TOYS
I decided to go to Target and Toys R Us to observe how toys are gendered. As i suspected, there are aisles for girls and aisles for boys. The girls sections were full of bright colors, especially pink. There were a lot of dolls, stuffed animals, barbies, plastic purses with cell phones, ect. It seemed that a lot of the girls toys were designed to make them look or feel older. There was some boxes of play makeup and hair accessories, and there was also some purses that came with car keys, a cell phone, a credit card, and plastic makeup. This was kind of mentioned in the book, Pink Think, where they it was stated that female children between the ages of six and twelve, King reported, "were as eager to do the graceful thing as their older sisters or mothers." I agree with Pink Think based on some of the things I observed in the toy aisles. One thing I also noticed in the girls sections were that there was some toy household products like pretend vacumes and dusters. In Pink Think, they talked about girls wanting to be housewives, yet now days a lot of men stay home. Its kind of stereotypical for household cleaning toys to be in the girls sections. It seems to me that the girls toys promote beauty, appearance, and what they want to be when they get older.
The boys section of the toy aisles were a little different than the girls. The girls sections were filled with the color pink, and the boys section was a lot darker colors like black, green, and blue. A lot of the toys had gun and or weapons. I know when my brother was younger he had lots of toys with weapons, I just just surprised that there were still so many toys with weapons. There were also lots of trucks, cars, tools, legos, and models. I felt that the boys sections promoted destruction and violence. This was also talked about in the article, "It's a Girl Thing." Violence seems to be visible in the boys toys, yet I didn't notice any kind of violent material in the girls section.
It was interesting to walk through the toys section of stores becuase i haven't been through them in a long time. I was surprised at how graphic some of the boys toys were and how some of the barbies and bratz dolls were so provocative. It was interesting to see how different boys and girls toys really are.