Do you think children are made to conform to their stereotypical gender roles when they are toddlers?

Question

Just something I thought about a while ago.

If you think of it - what do parents buy their children to play with?

Girls - Barbie dolls, Baby Born/babies, kitchen/cooking play sets, tea sets etc

Boys - Action Man, Bob the BUILDER, construction playsets, plastic hammers, Hot Wheelz etc

Are children made to act like their stereotyped gender roles (women - bring up the children/cook, men - breadwinners/working/building) through the toys that parents buy them?

Would be interesting to see your views on this!

Answer 1

Nope.

Many parents have tried the gender neutral, or even reversing, strategy. Guess what? Girls, on the whole, still go for pink and dolls. Boys still go for muck, trucks and danger.

This is a world wide phenomenon.

Answer 2

If you think that gender differences are artificial you are sadly mistaken. It is inherent and genetically hard wired into us to behave and choose differently than the opposite s*x.

It is not manipulation to give a boy a truck and a girl a doll, they choose these toys naturally, any attempt to change this is against nature. This is way it is and has been for tens of thousands of years, just because you may not be able to accept it doesn't mean it is untrue.

Answer 3

Your boyfriend/husband is a lucky man!

PS: I agree with Cybercommie's answer.

Answer 4

yes of course.  they have things specifically marketed toward girls and then again towards boy straight out the womb.  if a girl picks up a truck they hand her a doll and if the boy picks up a doll they start freaking out worrying that he's g*y and hand him some blocks.

i think girls and boys are of course different, but that their tastes are completely assigned.  kinda like how some people like wine and other people like beer.  it's socialization and it's been studied over and over again.

Answer 5

Difficult to tell - I always treated my son and daughter alike on that score, and they both played with everything on and off. However I did have a struggle with the Outlaws over the old "girls' toys vs boys' toys" thing when they were tiny. I'd say it comes down to the determination and intellect of the parents.

Answer 6

Of course, but that does not mean that "gender roles" are "arbitrary" as feminists would have you believe. One only needs to look at the studies done on children who are hormonally male but thought to be female (and raised as such) to see the limits of socialisation. In EVERY KNOWN CASE the child identifies with "male pursuits" (urinating standing up, refusing to wear dresses etc), and immediately switches to being officially a "boy" upon diagnosis.

Answer 7

I never really thought of this before! I have 5 girls and always bought Barbies, dolls, kitchen supplies, tea sets, dress-up, teddy bears, etc. It was just something I never thought twice about. We also have gender neutral things like board games, electronics, music, etc. If my daughter ever wanted to play with Bob the Builder, tools, or Hot Wheelz, I would of course buy them. I just never was asked for them, even after them playing with there boy cousins toys. If they wanted them I think they would ask at the store!

Recently, I watched a show on Transgender children starting as young as 2! It talked about how boys wanted to dress as girls and girls wanted to dress as boys. The parents would let them and they started undergoing things to change genders. I don't know what I would ever do if placed in the situation. Obviously I would have to let the child express themself. Tough situation! Very good thinking question though.

EDIT: And to the person who said they won't let there son play with Barbies, why not? I mean I don't have a son, but it's just a toy. It doesn't mean he will grow up to be g*y! And if he does, will you still love him? He may just grow up to be a fashion designer. You need to relax and let your children be who they wan to be (sorry wasn't supose to be a joke with the Barbie commericals, just worked out that way).

Answer 8

Gender norms are realized later than toddlerhood.  We are very gender neutral.  I have 3 boys.  When my son was 2-5 he loved pink, girly boas, nailpolish, and today (he is 7) he said mom its the "girl" isle when we were at target in the barbie isle we don't need anything here!  We have baby dolls, play kitchen, shopping cart, baby stroller, baby bottles, and construction toys, big trucks, action figures etc.

Answer 9

I certainly didn't have to make any of my children conform to stereotypical gender roles.  Each one of them is very much the "stereotype" on thier own.  

When I was pregnant with my daughter after having three boys, I was a little scared I was going to have to teach her how to be a girl.  To be truthful, I was kind of hoping for a girly-girl and I was afraid I wouln't have one because of her having three older brothers to mimick and  look up to.  I really expected to have to encourage her to be 'girly'.  

