Search results for gender toys

Welcome to Christmas 2008!

Rose McM. sent us this great example of rigidly gender-coded toys from the Sears Wish Catalog (click to enlarge):

NEW! (Jan. ’10): Sarah O. snapped this photo of toys that teach girls they should cook and care for babies, while boys can build things and be doctors:

See also these posts on the Rose Petal Cottage and Tonka Trucks (“built for boyhood!”).

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Multicult Classics posted these two Spanish-language Fruit of the Loom ads.  They are an extra nice example of the way that color is used to communicate gender:

Text: “Your world, now much more feminine.”

See also this post of kids with their stuff, these pictures of the Toys ‘R Us aisles, these breast cancer PSAs, and these guns marketed to women.

It’s obvious to us, today, that pink is for girls.  But it wasn’t until about the 1950s that our current gendered color scheme became widely accepted.  Before that, the colors were reversed.  In this excerpt for a vintage advice column (found here), we learn that:

“…the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl.  The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate and dainty is prettier for the girl.”

Kirsten D. sent us this link to a series of Playmobil families.  She notes how the families are all racially marked (using racial categories like “Asian” and “African” instead of nationality categories like “Japanese” and “Somalian”).  The “Mediterranean/Hispanic” category also points to the social construction of race and the way in which social construction varies across cultures (Playmobil are made in Germany).

They families are also racially homogeneous.  In the world of Playmobil (at least how it is sold, though not necessarily how it is played with) there are no interracial families and, therefore, no bi- or multi-racial people.  In this way the toys reify racial categories and naturalize racial matching in relationships.

African/African American Family:

Mediterranean/Hispanic Family:

Asian Family:

Native American Family:

Notice also that all of the families are in contemporary clothes except for the Native American family.  Ethnicized groups are often represented in “native” costume, but this is especially true for American Indians (at least in the U.S.).  It is as if, in the popular imagination, American Indians are extinct; as if there are no American Indians alive today walking around in Nikes (there are).

So, in the world of Playmobil, American Indians are, like Romans, a historical artifact:

Also, because it warrants pointing out, all the female and male children all have gender stereotypical toys.

The presence of lead paint on toys made in China this year brought the threat of lead poisoning to the forefront of the American mind. Parents, pundits, and politicians called on the U.S. government to DO SOMETHING. But lead poisoning was a problem for low-income families long before the China toy scandal and there was little to no outcry in the popular press.

Lead poisoning in children can increase the risk of cognitive delay, hyperactivity, and antisocial behavior. Many older homes and apartments available for rental in low-income neighborhoods still have lead paint and ingesting paint dust and paint chips is the most common way to get lead poisoning. Blood tests show that children living in poverty show much higher exposure to lead than other children.

According to William Ryan, if you are a landlord, renting out a residence with lead paint without making tenants aware of it is a crime. But, instead of enforcing compliance among landlords, the most common response to the threat of lead poisoning has been to warn mothers. Here is a representative poster:

Ryan writes that, while lead poisoning is often described as a problem involving negligent or ignorant mothers, it:

…is more accurately analyzed as the result of a systematic program of lawbreaking by one interest group in the community [landlords], with the toleration and encouragement of the public authority charged with enforcing that law.

So as long as the threat of lead poisoning was more-or-less restricted to the poor in the U.S., it was considered the problem of individuals (mothers) and the state refrained from doing much more than promoting individual responsibility. But, as soon as the lead poisoning threat affected middle class children through the toys from China, state intervention seemed appropriate.

Ryan again:

To ignore these continued and repeated law violations [by landlords who rent residences with lead paint], to ignore the fact that the supposed law enforcer actually cooperates in lawbreaking [by ignoring landlord infractions], and then to load a burden of guilt on the mother of a dead or dangerously ill child is an egregious distortion of reality. And to do so under the guise of public-spirited and humanitarian service to the community is intolerable.

CITATION: Ryan, William. 1998. Blaming the Victim. In Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. See also his book.

In her book Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School, Barrie Thorne looks at how children play an active role in socializing themselves and one another. It’s an interesting insight because we often portray children as these passive, empty vessels who are acted upon by adults, the media, and so on, but who play no role in defining or interpreting the world around them (sometimes in ways that are much more rigid and cruel than what adults do).

