Word Cloud: How Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces Gender Stereotypes
Preamble (Added April 12, 2011). Thanks so much to everyone who has weighed in on this post. I am adding this preamble to address two main points of criticism that I should have discussed in the original post.
First, there is the point that the ads use vocabulary to reflect the nature of the toys and not necessarily gender, that regardless of the target audience a toy about fighting will naturally include words about battling while a toy like an Easy Bake Oven will not. While this is absolutely true, my intention here was to use the toy vocabulary to show the nature of the toys marketed predominantly to boys. The inclusion of the girls’ list was just to show contrast. My real focus is the boys’ toys and what they say about how boys are viewed.
This leads to the second question/criticism: how did I determine which toys were “boys’ toys”? It was a distinction I was hesitant to make because I don’t like to draw that line, but as anyone who has shopped for toys knows, the line is there. I followed the lead of toy sellers when I categorized the toys on these lists. The toys I deemed “boys’ toys” are listed in the boys’ section of the Toys R Us website (and other vendors); they are also the brands featured in the boys’ sections of the toy catalogues that come out periodically; the ads for these include only boys; and the voiceover features male voices.
I would also like to stress that this was a simple exercise, not a rigorously researched academic study. It is not an exhaustive list, just a very small sample. I focused only on brands that I have seen featured in after-school cartoon blocks, since they are seen repeatedly and have the potential to reach a large audience. I will be continuing to look at language and gender in kids’ pop culture, but this post was just an initial glance at some preliminary results.
With that background information in mind, I invite you to read the original, unedited post below. Thanks.
–Crystal
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I’ve always wanted to do a “mash-up” of the words used in commercials for so-called boys’ toys. I did a little bit of this in my book, but now, thanks to Wordle, I can present my findings in graphic form. This is not an exhaustive record; it’s really just a starting point, but the results certainly are interesting.
A few caveats:
- I focused on television commercials alone (not web videos or website toy descriptions).
- The companies represented here are the big ones who can afford TV advertising. I looked most closely at the kinds of toys I have seen advertised during prime cartoon blocks on TV. (For example, Teletoon in Canada runs an Action Force block of shows in the after-school time slot and a Superfan Friday on Friday evenings.)
- I included toys targeted to boys aged 6 to 8.
- If a word was repeated multiple times in one commercial, I included it multiple times to show how heavily these words are used.
- I hyphenated words that were meant to stay together, like “special forces” and “killer boots.”
- For the record, my boys’ list included 658 words from 27 commercials from the following toy lines: Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Kung Zhu, Nerf, Transformers, Beyblades, and Bakugan.
- By way of comparison, I also looked at girls’ toys. The girls’ list had 432 words from 32 commercials. Toy lines on this list include: Zhu Zhu Pets, Zhu Zhu Babies, Bratz Dolls, Barbie, Moxie Girls, Easy Bake Ovens, Monster High Dolls, My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, Polly Pocket, and FURREAL Friends. (I have a full list of references for both list, with links, if anyone would like to see it.)
The results, while not at all surprising, put the gender bias in toy advertising in stark relief. First, the boys’ list, available in full size at Wordle:
Now the girls’ list, also available in full size at Wordle:
No further comment needed.
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Great work! Gender bias is marketed to us from an early age & this proves it. I am a girl but when I was 7 I made my dad take me to a model shop to buy a spitfire & he kept asking me if I was sure it was what I wanted. I’ll never forget the look on his face: bewilderment. I wanted a Sindy doll too; but my point here is that parents get hit with dictated gender norms twice: as kids and then later as parents. I was PASSIONATE about that little plane, but my dad never recognised this and was unable to go with it, even if it went against what he thought was ‘normal’.
I was only a moderately “girly” kid. I had loads of Care Bears and a few Pound Puppies and My Little Ponies. My parents got me a Barbie once, but I was never a fan, and ended up feeding it to my pet gerbil who chewed the legs off. I also had a little orange SUV-looking car that I got in a Happy Meal, and loved to bits.
My sister was very much a tomboy. She was in Little League, sported a bowl-cut, played the drums, and went shirtless in our yard in the summer until she was nearly 12.
I don’t know if it’s a relevant factor, but there wasn’t a lot of TV in our house, and almost no prime-time cartoons (we watched Sesame Street, Mister Rogers and the Muppets).
We don’t need you’re life story
No need for that kind of talk. People are welcome to share any thoughts they have on this post.
I much prefer Mary’s life story to your bad grammar.
You spelled ‘your’ wrong. Just thought I’d mention it so you were so quick to criticize others
bang out of order
I kinda like her life story
They also spelled “anon” incorrectly in the “name” field.
Since we’re all jumping down his/her throat. BATTLE! POWER! BEAT! LAUNCH!
Reminds me of what I did to my Barbies (that people insisted on giving me, even though I did not like and had no use for dolls). I’d undress them, cut off all their hair, and put them in the middle of the road on top of those fast food ketchup packets. Then I’d wait for cars to run over them.
