Why is it that toy manufacturers and sellers feel the need to tell children what they should like? Me and the little kiwi currently like playing with everything. Sometimes he likes to try on my rings and necklaces, sometimes he likes playing with trains and dinosaurs. Yesterday, his childminders (who are WONDERFUL, btw) let him build a “mine” and he went in with a flashlight and dug out a “diamond”. Imagination is a fantastic thing, and we should be liberating our children, not constraining them. right? So why do Playmobil – a toy manufacturer who I *previously* thought was awesome, feel the need to package “surprise” toys in pink and blue bags, and label them “for boys” and “for girlls”. And I just found this text on their website relating to their Christmas promotions –
At the Unicorn Fairyland little girls will be excited about the newborn Unicorn baby and a beautiful jewellery box with ring. Boys will be thrilled with the exciting Dragon’s Treasure Battle with super Dragon card game.
Really Playmobil? Girls can’t play with dragons?
Kinder, perhaps the original “surprise” toy provider have also disappointed by packaging their eggs in pink and blue and putting very stereotyped toys in each – ‘Sprinty’ cars in the blue eggs and fashion dolls in the pink ones. There is much more about this here at let toys be toys – the campaign against gender stereotyping and divisions being marketed to children.
And even LEGO, one of the most gender-neutral toys ever, have managed to set back the idea that women are equal to men with the launch of the insipid “Friends” range, where the work of a female journalist is described thus:
Break the big story of the world’s best cake with the Heartlake News Van! Find the cake and film it with the camera and then climb into the editing suite and get it ready for broadcast. Get Emma ready at the makeup table so she looks her best for the camera. Sit her at the news desk as Andrew films her talking about the cake story and then present the weather to the viewers
– summed up wonderfully by the achilleseffect.
Utterly depressing. Perhaps one of the saddest facts about this whole situation is that we seem to be going backwards – how is it acceptable for shops to tell girls they shouldn’t be doctors or scientists. Come on toy sellers and manufacturers, give our kids a break! If you want to differentiate, use non-gender related categories. And how about using colours other than pink and blue? If toy manufacturers have no imagination, where does that leave our children?
Of course, presenting the news about cake needs a van FULL of make-up
All Clare and No Responsibility 
I can understand where Kinder was going with the idea, but it can isolate girls and boys from experiencing something new. When I was growing up, I played with boy (cars, dinosaurs, etc.) and girl (barbies, baby dolls, etc.) toys. My parents never made me feel bad for wanting to play with “boy” toys, but it was more acceptable for me, being a girl, to play with either. It seems boys can be judged more harshly for enjoying “girl” things.
Good for you for letting your child play with boy and girl stuff. Great post!
Thanks – I totally agree. When I grew up, it was fine for a girl to be a tom-boy, but not good for a boy to be a sissy and play with dolls etc. Now I’m the parent of a boy, I just want him to have fun doing whatever he wants – whether that is having glitter rubbed on him by a friend (to be honest, I’m not sure he really enjoyed that one…) to driving toy trains. Plenty of time for him to be pushed into boxes when he is bigger!