Gender Socialization: Toy And Juvenile-Products Retailer

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Gender socialization is the process of adapting and becoming a part of a specific gender through preconceived gender expectations and roles for that gender. From birth, gender norms are projected upon each sex; in the way pink is painted in baby girl rooms and blue for baby boys. One learns early on; they must abide a specific gender role to objectively tell the world which gender group they “belong” to. For this assignment, I decided to examine ToysRUs.com, a major “toy and juvenile-products retailer” to study and understand how they use gender roles to lure and brainwash consumers. As soon as I entered the website, I saw a picture of three children, two young boys riding a bike and a scooter with edgy black helmets and a small girl sitting on a pink tricycle …show more content…

This image is the symbolization of gender socializations: boys using “cooler” transportation, needing helmets because they will probably be engaging in “tougher” activity while the girl is to sit, prettily on her slow and safe gender-colored tricycle. This trend continued as I went through the site. Blues, greens, blacks, and metal materials to lure in the stereotypical boy. While the standard girl toys were dolls and doll houses decorated in pinks and purples with furniture and cooking accessories as preemptive training tools for their future roles.
Although the search tabs were not labelled girl or boy, there were two search labels that stood out: 1) Action Figures & Hero Play and 2) Dolls, Dress Up, Toy Pets. Within ‘Action Figures & Hero Play’ were toys such as water guns, Star Wars figurines, and transformer cars. Similarly, within ‘Dolls, Dress Up, Toy

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