Effects Of Gender Toys

In 2012, C. Auster and C. Mansbach completed a content analysis on the Disney Toy Store website to evaluate what kind of toys are available to children and what is considered when categorizing a toy as a girl toy versus a boy toy. The researchers analysis was based on the color of the toy and whether it was labeled as "for boys" or "for girls". The data represented the idea that toy companies expect girls to choose a mixture of both feminine-centric and gender-neutral toys and expect boys to primarily play with masculine-centric toys, as the toys “For Girls” were an equal mix of girl (pastel) colors and gender-neutral colors and “For Boys” toys were primarily boy (bold) colors. Along with the colors, 44% of the toys under “For Girls” were also

Through her findings, she points out that there are many cognitive benefits to playing with toys (for instance, playing with blocks develops spatial reasoning and creativity skills). Her coding differed from the other research about the topic, focusing on sociability, competition, aggressiveness, manipulability, nurturance and attractiveness (Miller, 1987). I find that this very specific word choice better reflects the experience and teachings that come from toys, though I think it would have been better executed if the words were more clearly defined. The focus on social-play and manipulability adds something new to the discussion on the effects of play, particularly gendered-play, as toys that rank high in that category directly teach children how they should act when in social settings and how much of the world they can have an effect

This research is something that can create change in the toys and advertisement market and help inform parents of the need for raising their children with gender-neutral and opposite-gender toys available for playtime. All of the available research agrees that playtime is essential for learning, cognitively and socially. Miller emphasizes that offering different toy options for children will provide boys and girls with different play experiences, which will offer up a chance to grow cognitively, such as increasing spacial reasoning, and socially, by allowing a different type of play in social groups (Miller, 1987). Schwartz and Markham concludes their research by pointing out that, while their data does not show whether children are influenced by sex-stereotyped advertising, it is clear that this type of advertisements, as well as sex-stereotypes anywhere in the media, reinforces "conventional sex-role definitions” (Schwartz & Markham,