Toys

Toys are still very gendered. While I believe that we have made some improvements in gendered toys, making a trip down the toy isle in Wal-Mart will show you that we have not done a lot to change the fact that toys are gendered.

            One can find that toys are gendered by just taking a look down the isles of Wal-Mart and finding that “guy” toys and “girl” toys are separated by differing isles. On one isle a person can find racecars and action figures. Down another isle, one can find dolls and kitchen toys. The isles also have differences in colors. One isle will have more “masculine” colors, like blue, and another will have more “feminine” colors, such as pink. I believe walking down the “girls” isle; I did not see one thing that did not have the color pink on it. Wal-Mart even separated the Legos. One isle would have car and knight Legos, while the other would have Legos in pink boxes that were used to make houses or kitchens. There was an obvious gender divide created by Wal-Mart in the toy isle.

            

In Wal-Mart I did see one thing that caught my eye, and that was a doll for guys. While it was something I had never seen before, it made me wonder what makes it a doll for guys? Is it because it is a male doll or the fact that the case is not pink? It was an attempt to make a non-gendered toy, but by making it a doll for boys, the manufacturer ended up gendering the doll. Why could a girl not play with this doll? Better yet, why can boys not play with the other doll?