When I was a little girl, for a while I was obsessed with these tiny little toys he had called Battle Beasts. (Shout out to my older sister and Google for helping me figure out the name of these bad boys.) They were marketed towards boys but for whatever reason, my sister and I loved the little things.
They were fun!
And if it wasn’t Battle Beasts, the three of us were playing Barbies. Yup, I said it, my brother used to play with Barbies when he was a kid. And what about it? The three of us used to have a ball playing with whichever toys we decided were the most fun at any given time. At 4, 6 and 8, you don’t really think too much the meaning behind your choice in toys (or about your terrible mushroom cut hair style it seems).
Me, my brother, my sister and my mother circa when boys wore blue and girls wore pink
If it weren’t for society and marketing, toys would just be toys as opposed to “boy toys” and “girl toys”.
I dream of a world where a boy can play with a My Little Pony in peace, where a girl can go to a toy store and not see rows upon rows of pink directed right at her, where boys and girls can pick up whichever toy they so choose without a second look from anyone else.
And while we might not be there just yet, it’s great to see that our society continues to take steps in the right direction.
Online powerhouse Amazon is the latest company get behind the gender-neutral toy initiative. Amazon has eliminated the gendered categories from its primary filtering options on the Toys and Games page.
You used to be able to search based on gender, age, price range and interests. But the company has now removed the gender search option meaning when you search for a toy for a boy 6-8 and a girl 6-8 who both like cooking and science, you’ll get the same toy options for both.
Keep in mind that the Boys and Girls toy pages are still live on Amazon, they are just no longer listed in the pre-set categories.
A small step, but a step nonetheless.
How do you feel about gendered toys versus gender-neutral toys?
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