Toys making the difference

From: Rachel

I chose to take photographs of a local toy store. In this photo, I captured both sides of the toy store. They section the store off with girl’s stuff on one side and boy stuff on the other. I decided to take two different photos to show a more extreme divide between the two genders. I started at a certain point down the aisle. I did this to show the more stereotypical boy and girl’s toys. The divide between the toys starts a division of genders at an early age. Boys and girls are taught at an early age on what to like and what not to like. They have television, toy stores, and parents showing them what toys they should or should not like. The different toys on each side had different careers for that particular gender. The girls stuff included princess dress up, overly exaggerated Barbie dolls, and babies to take care of. Some of the Barbies could be dressed up as hairstylist, singers, actresses, or just princesses. Most of these jobs do not pay very well. These jobs tend to be associated with women.  When you first walk down the middle, on the girl’s side, it starts with Brat dolls. The Brat dolls are big headed, big breasted and with tiny waists. On the boy’s side, there were hero-action figure, wrestling figures, and tool kits. Those toys simulated jobs like the military or construction. Those jobs are known as “manly” jobs whom men usually possess. The dolls are actually called action figures. Just like girl’s dolls, action figures are exaggerated. They are bigger, more muscular, and have a lot of weapons. The exaggerations have increased in the recent years. The toys shape the young children on how they should act, and what their future jobs should be. Toys in our society manipulate how children act in the future.