I loved My Little Ponies (and I still do, the ones from the 80s and early 90s, at least), but I was far more interested in boy toys, the sorts I wasn’t allowed to have. I’ve never been much of a girly-girl, despite having taken ballet for a couple years. Martial arts was much more my style.
Thanks for your comment. We are very picky about what our daughter watches, for the reason you mentioned. She only watches PBS or videos, a few things on nickjr, and I think that has also made a difference in her idea of gender roles. Although now that she is in school, she has commented on how things are for “girls” and “boys”. So we are fighting the stereotypes anyway. Scares me because I am so proactive – and my daughter said the other day, “I like girl things and boy things.”
It’s amazing how those ideas seep in, despite our efforts to stop them. Pop culture is just one piece of the puzzle here and limiting access to it certainly doesn’t prevent the ideas from spreading. I saw that with my son as well. As parents, we just have to keep the discussion going and try to provide balanced portrayals of gender to our kids.
It may sound silly, but this is one of the reasons we’re homeschooling.
Not sure that “prove” is the right word here.
The lack of pirates in both clouds is disturbing.
What will become out of our children when they learn to grow up as ninjas, or not even that in the girl’s case?
This is a very important issue I think when need to take into consideration. When we are talking about gender roles and when we are just talking about child development in general.
Pirates > Ninjas
I thought Pirate>Ninja too until I married somebody I thought was Pirate and later learned they leaned Ninja! And at least one of our two kids is also ninja-oriented. Now instead of just the “talk like a Pirate” annual party, we’ve changed it to “Pirates vs. Ninjas” or just “Pirate/Ninja”. We all have to learn to get along.
That is the reason why we’re homeschooling. The only outside influence our children are subject to are Pippi Longstocking and Guybrush Threepwood.
No way! Ninjas are awesome! I should probably point out here that my siblings and I did NOT grow up playing pirates, but rather we were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and my brother was the only boy in the group. The rest of us were girls).
Really interesting. Actually regardless of the methodology, this is a fascinating pair of images. We all understand what’s going on with marketing and advertising.
A little levity on the subject of sexism, not entirely off topic.
What’s the most common word that appears in both? Is there actually any overlap? Are words like “cool” used for both genders?
There is not a lot of overlap. I am prepping a post that includes both lists sorted in alphabetical order and in numerical order, from highest number of occurrences to lowest. The alpha list will make side-by-side comparisons easier. I will post it later today or first thing tomorrow morning. Thanks!
OOh, thanks – I’m looking forward to that.
Did you intentionally not conflate “hero” and “heroes” in the boy chart? Not that it looks like it will make a huuuuge difference….
Thanks for the question. As I’ve noted in other comments, I was not rigourously scientific. I basically took the words I collected and dumped them into Wordle. When I do another one of these I will combine duplicates like this.
Awesome comic in your link. Reflects precisely my experience as someone who blogs on (against) gender stereotyping. Thanks!
well the roles are incorporated, and over generalized which are regarded as norms. these norms are reinforced through different sources of which the most powerful one is media. even the text books are filled with such stereotype notions. the need is to point out all these biases so that equal opportunity could be ensured for both sexes.
I get the impression that your accusing the toy companies of brainwashing people into gender stereotypes. They are in the business of selling toys, not brainwashing people. The word frequency shows what the toy companies think will be most effective to make a sale. They use gender stereotypes because they work. A boy could be interested in cooking but it seems the toy companies think more boys are going to like a killer robot instead.
I think you really should have published the means by witch you categorized the commercials into boy or girl.
Thanks for your comment. Here is my response to another commenter who asked about how I categorized the toys. (Ishould have included this in the original post and I apologize for not doing so):
I was hesitant to even use the terms “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys” because, of course, no one can say that boys are not allowed to play with girls’ toys or vice versa. Parents can decide to buy Hot Wheels for their daughters or Barbies for their sons, but the toys and the marketing that surrounds them have a very gendered spin that defines who the toys are intended for.
Both parents and children are influenced by this messaging. Parents tend to be very sensitive about the gender appropriateness of toys, especially for boys. (Wood, Eileen, Serge Desmarais and Sara Gugula. “The impact of parenting experience on gender stereotyped toy play of children.” Sex Roles 47, no. 1-2 (2002): 39-49)
For their part, boys are influenced heavily by the sex of the models used in advertising, who shape boys’ ideas about gender roles and appropriate play. In fact, television advertising has been called one of “the most important teachers of gendered behaviors.” (Pike, Jennifer and Nancy A. Jennings. “The effects of commercials on children’s perception of gender appropriate toy use.” Sex Roles 52, no. 1-2 (2005): 83-91.)
I followed the lead of toy sellers when I categorized the toys on these lists. The toys I deemed “boys’ toys” are listed in the boys’ section of the Toys R Us website (and other vendors); they are also the brands featured in the boys’ sections of the toy catalogues that come out periodically; the ads for these include only boys; and the voiceover features male voices. The toys I designated as “girls’” are similarly categorized, show only girls, and have gentler female voices in the narration.
