Gender Games and Stereotypes

Play is important for children's development and learning of the world. Education now, recognizes that the child must have access to toys and play experiences. Activity-focused games, in construction and technology offer important space skills, practice problem solving and encourage children to be active.

The role-playing and small-scale theater games, offer practice in his social skills. Arts and crafts, on the other hand they practice selective skills and perseverance.

Boys and girls, need to be developed in all the above cases, but due to marketing the games are divided into different sections, of boys and girls. Activities / constructions and games technology, intended in advance for boys, while social role-playing games and arts / crafts for girls. Nevertheless, both boys and girls can only lose from this separation.

The Marketing Counts

The way games are characterized and projected, affect consumers' shopping habits. Many people feel uncomfortable buying a pink toy or a "boyish" toy for a boy, for girl.

Other buyers again, simply ignore the limited options on offer. They may not point out the lack of construction toys from the "girls section" or the lack of arts / crafts from the corresponding "boys section". If he is not given the opportunity to choose, a child may never find what he or she really cares about or enjoys playing.

And children receive these messages about "what girls should like" and what boys should receive in the same way they receive other social norms. Eg, they realize that it does not make you beat others, they also understand the gender norm.

These rigid boundaries, distract children from their true tastes and provide fertile ground for bullying (bullying).

Stereotypes

Children are not born with preferences for their future careers, or with a view to how much their work is worth, but the stereotypes we see in toy marketing are linked to the inequalities we see in adulthood. A recent study by the Welsh organization Chwarae Teg found that children, at the age of the first school years, they already have a clear view of which jobs are suitable for boys and which for girls. Views that can hardly be influenced later.

Themes of luxury and beauty in games, aimed at young girls contribute to a disturbing emphasis on appearance. Stereotypical behaviors for boys are equally harmful. The constant enforcement of such messages, enhanced in advertising and toy packaging. That is, that boys are inevitably rough, dirty and interested only in action and violence, while for the calmer, sensitive and more creative boys, The message that the boy got it wrong is misleading, which fuels the child's low self-esteem and even undermines his or her school performance.

Examples of Enforcement of Stereotypes

The action figures, like Hulk, dominated in the category of toys for boys, for decades. Muscular and aggressive, he submits to stereotypes about masculinity. On the other hand again toys like the little ponies that flooded the children's TV and the shelves of the shops from 1981, dynamically dictated through marketing that pink and shimmering is for girls…

What Must Be Done;

No need, rather than changing the way games and books are displayed. The organization should be based on theme and function and not on gender. It is an easy change that serves more purposes.

Already from 2012 until the 2016, many branded and non-branded toy stores, reorganized the display of games based on the above criteria offering easy access to consumer choices.

The Attitude of the Parents

Psychologists and sociologists are pleased to note the rejection of stereotypes so far, from the parents. Researchers are concerned about the impact of toys that have been segregated by gender for years… said Lisa Dinella, Associate Professor at Monmouth University and Principal Investigator at the Gender Development Laboratory. The dolls and the kitchens games, continues Lisa Dinella, are the right tools for educating children in the cognitive sequence of events and language practice. the bricks teach spatial skills and lay the groundwork for learning mathematical principles. Both sexes can only lose, if we limit them to different areas and they can not explore both.

 

Bibliography: British Campaign Let Toys Be Toys – White House meeting on: Gender Stereotypes.