Why the toys for girls and boys?

                We live in an age where some would suggest that assuming somebodies gender identity is a social faux pas so great as to be the equivalent of deciding to greet everyone by farting into their face. As a reflection of this we have the occasional anger people express when toys are marketed towards either girls or boys, because they feel it restricts them, or imposes some kind of gender role.

So, is this the case? (at least from a psychological perspective) Like many of the questions I answer I will answer with an infuriating “yes and no”.

                Part of a child’s developmental process is forming an identity.  Some of the most basic the child forms before they can really even speak. The two categories parent/child are usually first, this will later be refined to parent/child/grown-up and of course a big part of the identity formed by the infant is where they fit in these categories. As a child grows up more categories will be added as their cognitive abilities develop.  They start to feel more secure about where they belong and their place in the world. BY the time we reach adulthood, most of us have innumerable of these categories, it’s where we form things like stereotypes and assumptions from, it’s also a big part of how we modulate our own behaviour in regards to how we wish to be perceived.

                Back to the developing child, all children reach a point where they discover the fundamental biological differences between males and females. This discovery invariably manifests one of the first in-group/out-group categories that we all have experience with; The “Girls/boys are icky” phenomenon. As the child adopts their gender as part of their identity they often attempt to bolster their sense of belonging by shunning “the other” and altering their behaviour to fit in more with their in-group. Outside gender politics this may manifest as following school “crazes,” wearing the clothes that suit their chosen role and being generally dismissive and vaguely disparaging (occasionally even confrontational) towards those outside their own group. This never really leaves kids, and sometimes even young adults, many go on to find other things to internalise as part of their personality, it’s why some of the most vocal political/racial/gender activists tend to be from this demographic, it’s not something these people believe, have a preference for,  or are genetically predisposed to by happenstance,  it’s something they are. And as such to bring their beliefs into question is not perceived as simply a disagreement about an ideology or a political stand-point; it’s viewed as a personal attack, and often responded to violently because of this.

                So why does this come into toys? Well, it’s not especially about enforcing gender roles; believe it or not children’s toy companies care very little for gender politics. It’s more about tapping into that developmental stage and establishing something that the child may accept as an accessory to greater affirm their sense of identity. And if they market it really well, they can make it a “craze” and associate it with the strong in-group belonging and make millions from it as the children flock to something that makes them feel more secure in who they are. It’s not just the boy/girl toys for small children either; as the children grow it becomes brand labels, bands, fashion and so-on, because the categories they have are much more diverse and complicated it’s not really viewed in such a harsh light because it’s not seen as exploitative or a measure to enforce any behaviour (at least by most people).

                So, is the boy/girl toy thing harmful? Well... not really. Assuming all toys are suddenly gender neutral and marketed as such, children themselves would create the significance of and then the social pressure to conform with this arbitrary decision would manifest just as readily as it does now, it’s human nature. So long as you feel the child wants the toy, then there is no reason to deny it them; after all it’s not always going to be about an identity.

Sometimes a toy is just a toy.