Lack Of Diversity In Children's Toys

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As a child you are susceptible to everything. When I was younger and went to Toys R Us I went immediately for the Barbie dolls, Hello Kitty themed toys, and stuffed animals. Now I have to ask myself did I go to those things because I genuinely liked them or because society taught me to? The advertising campaigns for children’s toys are corrupt; they divide children by gender and potential, lack diversity and inclusion, and divide literature by gender.
Children’s toys are divided by gender and complexity. Professor Blakemore explains “Moderately masculine toys encourage children's physical, cognitive, academic, musical, and artistic skills more so than moderately feminine ones”. The girl toy aisles were decked out in pink and consisted of Barbie, …show more content…

Dora and Friends is the tween version of Dora the Explorer. Her friend is Alana, a blond haired and blue eyed girl. Dora is one of the only non-Caucasian headliner toys and having a friend from a different ethnic background would teach children to be friends with everyone. Throughout the whole store I only saw a handful advertisements with an African American child playing with a Caucasian child. I do not remember seeing my race, Asians, represented in the toy store. Barbie represents the “perfect Aryan” woman with unrealistic physical appearances and characteristics. She is very skinny, busty, and has full hips. This reinforces to young girls what they must strive to look like and to shun people who do not look like Barbie. Young girls see Barbie as a pretty doll with nice clothes, a dream house, cars, friends, and other accessories and think that is all being a woman has to offer. Barbie’s boyfriend Ken also has blond hair and blue eyes. Barbie teaches that being pretty will get you everything in life and you need to strive to be exactly like her. This eludes to diversity being unacceptable looked down upon. The boys had the superheroes and video game icons to look up to. This can teach them to be violent and think they have to be masculine and aggressive. The toys are showing children what and whom society deems acceptable and how to cooperate with the social

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