An example of this is the way that kids often play with toys in ways that aren’t, um, intended by the manufacturers or parents. I mean, Barbie may represent a certain type of femininity, and kids may receive that message and be affected by it…but they often also make Barbie have an awful lot of casual sex, have superpowers, or become horribly deformed after being mutilated (my cousins and I played a game where we tried different ways of popping Barbie’s head off). My point is simply that kids aren’t just passive recipients of a set of messages about the world and, thus, that we can’t always assume that because a toy is “supposed” to reflect a certain cultural ideal that kids are always unambiguously getting that message.

Elizabeth Z. sent in a good example of this when she describes how her daughter plays with some Playmobil figures. Here is a picture of the Silver Knight:

A description from a website selling the figure:

The Playmobil Silver Knight is a perfect addition to your world of Playmobil Toys. He is as strong and valiant as knights come! Riding a black horse and carrying his flag of honor, the Playmobil Silver Knight is ready to take on any battles and enemies that get in his way – and of course he’ll be successful! The Playmobil Silver Knight set includes a knight dressed in silver/purple armor, a black horse in black/purple riding gear, shield, and battle flag.

While this company has very clearly gendered this figurine, on the Playmobil website, the gender is not given–it’s just “Silver Knight.”

Now, my guess is that a lot of parents buying this toy are going to interpret it as a male knight for the simple reason that, you know, knights are guys. The princesses they save are girls. I have no idea what Playmobil intended–if this is supposed to be a gender-ambiguous figure that could be male or female or not (Elizabeth points out the hair is long, and thus “feminine,” by our standards but would have been pretty clearly an acceptable hairstyle for men in medieval times).

But regardless of what Playmobil “means” this toy to be (that is, whether or not they manufactured it to be gender-neutral), kids such as Elizabeth’s daughter are going to do their own interpreting:

I noticed that my daughter’s micro castle world…had two knights, and she called them the boy and the girl. They didn’t to my eye appear to be a boy and a girl — the “girl” had hair in a cut that’s called a “pageboy” for a reason, you know — but I could see why she thought of that way…my [daughter] has an answer she’s happy with to the question about where the princess is; not captive, not sitting at home in a dress, but riding on a horse with a big sword. That works for her.

When we’re talking about kids, toys, and socialization, we should keep in mind that kids can be awfully creative and smart and might not be seeing things the way us adults do.

Thanks, Elizabeth!

As you may recall, we’re now occasionally adding to previous posts instead of creating new ones. Below is a list of our newly enriched posts for your perusal.  Look for the bold, red “NEW.”

But first!

Ongoings that have been going on at Sociological Images:

Out of gratitude for your support, I put together a new page in which we link back to those of you who are linking to us.  Please feel free to peruse those of us who find us link-worthy and, if you link to us and don’t find yourself on our list, please send an email to socimages@thesocietypages.org.

I was honored that Racialicious asked to republish my post on the anti-female genital cutting ads.  I mention it here because it’s worth a look to see how differently my commentary was received on this versus that blog.  It might make for an interesting discussion about audience and positionality.

You might like to know that Sociological Images was “news” in Iceland!  Our post of an Icelandic cartoon featuring Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton caused quite the stir in the comments thread (a fascinating sociological phenomenon in its own right) and an Icelandic newspaper thought it worthy of coverage and commentary.  (FYI: We personally think “news” is overstating our relevance to current events… but who are we to judge!) 

And now!

Our enriched posts:

For context, we added a Wonder Woman comic book cover in which she claims to be “helpless” and uses her sexuality as a weapon to our post of a satirical Wonder Woman comic strip.  Thanks to Brady for the link!

It turns out the pseudo-feminist rescuing of women from the drugeries of housework without actually allowing them to opt out isn’t anything new.

Toph sent us a second Canadian Club ad that we added to this post illustrating hegemonic masculinity.  The second ad is useful for demonstrating the sexual double standard.

To our post about the way in which women were made to personify STDs during World War II, we added another poster, a matchbook, and a fascinating pamphlet that was passed out to soldiers. The pamphlet features “Gonnie” and “Syph,” two “gals” who “travel around arm-in-arm with ‘easy’ women.” All were submitted by Marc.  Yay!

If you enjoy our posts about the social construction of girlhood, you’ll enjoy the two T-shirts we added to this post that have sayings that depict little girls as future spoiled divas (scroll down). Sent in by aa bb. Thanks!

Craig T. sent in a Nestle Quick ad that we added to our post on “subliminal” sex in advertising (scroll down a ways). Thanks Craig!

