From: Allie
The reason why I took a picture of a children's toys is because it shows that even at an early age boys and girls are expected to meet specific guidelines and roles. It is clear what toys are boys' toys and what toys are girls' toys. The majority of the girls' toys are pink, purple decorated with frilly lace, flowers and hearts. The boys' are mainly blue, green, black, with solid or army patterns. The girls' toys consist mostly of Barbies, dolls, and cute little animals. The boys'are mainly Nerf guns, dinosaurs, and knights armor. The boys' toys contain things that represent violence, and masculinity. The knight's armor signifies that boys should be the protector. The girls' toys show how girls are expected to dress, and even set them up to practice motherhood with the baby dolls. By the toys being separated and not all mixed together inside of the toy chest, it symbolizes that children are expected to either act like a girl or a boy, there is no in-between. I put the boys' toys above the girls' toys because I think in our society we have a higher expectation of the way little boys should act. In other words, a boy who tends to like girly things is more likely to be looked down on rather then a girl who likes boyish things. This picture shows that children's toys have a huge influence over what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society.
4 comments:
I thought this picture was interesting because it shows such a vast difference between what our society considers the appropriate toys that boys and girls should play with. In the picture there are two arrangements of toys that can be best described as "War" and "Over Pinkafication". The "boy" pile is loaded with everything he would need to take on an army in any time period or galaxy to include lightsabers and an attack Dinosaur to ride in to battle.
Sadly, the girl army never stood a chance...
The "girl" pile consist of way too much pink. From pink flesh on the babies to their pink outfits on 3 out of the 4 girls figurines to the jeep being pink. Even their faithful steed was pink! How do these girls intend to defend themselves while they are busy nursing those babies, removing the radiation from their pony friend or finding the top half of the chainmail armor for the only moderately prepared for battle one amongst them?
Truthfully, the toy industry does a horrible disservice to our society by influencing boys and girls into their gender roles. Simply changing the color of the girl pile of toys could have made the selection of toys more appealing to the boys to play with. If the helmet had a hole cut out of the back it would be much more ponytail friendly for the girl. The huge difference in the toys not only shapes the images of the boy or the girl within themselves, but it also encourages seperation. These sets of toys aren't interchangable and discourage boys and girls from playing together.
I think this is a picture that defintally represent that gender socialization starts at a very young age. Anyone who looks at this picture would be able to tell what the boys toys were and what the girls toys were. The boys have more agreesive toys like the dinasour and the girls have the more girly toys the dolls.
Today people could see this picture in many different ways, such as popular toys for children, or what they are suppose to play with. there are childrens paprents that let there daughters play with boys toys and vs. versa.
Toys influence the way that children play. Boys have more destructive toys so they tend to play more aggresively. Girls are more sensitive because they tend to play with more dainty toys. The types of toys children have could potentially effect how they act.
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