Damn you Dichotomy of Gender

 

A couple of weeks ago, a catalogue was distributed around the nation in which I live regarding a massive toy sale that occurs every year. Basically, this catalogue gets release around the middle of the year/end of financial year and parents go crazy stock piling toys for Christmas.

I for one love junk mail like this; I love flicking through the pages and seeing all the junk I could buy for myself (because I’m just a big kid at heart) and it’s not just limited to toy catalogues. I pretty much love all catalogues that enter my mail box except for the supermarket ones because I don’t need to see that broccoli is on sale; I don’t care for discounted broccoli but a giant Transformer Bumblebee, that’s a whole different story!

Upon my first flicking through the catalogue, it didn’t take me long to realise there was a huge problem. (For most, this wouldn’t be classified as a “huge problem” but for those of us who actually kind of like the idea of gender equality, it represents a little bit of a blip of the problem-radar).

Obviously, with such a big sale, the catalogue had to be divided into sections. It is this that I had a concern over. This catalogue was divided into the following sections: Pre-School Toys, Girls Toys, Boys Toys, Indoor Activities, Outdoors, Kids wear & More and Moves & Gaming. Now, I understand that with so much content there had to be a way to categorize the toys but I can’t help but serious despise the categorization of “girls toys” and “boys toys” especially because as a child, I would have clawed my way through crowds in order to get to the toys which according to this catalogue are considered “boys toys”.

I despise the fact that toys such as Kitchen and Shopping play sets with Pots, Pans, Groceries and cash registers are classed as girls toys, while power tools and Lego are identified as boys toys.

I will give credit where credit is due and recognize that some toys such as barbeques and some construction play sets were placed under the more ambiguous category of “indoor activities” but included only images of boys playing with these items. Again, credit where credit is due; at least these toys weren’t categorized under male or female play items.

Why do I have such an issue with this? I didn’t really want to write a blog post regarding this catalogue to be honest; it was only after viewing a photo of a friend’s young son playing with a kitchen set that I really felt like I wanted to get my thoughts down. Like I mentioned earlier, half the toys that fall into the category of “boys toys”, I would have loved to play with; there isn’t anything wrong with me, I’m quite confident in my female gender, I love all my girl parts and I just so happen to be attracted to males. I played with lego as a child, I also played with barbie dolls, I loved playing on the excavator truck play equipment at one my schools and I loved playing with playdo in the kitchen type play set I got as a present. While we’re on the topic of toys I had as a child: I hated most dolls and teddy bears, they gave me severe nightmares and still to this day cause me anxiety; I loved ambiguous, non-gender specific toys which gave me room to use my imagination and 9 times out of 10, I just loved the box the toys came in because it meant I go to turn those boxes into whatever my heart desired!

Back on the point; my issue with this catalogue is this: it concerned me that in this day in age we still feel the need to…I’m going to say influence the idea of gender roles. Girls have kitchens, baby dolls, super market play sets and toys which don’t require much construction because their place in society is to be the dutiful, mothering type and need to learn the domestic activities whilst boys on the other hand are geared toward more investigative, constructive, manual labour and adventure roles with toys such requiring more assembly such as Lego,  power tools & action heroes.

What if a child wanted to grow up to be a chef? Kitchen, Kitchenware and fake food all fall into the category of “girls toys”; sorry. What if a girl wanted to become an architect (or at a young age, perhaps she wanted to be a superhero!), Oops, apparently these all require toys which fall into “boys toys”.

I don’t have an issue with any of these toys, all these toys look like a whole world of fun (especially the Lego) I DO have an issue with the LABELS that have been placed on these toys; why in a society that should be moving forward (albeit slower than Australia is moving North) do we still insist on using such archaic labels for children’s toys?

And if you don’t think Children recognize what’s going on because “they are young”. Children aren’t stupid, most of them read or will learn to read and can identify when a catalogue says “boys” and “girls” toys. Give them some credit! They will learn these categories and they will grow and accept this ideology.

 

(P.S. My apologies for not having a strong argument; I really didn’t take as much times as I would have liked to really explore this issue and have supporting academic articles, this was more of a ranting opinion more than a substantive argument)

(P.p.s. Why am I apologising? This is my opinion, I take that apology back)

Categories: 2014, Personal Post, Rant