We added a second example to this post about the way in which “scoring” with women is equated with success at sports.

A recent PETA protest included women in bikinis posed as “chicks” in cages. We added the image to our post about the way in which PETA sacrifies the humanity of women and men in order to save animals. Is it too strong to say that PETA “sacrifies the humanity” of men and women? I’m not sure. Isn’t that what objectification is? And what does it mean when they dress women up as animals and put them in cages? It’s your call. Visit the post (scroll about halfway down). Found thanks to Feministing.

Meghan B. sent us another Svedka fembot ad. This one calls for us to “support socialized plastic surgery” and features a grossly disproportionate “robot” version of an idealized female body.

If you “enjoy” Axe ads, check out our newest one here, sent it by Krystal-Lynn M.

To this post about the use of spread legs as a repetitive design motif, we added this very different image of Michelle Obama as seen through Barack Obama’s legs… a very interesting comparison!

We added a second commercial in the Carl’s Jr. it’s-hot-to-be-covered-in-condiments theme to the x-rated Paris Hilton one. This one involves eating a hamburger while on a mechanical bull. Sexily, of course.

As if we didn’t have enough on the conflation of hot women with hot food, we added a commercial for Pot Noodle in which the woman literally becomes noodles to one of our posts on the sexualization of food. We also added a coffee ad from the Netherlands to this post about gender and food (you gotta scroll way down for that one). Thanks to Penny for that last one!

We added three more ads to this post about gender and “meanness” in car ads. They are useful for illustrating, as Gwen points out, “that advertisers have many different motifs and meanings to draw from when creating marketing strategies, and that the ones they pick are just that–CHOICES among many, many different ways you could advertise a product, none of which are necessarily more ‘obvious’ or ‘natural’ than others.”

To see where Sociological Images and its authors are appearing around the internet and in print, visit our list of Interviews (podcasts, radio, and print), Reviews, Essays and Posts published elsewhere, and instances in which we’ve been Quoted (in news articles, industry pages, etc.).

INTERVIEWS:

• Wisconsin Public Radio, At Issue with Ben Merens, on gender and toys (listen)
• NPR’s Morning Edition, on gender policing and the Bic “Pens for Her” (listen)
• Sounds Familiar, Sex, Death, and Morals in Horror (listen)
• KPCC‘s AirTalk, on “gender profiling” men in children’s spaces (listen)
• Bitch, On Advertising (transcript)
• Contexts, Lisa Wade and Gwen Sharp on Public Sociology (listen)
• Change Marketing, Five Pointed Questions
• CKNW‘s Bill Good Show, on gender and children’s toys
• CKNW‘s Bill Good Show, on the sexualization of young girls
• Contexts, About Sociological Images
• WEOL am 930, Les in the Morning, on Disparate Pricing of White and Black Dolls

REVIEWS:

• Sociological Images: “Will You Marry Me?” by Peggy Orenstein (plus a Twitter mini review!)
• Visual Studies, thanks to Karen McCormack
• Teaching Sociology, thanks to David Mayeda
• Shinpai Deshau, thanks to Leah Zoller
• Bitch, thanks to the staff

ESSAYS AND POSTS AT:

