Naturalistic Observation of Toy Store And the Effects on Gender Role Development

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Recommended: Advertising’s effect on children

We as Americans tend to think little about Gender Role Stereotyping and its place in our society, but it is nevertheless an important topic to discuss. Parents, following the cues of society, purchase toys for their children that encourage the stereotypes of males being action and fighting-oriented and females focusing on friendship and child-rearing. Although this may be beneficial in some cases, there may also be repercussions for specific individuals who do not fall under those stereotypes and therefore may feel pressured to be something other than who they really are. To investigate one of the starting points of this phenomenon, I visited my local Kennesaw Toys-R-Us and found some expected and also some surprising results:
Section A: Regarding toys that had to do with adult roles, it was surprising to note that the section of the store with the cooking and shopping toys had a very mixed gender approach as far as the pictures of boys and girls on the products goes. However, with hardware and power tool toys, science toys and soldier-oriented toys, there was an apparent marketing attempt to boys, as the pictures on those products were almost strictly of boys playing with those toys.
Section B: Although there were obvious separate boy and girl sections, it seemed that for the gender neutral toys, the placement was very purposeful. For instance, an aisle of plastic blocks or bicycle helmets would be separated in the middle with girls’ on one side and boys’ on the other.
Section C: The most gender-neutral toys tended to be for infants and included products such as musical instruments. Preschool boys’ toys were already in line with the older boys’ toys, including products such as vehicles and superheroes, though there didn’t ...

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...science and war. Although biological differences (for instance, a greater verbal skill in women and greater visual-spacial skill in men) determine many adult roles, the stereotypes of society should not confine individual boys and girls to the ideas that they should become only what they are reinforced to become.

Works Cited

Campenni, C. (1999). Gender stereotyping of children's toys: A comparison of parents and nonparents. Sex Roles, 40(1/2), 121-138.
Martin, C. L., Ruble, D. N., & Szkrybalo, J. (2002). Cognitive theories of early gender development. Psychological bulletin, 128(6), 903. Chicago
Serbin, L. A., Poulin-Dubois, D., Colburne, K. A., Sen, M. G., & Eichstedt, J. A. (2001). Gender stereotyping in infancy: Visual preferences for and knowledge of gender-stereotyped toys in the second year. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 25(1), 7-15.

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