that these "Gifts for (Group X)" are auto-generated: sometimes there is nothing specific about them, the gifts for group X are just as random as those for group Y.

I'm curious about what is so objectionable to marketing to men and women differently. I'm guessing that it's because it reinforces stereotypes which are supposed to be harmful somehow? How exactly are they harmful again?

There are always exceptions, but in most of the cases cited here, the guesses about who would be more likely to buy or to want to own these objects will in fact be correct guesses. Women will be the primary consumers of dresses. Men will be the primary consumers of DVD war documentary box sets.

So... is the idea that businesses whose primary goal is to make a profit, should forgo gendered marketing strategies for a few generations so that we can someday live in a world where men and women both want to wear dresses equally and both want to own DVD war documentary box sets equally? Why is that world preferable to this world? Is the goal to make men and women completely the same? Why do we want that?

Stereotypes ARE boring. So, so played out and boring... and tiresome.

great post... looking forward to more.

Well, if your husband stuffs a brand new tool box under the tree filled with tools be sure to thank him profusely and get started fixing that leaky toilet. After you're finished with that, he's got an envelope with a honey-do list to complete.

You of course can give him a sexy teddy, which he'll wear every night. After you're done fixing all the projects he's given you, you'll have to please him whenever he's in the mood. If you don't satisfy him, he'll tell all his friends what a failure you are in the sack.

Catalogs seem especially egregious, and the holiday times probably further emphasize the divides, what with the pressures to find appropriate gifts, sometimes for people you don't know very well, like kids of friends or distant relatives.

I'm a little hopeful we might see this trend start to fade a little bit. Hasbro now has the "Brony" phenomenon to deal with, and at least one British retailer is changing things up: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/12/14/hamleys-toy-store-removes-sexist-signs-after-gender-stereotype-criticism-115875-23634658/ .

Also, her is a little girl raging against the system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-CU040Hqbas  :)

i've never been able to use a gendered gift guide to buy anything for anyone i know.  i mean, my mom will wear jewelry, but she'd rather have a book about politics.  my dad likes comic books (i guess that's becoming more common of a dad thing, but my dad is 70!)

i also always make father's day cards for my dad, because he doesn't golf, bbq, fix things around the house, or appreciate sports of any kind for any reason.

i also think if you don't know someone well enough to buy them a gift based on more than their relationship to you (girlfriend, brother, mother...) or their gender, maybe you should just buy them a gift certificate to amazon.  

You could always get your little girl a "boy's are stupid throw rocks at them" t-shirt. That'd break that nasty gender stereotype!

So neither my wife nor I have an iPad, but it's safe to say that either one of use would consider one to be a fine gift.  I'd say our enthusiasm for an ipad would be equal and as such I don't think it's a gendered gift despite the fact that gadgets in general tend to be gendered as "male" gifts.  Having said that, I notice the iCade is listed as "for him".  As an avid retro gamer I'd love to get an iCade, almost more than an ipad to be honest...but I digress, anyway, I wonder how many ladies out there want an iCade.  I've been to several retro gaming conventions and I have to say they individuals attending these are predominantly male despite the fact that when I was a kid it seemed like the arcades were populated with just as many female pac-fanatics.   It's hard for me to not consider the iCade a good gift for many of my male ipad owning friends and equally terrible gift for many of my female ipad owning friends.  Am I way off base?  Any ladies out there have an iCade on their christmas list?  In general I think that most gendered gift guides make arbitrary distinctions, seriously why can't a woman get a sweet six in one utili=key...but in the case of the iCade I think they may be onto something suggesting that it's a safer bet for a man than a woman. 

It starts when they're young. It's not surprising to see the Amazon pages with "typical" gifts for men and women when we start them in pink and blue camps as kids.
#GiftingGender

Yes,I'm totally agree with your text and I'm so inspired :)