Target: Leading the Way Toward Gender Equality in Toys?

Target made a big splash recently by announcing their plans to remove gender labels from their toy and children's home goods aisles. I inwardly cheered when I saw the headline. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how big an impact those signs actually have. Don't get me wrong, I still applaud the decision, but I never even noticed that they had gender labels on the toy aisles until I saw that they were going to remove them. Toys were always obviously organized by gender, but I didn't recall the actual labels.

Photo by Jenny Livingston

So, will it make a difference? How many people actually read the signs when shopping for toys? Target isn't in control of the toy packaging or colors or any other aspect of the toys that make them gender specific. They could stop carrying toys that are marketed as gender specific, but that isn't very likely because it would eat into their profits. They could start mixing the different gendered toys together more, but that might be an organizational nightmare. 

Opponents suggest this move will make it more confusing when shopping for gifts, or argue that they want their children to play with toys based on their gender. While I do believe it's a parent's right to  decide what toys their children play with, the research seems to be pretty clear that the current state of gendered toys is not encouraging the development of well-rounded children. In their research, the NAEYC concluded "that girls’ toys were associated with physical attractiveness, nurturing, and domestic skill, whereas boys’ toys were rated as violent, competitive, exciting, and somewhat dangerous. The toys rated as most likely to be educational and to develop children’s physical, cognitive, artistic, and other skills were typically categorized as neutral or moderately masculine. We concluded that strongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys."

I recently read this opinion piece in the New York Times in which the author, Alice Robb, explained how the gender segregation of toys developed from the 1970s through the 1990s and my own childhood toy consumption made a lot more sense. My parents still have the Little People® dollhouse I used to play with as a child in the early 1980s and my daughter loves to play with it whenever she visits. 

   

Little People® dollhouse circa 1983
 Photos by Debbie Livingston

Flash forward thirty years and my daughter received a very different Little People® dollhouse for her birthday.

Little People® dollhouse 2015 Photo by Jenny Livingston

Granted, Little People® added a bathroom and some cutesy sound effects like a flushing toilet, ringing phone, and a few catchy tunes (the reader can decide whether these are actual improvements or not). The point is, nothing about the 1980's dollhouse codes it as female-only beyond the general idea that dollhouses themselves are for girls. The 2015 house, however, practically screams "FOR GIRLS ONLY!" Most people meandering down the toy aisle at Target do not need a sign to stop them from buying it for a boy. That being said, even the 4-year old boys at my daughter's birthday party were begging for us to open it so they could check it out, in case you needed any proof that gender specific colors is a learned behavior. 

After I got too old for my Little People® dollhouse in the mid-1980s, I graduated up to a Barbie™ dollhouse. Like practically every little girl of my generation, I was obsessed with Barbie™. And not Barbie™ with a career—did Barbie™ even have a career in the 1980s? Maybe as a fashion model, but if there was a doctor Barbie, no one in my circle of friends had it. No, I'm talking about pink corvette driving Malibu Barbie™. I even had Barbie's Dream House, which looked a lot like my daughter's dollhouse with a pink roof, white walls and lots of pink accents.

My mother still has some of her old Barbie™ dolls from the early 1960's and while I'm not claiming that era of Barbie™ was even remotely a feminist icon, there is an astounding lack of pink in my mother's Barbie™ collection. 

A few years ago, before I was even pregnant with my daughter, my mother and I sorted through my Barbie™ stash as she wanted to make room in her closets. Did I want to keep anything to pass on if I ever have a daughter, she asked me. My gut reaction was, of course! I wanted to keep all of it! This was my childhood we were talking about. Plus, these dolls could be worth something some day. 

I paused before responding. My next thought was, would I want to encourage my daughter to play with Barbie™ as I did? And the answer was, no. Not that I would refuse to let my daughter play with Barbie™, for all her unrealistic body shape and highly sexualized clothes, at least modern Barbie™ dolls have some career options beyond marrying Ken. I have other dolls based in history and literature to pass down to my daughter, but I ended up tossing all of the Barbie™ dolls.

It's now a couple of weeks after my daughter's second birthday and I am beginning to realize the extent of the battle that lies ahead of me for my daughter. As there seems to be no rapid end in sight to the hyper gendered toys and I recognize that she will be bombarded with media telling her what she should like and who she should be, it's up to me to make sure she is exposed to a balance of toys and activities so grows into a well rounded human being fully capable of deciding for herself what she likes and who she wants to be. If pink ends up being her favorite color, it's fine with me as long as it's because she really does love it and not because she has been told girls love pink. 

The good news is my daughter has me and my husband for parents. I was obsessed with pink and Malibu Barbie™, but my parents made sure to balance that influence with more educational activities and I grew into the feminist mom that I am today, ready to do the same for my daughter.

Thank you, Target, for making your toy aisle signage gender neutral. I hope you next step is to ask what else you can do to help.