In fact, based on research by Professor Elizabeth Sweet,
THINGS HAVEN'T ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY.
Though we live in an era where gender norms are being challenged on a daily basis around the world, today, children’s toys are surprisingly more gender-typed compared to the market from fifty years ago.
Some may believe that today’s gender-specific stylisation has always been the norm, but in the 19th century, it was common for Western children to wear dresses and keep their hair long. And up till the 1920s, as shown in a 1918 article from the US trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department, the colour pink, being a lighter shade of red, was seen as a masculine colour for boys, while blue was considered daintier and therefore for girls. Only in the mid 1900s did pink start gaining its primary significance as a feminine colour in Western society through the lens of U.S. pop culture.
GUESS WHO? IT'S A 2 YEAR OLD FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1884! CHILDREN FREQUENTLY WORE DRESSES AND ONLY RECEIVED THEIR FIRST HAIRCUTS WHEN THEY WERE AROUND 6 OR 7.
While its true that initially, Western toys from the 1920s to 60s were heavily gendered, with plenty of homemaking toys for little girls, and construction kits for little boys. However, with more women in the workforce and the arrival of second-wave feminism, the 1970s ushered in a more progressive era of toy advertisements.
For example, in a U.S Sears catalogue from 1975, less than 2% of toys in the catalogue were explicitly gender-marketed, and many modelled photos depicted counter-stereotypical play, like boys playing with kitchen sets and girls with carpentry sets. Even gender-specific toys such as Barbie, wore gender-neutral primary colours.
TRADITIONAL WOODEN RATTLE TOY
TRADITIONAL SPINNING TOPS
Additionally, if we take a look at traditional toys from a variety of regions like Scandinavia, South America and Asia, rarely do we find gender specificity in types of toys, colours or play styles that children have engaged in for millennia. Wouldn’t it be strange if we said for example, that five stones should only be played by girls, and pick-up sticks by boys?
FIVE STONES
