What’s the Harm in Gendered Toys?

We’ve written previously about the benefits of letting boys play with toys stereotypically associated with girls. Research has also found that when girls are encouraged to play with “boy” toys, such as construction kits and sports gear, they benefit with increased confidence and hard skills.  

But these conversations still frame certain toys (i.e. dolls) as “for girls” and others (i.e. trucks) as “for boys.” There seems to be a deep-seeded perception that some toys are more preferential to certain genders than others. 

In recent years, there has been pushback against the idea that toys should be gendered at all. Some experts say attaching any expectation of choice to a girl or a boy’s toy is limiting. This is such a departure from conventional wisdom that some parents, caretakers, and teachers may ask if it’s true. Is there really any harm in keeping gendered toys in a child’s toybox? 

In this article, we explore some of the misconceptions behind gendered toys and suggest why offering a diversity of toys to your child is best for their development, regardless of gender. 

But first, how true is it that some toys are better for girls while others are better for boys? 

Labeling toys as “for girls” or “for boys” is a recent marketing development

“Boys like balls and girls like dolls.” So the conventional wisdom goes. But you may be surprised to learn that this is relatively recent thinking: gendered toys are more prevalent now than they were in previous generations.  

That’s not to say that babydolls were not always seen as the perfect prop for future mothers and boys were expected to be more rough-and-tumble. Toys have a long history of being used to prepare children for the roles they would play in society as adults. Baby dolls were thought to raise girls into good mothers; construction sets, on the other hand, were originally intended to prepare boys to enter industry. 

However, how toy companies market toys has changed tremendously in the last 50 years. In the 1970s, nearly 70% of toys in the Sears catalog had no gender labels at all. Toy advertisements showed little girls and little boys happily playing with the same products. There was also not the now common convention of color-coding the same product into a blue “boy” version and a pink “girl” version.

Then, toy companies realized that they could sell more toys if they convinced parents that they needed to buy different toys for their daughters and sons. Children’s television programming was deregulated in 1984, opening the way for toy companies to insert product placements into children’s shows. Gendered programing was a big boon to promoting sales.

These products were less about the roles boys and girls might take in their future and more about the aesthetics ascribed to each gender: for instance, pink and sparkly for girls, blue and matte for boys. This also included categories of interests, such as ascribing ninjas to boys and unicorns to girls. By 1995, gendered toy advertisements made up half of the Sears catalog’s offerings.  

Many of the now commonplace ideas of what children should play with came from this marketing effort. They’ve since become ironclad in our purchasing patterns. 

Even so, what’s the harm in buying gendered toys for children? 

Labeling toys according to gender limits children’s choices

The biggest concern around buying gendered toys is that they can impact how children see themselves. Gendered representation imposes society’s ideas of what they should like and do instead of letting them choose for themselves what their interests and hobbies are. This can have trickle-down influence on what that child decides to study in school and ultimately choose as a career. 

Unfortunately, more than half of current toy commercials still market “girly” toys as those that focus on beauty and fashion. Action- and science-oriented toys remain largely marketed towards boys. This has led some research institutions, such as the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), to suspect that this toy bias contributes to low rates of women employed in STEM fields. 

The effects of such gender-based influence begin early in a child’s life. A 1995 study from Arizona State University found that as early as preschool, children had internalized gender-based reasoning that dictated whether they would play with a toy or not. Children were shown a toy that they had never seen before and told “This is a toy that boys really like,” or “…that girls really like.” Before even playing with the toy, most children decided whether they would or wouldn’t like playing with it based on whether the description matched their own gender label. 

This sort of gender-based filtering process can limit children from exploring a full variety of toys, interests and hobbies. To overcome these social pressures, caretakers must encourage children to experiment with different toys to discover what they truly like. One way to do this is to buy toys that subvert the gendered categories and exist simply as toys for any and every child. 

Different types of toys encourage different types of learning

Gendered toys ascribe certain types of skills and strengths to one gender or the other. So, when a child only plays with toys marketed for their gender, they learn a certain set of skills but do not engage as much in other types of learning. This can lead to imbalanced development in boys and girls as they grow older. 

The National Association for the Education of Young Children found that “girl” toys tend to focus on appearance whereas “boy” toys tend to focus on competition. This discrepancy contributes to poor self-esteem in young girls as they are exposed to impossible beauty standards early on. 

Stereotypical girl toys aren’t all bad, though. Toys like baby dolls and figurines also tend to promote the skills of caring for others and heightened emotional intelligence. Because “girl” toys tend to encourage role playing with other children (think acting out scenes with dolls), they also foster communication skills and a willingness to collaborate with others. 

On the other hand, stereotypical “boy” toys tend to encourage adventure, confidence, and strength. They often feature competition more than collaboration. These skills also can be positive additions to a child’s socioemotional toolbox, as they can encourage children to try new things, take risks, and see themselves positively. 

Neither type of toy is inherently bad. However, when a child is only given access to one or the other, they develop imbalanced skills. Conversely, diverse play options lead to higher achievement in developmental milestones. 

The danger is not so much gendered toys, but giving a child only toys purposed for one gender. The solution that leads to the most balanced childhood development is one that ignores the gendering of toys. Provide ample options for a child to engage and develop their own interests from a wide variety of playtime tools. A diverse toybox is a healthy toybox.