APPEARANCES IN ONLINE AND PRINT MEDIA

• Huffington Post, Victorian Breastfeeding Photo Fad: Shifting Discourses of Motherhood
• The Daily Mail, Bizarre Pictures Reveal the Unlikely Trend for Photographs of Breastfeeding Mothers in Victorian-Era America
• Huffington Post, Occidental Faculty “No Confidence” Vote Rebukes Administrators for Handling of Sexual Assaults
• VitaminW, Occidental Faculty Stands Up for Victims of Sexual Assault
• BoingBoing, Why the Majority of People Now Favor Marriage Equality
• Bitch, How Not to Handle a College Sexual Assault
• Minnesota Public Radio, Nature vs.  Nurture Continued, Throwing “Like a Girl”
• BBC, The Re-Birth of an Icon: She Can Do It
• Ad Age, In a Culture of Mass Shootings, the Ad Industry Shares the Blame
• Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish, Profiting Off Prisoners, Ctd
• BoingBoing, Girls’ Crappy Fake Toy Laptop is Pink, and Half as Powerful as Boys’ Crappy Fake Toy Laptop
• USA Today, Halloween Costumes and Defining the Line Between Playful, Offensive
• Huffington Post Parents, Girls’ Halloween Costumes Then and Now: The Evolution from Silly to Sexy
• Business Insider, This is What an Oil Boom Town Looks Like After it’s Gone Bust
• The Daily Beast/Andrew Sullivan, “There are Producers and Parasites,” Ctd
• The Daily Beast/Andrew Sullivan, The Gender Revolution for Boys
• The Daily Beast/Andrew Sullivan, The Creation of Color
• DisInformation, The Real Threat Posed by Counterfeit Goods
• Huffington Post, Women Deserve Spankings According to Old “Daily Mirror” News Clipping
• BoingBoing, Mitt Romney Doesn’t Know How Venn Diagrams Work
• Jezebel, More Than Half the Country Has “No Doubt” That God is Real
• Kansas City Star, Across Pop Culture, It’s the Summer of Lust by Women
• HuffPost Parents, LEGO Gender Gap: Sociological Images Blog Maps Toy Company’s Gender Marketing Through History
• BoingBoing, History of Gendering in Lego
• Neatorama, The Lego Gender Gap
• Rue69 (French), Je Suis « Nénés », Celui Dont on Riait à l’École Parce Qu’il Avait des Seins
• Multicultural Familia, “Biracial is Bad”: How KRAFT’s MilkBites Campaign Perpetuates Stereotypes & White Supremacy
• Business Insider, Three Decades of Thin: How the Fashion Industry Promotes Anorexia
• PhD in Parenting, From Toddlers and Tiaras to Sext Up Kids: A Dangerous Path
• i09, Doctors Say Fat People Can Live as Long as Thin Ones
• Phoenix New Times, Is Disney’s Princess Candy Packaging Insensitive?
• The Week, Disney’s Black Princess Selling Watermelon Candy, Racist?
• The Daily Meal, Disney Places First Black Princess on Watermelon Candy Packet
• BoingBoing, Bill O’Reilly Flunks Middle-School Math While Defending Fox’s Sleazy Hack Job on the Netherlands
• NPR: The Picture Show, A Lens on Life in the Kentucky Hollows
• The Mary Sue, Legos for Girls: A Reprise
• Her Circle, Becoming a Wife
• Babble, OMG: 2-Year-Old Baby Freestyling. Yes!
• CNN’s Geek Out, Nerds and Hipsters: The Ying and Yang of American Subcultures
• Inside Higher Ed, Sociologists in Sin City
• Feministing, Lisa Wade on the Real Problem with Hooking Up in College
• About, The Role of Race in the Arnold Schwartzenegger Love Child Scandal
• Newsy, Australian Supermodel with a Twist
• Huffington Post, Dove Ad Casts Spotlight on Madison Avenue Racism
• The Globe and Mail, Why These Car Ads Insult the “Used” Woman, not the Man
• Chicago Tribune, Abercrombie Retreats on Push-Up Bikini for Girls
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Abercrombie and Fitch Re-Thinks Marketing Provocative Bikini Tops to Tweens
• Columbus Dispatch, Abercrombie’s Padded Bikini for PreTeens Stirs Up Fuss
• ABC News, Born This Way: Childhood Photos of Gay Adults
• American Prospect, Rep. Giffords Has a Husband!
• American Prospect, What Color Was That Again?
• CNN, Disney’s ‘Princess’ is a Hop Toward Progress
• Psychology Today, Imagine all the Singlism: Prejudice in Pictures
• ABC News, Black Barbie Sold for Less Than White Barbie at Walmart Store
• The Telegraph, Walmart Under Fire for Selling Black Barbies at Half Price of White Barbies
• The Guardian, Just Don’t Say the A-Word
• San Francisco Chronicle, Monkey Business: Defenders of Controversial Chimp Cartoon Walk Familiar, if Dubious, Line
• Baltimore Sun, Eating Disorder Experts Criticize ‘Anna Rexia’ Costume
• Rue89, translated our post Go Where? Gender, Sex, and Toilets into French
• Adweek, Toy Pitches Half-Baked?
• The New Naturalista, Raising Natural Daughters
• The Star, Is Vogue Italia’s Oil-Themed Fashion Shoot Slick or Crude?
• Women’s eNews, What Sex Is Your Crossing Light? Check the Mural
• Demo Dirt, Not a Sex Kitten, Yet Not a Cougar