Yet society, or at least the toy manufacturers and suppliers, are doing nothing to facilitate this. Rather, it appears that differentiation between the sexes is instead being pushed at every opportunity. How much of this is cynical marketing ploys, how much reflecting what parents think they should be feeling about their offspring\u2019s preferences, and how much genuine inherent differences in what small children want in their toys seems impossible to tease out. Every study that aims to demonstrate either that such in-built differences really are or are not present seems challenged as to methodology by the opposing side (see e.g Cornelia Fine\u2019s book Delusions of Gender<\/a>). \u00a0Hamley\u2019s toy shop has been the subject of dissent because of the way it segregated boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 toys, and not just by colour scheme.\u00a0 Laura Nelson<\/a> ran a very effective campaign which appears (though Hamley\u2019s deny it) to have caused a rethink in their strategy.\u00a0 The shop has moved from distinguishing toys by presumed gender-association to the much more innocuous organisation by type. Laura \u2013 who blogs as Delilah which is where<\/a> I first heard about the issues \u2013 has written up what happened in full here<\/a> and here<\/a>. This would appear to be victory for, well I would call it common-sense, but at least a neutral presentation of products.\u00a0 It also got a lot of media coverage which, one would hope, may have raised a few more people’s consciousness to the underlying issues.<\/p>\n People remain divided both on whether this matters and whether it is shocking not<\/span> to highlight gender differences. To my mind, Laura describes what is wrong with what lurks underneath so much of this extremely well in her most recent account<\/a>, so I take the liberty of quoting a paragraph of that description here:<\/p>\n The conditioning by children’s toys – and the segregation of toys in shops – is insidious. Gender stereotypes are highly influential and pervasive, and influence children’s and parents’ choices, aspirations and expectations. Instead of encouraging children to pursue activities according to their individual talents and interests, they encourage children to pursue a narrow range of activities, consistent with stereotypes we see in our society generally (women in passive, caring and homemaking roles; men in active, leading and aggressive roles). But it seems to me the fundamental point is that all options should be offered to all children in as neutral a way as possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If we are to tackle why there is a shortage of female engineers, or understand at least part of the reason why girls are so significantly in a minority in Physics A level entrants, we need to be sure that those girls with an interest in such topics are not deterred in their early years from ever contemplating these subjects by the stereotypes of the toys they are allowed to handle. If we accept that children (I won\u2019t say girls) want to play with Barbie dolls, I would at least like to see a broad range of career aspirations associated with her stylised figure, as I wrote about before<\/a>.\u00a0 It is not sufficient that an astronaut Barbie may exist, if the local shops only stock princess-look-alike versions (or hairdresser or footballer\u2019s wife: I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m not up in the latest models) with a cute pink wardrobe of cute pink clothes.<\/p>\n Alice Bell has written before<\/a> about the downside of selling sparkly \u2013 and pink – chemistry sets badged as appropriate for girls. Chemistry knows no gender when it comes to bangs and smells, and I can see no logic and certainly nothing desirable in trying to pretend \u2018girls\u2019 chemistry\u2019 is different from boys\u2019; there can only be damage for the next generation of scientists setting out to solve the problems we face. But, since Alice has already done such a good job on that particular product range, I will now turn to the latest toy story I ran into just before Christmas: Lego is about to launch a range called Lego Friends aimed, you guessed it, at the female market, the story being written up here<\/a>. These include new figurines (appropriately reshaped to appeal to what girls think they should look like) and the backdrop of a city (Heartlake City), with a salon, a horse academy (I quote, but I presume this is a riding school for UK readers), a veterinary clinic, and a caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n Now, I applaud Lego for consciously reaching out to the other 50% of the population (even if driven by the profit-motive), encouraging manual dexterity and construction skills, but I deplore the fact that they choose to produce toy ranges so clearly reinforcing stereotypes. Their marketing teams may have spotted that girls don\u2019t want to be associated with the kits they currently sell, but since these were explicitly targeted at boys that should be no surprise.\u00a0 Why cannot they revert to the more generic kits my children were brought up with? It used to be that the pirates were unisex (at least I always thought of them as such) and pink was not in evidence. Do we really need a new pastel palette for these toys, and the figurines depicted as living in a city with \u2018Heart\u2019 in the title and hearts on their shirts, working as vets. Why can\u2019t boys be vets? As I\u2019ve said before, the gender distinction imposed on career aspirations can be as damaging for the animal-mad boy as for the would-be physicist girl.<\/p>\n An example of the new range, cute and pink<\/p><\/div>\n So, as you look around at the toys the children you know have received for Christmas, can you feel comfortable that each and everyone has received something which will not implicitly cut off aspirations but will merely reinforce the stereotypes that the media ram down our throats every day? Pink in itself is not inherently bad, but its association with stereotypically ‘feminine’ aspects can become self-fulfilling. I would like to see toys (and clothes) come in a range of shades, so that each child can choose what fits with their tastes freed from the imposition of cultural values. Maybe boys would like a little pink in their world if it wasn’t negatively associated for them by grown-ups and that distaste conveyed to them.\u00a0 Conversely, by all means encourage girls who want to be vets to pursue their dreams, but don\u2019t imply that that is the only sort of choice they can make and that driving a helicopter is beyond their sweet pink little brains.\u00a0 We need a much less polarised society, and much less segregation in the way we aim to educate and enthuse the next generation. I wish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, the presents are unwrapped, the turkey (or nut roast) consumed and the levels of alcohol in the blood perhaps beginning to recede.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to regroup, to start drawing up that list of good resolutions for 2012 and to … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/files\/2011\/12\/Lego-friend.jpg\")