Boy wasn't I suprised when my little girl turned out to be the epitomy of girly!  It really suprised me and my husband how MUCH she was so into girly things...pink EVERYTHING!  If I gave her a choice about something, she would pick it based on it being pink...everytime.  Pink jello, pink, shirt, pink bike, pink movie (she wanted to watch My Little Pony becasue the case was pink!).  I hated pink and  actually had her room done in violet and yellow brfore she was born,so this obbsession didn't come from me.  She liked it on her own.  People comented all th time how suprising it was to see how girly she was with three older brothers. I've actually found myself trying to 'toughen her up'.

Now she is 5 and she has a younger brother, also.  He is only one year younger so they are really close.  She has let up on the pink (just a little), but she is still very femine.  She will play in the dirt, climb trees, race down the driveway on a skateboard wtih her brothers, but she is still girly.

My boys are all very much "all boy".  They jump off the roof, (AHH!!), throw each other around, play sports.  

A funny story;

One day I called my kids to come downstairs (all 5 of them were upstairs).  While standing at the bottom, I saw each boy, one by one run, stomping down the stairs and go out the front door.   The first boy ran loudly down the stairs, went out the front door and SLAM! went the door behind him.  Each boy after him did the same thing:   SLAM, SLAM, SLAM! went the door.  Next and immediately after came my daughter.  She gently walks down the steps, holding onto the rail all the way.  She gets to the door and shuts it easily behind her.  It was really funny.

Did I force this on her?  Didn't have too, she did it on her own because it's natural.

Answer 10

We always let our daughter pick out her own toys at the toy store. She's only a year old and she chooses a wide variety of things. She has some girly toys (like a little purse that she carries around) and some boys things (like a soft baseball and bat that she picked out and a little work bench that she liked better than the kitchen). I was a tomboy growing up and I don't want my daughters to feel like they have to play with dolls or boys have cooties....I just want them to be themselves! Now, when I have boys they won't be allowed to pick out Barbies, but I'm not going to force them to play with GI Joes either. I think we do create a mess with categorizing "girl's play like this and boys play like this." They wind up never socializing with the opposite s*x until they're 13 years old! Just my thoughts....

Answer 11

Someone did the following survey:

She took her baby out in the pram, all dressed in white. Of course people stopped to admire.

She told half the admirers that it was a boy - and got remarks like "Oh, aren't you a big strong lad!"

She told the others it was a girl - and -

"Awwww, aren't you just so pretty!"

QED

Answer 12

I was always a lot more gender neutral as a child... I could be a little girl and had plastic kitchen play sets and teddies but I also just as much enjoyed playing with my little brothers cars. I went through an intense "I hate girly things" phase where barbie,dresses,makeup etc were avoided like crazy. I had all these plastic models of different wild animals that had complicated little dramas... I also loved lego.

    I think kids are made be one of the other too much. I can remember when I was about 6 McDonelds was having either Barbie Happy meals or Hot Wheels ones. I picked hotwheels the same as my brother and another boy about my age in the line told me Im supposed to get Barbie because Im a girl...

Answer 13

I think so, but it's not just the parents, it's society too. My toddler is 19 months and loves Dora, but she also likes Diego. She loves trains, and pushes hers around like a boy playing with a truck. But she also wants to mimic mommy, so she "cooks" with me, brings me her cart full of fake groceries when it's time to start dinner, lol. We buy her whatever toys we can afford that interest her, she has a ride in toy with a "fixable" engine that came with a screwdriver and a wrench, and she likes to work on the car like Daddy does. Daddy washes the bubbas and sippy cups and does laundry sometimes, and I mow grass and build furniture, so we actually attempt to make sure we don't gender differentiate if we can help it. Some things I just can't do, because I'm not physically built for, and some things he can't do because his hands are too big to fit in some places.

But I know a lot of parents don't bother, and don't care, and society helps along with gender differentiation through grandparents that insist upon buying a baby girl pink things, and boys blue things. My aunt threw a royal fit because she asked what I needed the most and I chose the Pooh "Hunny Days" Motif for my car seat/stroller combo because I can use it again no matter what s*x  child I may have in the future. She wanted to buy her "pretty in pink". My daughter is as rough and tumble as boys twice her age, but she still loves to wear sundresses and put "prettys" in her hair. Good luck!

Answer 14

Yes!  And even if the parents try to find gender-neutral ways of raising their children, they are still exposed to the outside world and are given cues every day of how they should behave as little boys or little girls.

If you're interested, there are MANY research studies that have been done on this.  Do a google search.