Gender Stereotypes

Che’s recent post about Christmas lists, the Christmas list for Cooper and Charlotte that I created, and the recent Target sales ad reminded me to post about how marketers attempt to limit items to just girl or just boy.  The boy stuff is typical:  cars, guns/swords, tools.  The girl stuff is also typical:  dolls, princess, cooking and cleaning toys, and everything is in pink, pink, pink!  Because it can’t be for a girl unless it’s pink.

You know what?  Cooper’s favorite color is pink, Charlotte’s favorite color is blue.  Cooper loves to carry around his purse on his shoulder, give his baby hugs and kisses and push her around in a stroller, while Charlotte loves to play with her tools.  They both have an interest in cars, cooking toys, and they LOVE to sweep and vacuum.  Maybe they do this because in our family the stereotypical gender roles are swapped.

I have to be honest though, before having children I had always envisioned my daughter playing with Barbie's and my son playing with trucks.  When I was pregnant, I realized that I also wanted my son to learn how to play with dolls, because after all I want him to be a good daddy one day.  When I ended up with one girl and one boy so close in age, all of my preconceived notions of what a girl should play with and what a boy should play with went out the window.  I’m not sure I would have ever bought Cooper a doll stroller, and I don’t know if I would have bought Charlotte tools if I only had one or the other.  By having both, it’s reminded me that they should play with all kinds of toys and that there aren’t ‘boy toys’ and ‘girl toys’!

I say for all those who have girls, think about buying something for them that is traditionally a boy toy and for those who have boys, buy something in pink that is traditionally a girl toy.  They don’t care and they are too young to be stereotyped as one gender or another!