In response to your comment about brainwashing, I wouldn’t say that. I think that toy makers are doing what they’ve always done because it’s easy. They are in business to make money and it doesn’t occur to them to think about the impact their toys could be having on children’s socialization.
Stereotypes work in marketing because they are familiar and they are simple. As the blog Skeptigirl said, ” messages tend to be given in short stereotyped ways. They are trying to drive their point home, and an easy stereotype can be an effective way to do that…Ads tell us not only what we want, but who should want it.”
The last thing advertisers want is for people to think about what is being sold to them. They want us to just accept the message and respond by buying.
“Ads tell us not only what we want, but who should want it.”
I agree a 100% with that.
But I don’t think they want boys and girls to have different tendencies and preferences. They know that it is that way and use it to sell a product.
It is and it isn’t. Yes, my sons love trains and think Target exists to sell them trains. They also like Strawberry Shortcake and fluffy animals. You don’t need to put little boys in a Thomas add for my sons to realize that it’s a train and they want it. But it’s pretty obvious that the Strawberry Shortcake franchise isn’t interested male viewers (or selling them merchandise.) Instead, American Greetings seems to be actively chasing off potential customers.
Gee. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be the case that the different words used are an effect, rather than cause, of gender differences.
Marketers really don’t care what your gender stereotypes are, so long as you buy their crap. The market is just about as good of an objetive experimental test case as one could ask for.
I’m not saying toy makers and marketing have created gender stereotypes or that they are the sole cause, but they do reinforce them. My answer to Hank, above, explains my point a little more. Thanks.
I guess I’m missing the point, then.
If your point is that culture (or advertising in particular) is a sort of feedback loop that gets some static introduced into it here and there, that hardly seems to be a novel, or even non-intuitively obvious, claim.
On the other hand, if your claim is that the advertisers are seeking to influence gender stereotypes in a particular way, that seems to be entirely your own interpretation rather than data. Even moreso, in fact; there’s been some pretty gory stuff around to entertain people (and specifically males) for much longer than modern advertising.
I would echo a lot of what “thewhatifgirl” said in her response to you. It is a vicious cycle. I answered a commenter who works in advertising this way: “I don’t think toy makers create gender bias, nor do I think pop culture in general is entirely to blame for gender stereotyping. It is one piece of the puzzle, albeit it an influential one. Stereotypes and bias emerge from a rather convoluted mix of previously held attitudes passed down from family, peer attitudes, and pop culture influences. I know it’s not up to toy makers and marketers to challenge the status quo, but I really wish someone would, for example, by creating more male baby dolls and some female ‘action hero toys.’”
And I’m not saying that anything I wrote here is new or revolutionary. It’s just one way of looking at an age-old problem.
It’s really a cyclical cause-and-effect of both, a which-came-first-chicken-or-egg situation. Those stereotypes exist, so advertisers use them to sell their products. Those ads then reinforce the stereotypes in many people’s minds, which strengthens the stereotype. More people think they need to be like the stereotype since that is what they see in the media, so the stereotype gets even stronger. And the advertisers, of course, (who, I might add, are part of that same society) continue to use those stereotypes because they sell the product. Continue ad nauseum.
Media is a reflection of society and society reflects the media.
It would certainly be a waste of money if companies spent so much money on advertising if — as you posit — advertising doesn’t affect how people think.
I don’t think they’re *that* stupid.
Yeah, that’s not the claim. The claim is that companies have no reason to affect how we think in any way other than a way that makes them money – in this case, “you want to buy our product” or whatever.
Not quite right, I’d say. In fact, marketers do want to influence our thinking. For example, when they want to *create* a new product niche. Of course, the final purpose is to sell a product, but the product might not even exist yet. So making people believe they need something they were not even aware of, is quite what marketing is about.
As a result, they are creating more and more fine grained product niches … and these are best described as stereotypes (as others have indicated).
I am not blaming anyone here – just indicating that they have a catalysts role, and not only a miroring role in this whole story.
admin’s reply is good.
The reality is a complex one of genetic gender differences, cultural influence on how those genetic differences express (in both the genetic and everyday sense of the word), and individual (gender independent) personality.
In short, it’s “nature via nurture”, and this sort of gender-targeting is BOTH cause and effect of gender difference.
I find it interesting that in all the debate about nature vs. nuture, no one has discussed how different cultures assign gender roles. When taking a look at a different society, it is clear that some things that we see as “girly” or “boyish” are social constructs. For example, in some cultures, pink is a manly color. Or in a culture where boys and girls rarely play together, they still play the same games (soccer). In my experience, once boys and girls learn about their gender, they do everything they can to emulate gender roles present in their society. The wide and over-lapping ranges of “female” and “male” activities seen in cultures around the world supports the assertion that most of what constitutes gender roles is not in fact linked to our DNA.
I move from the US to India, and colour is absolutely NOT gender-oriented here. I more often see boys in pink and girls in whatever colour their parents please; the very macho masculine men strutting around in pink fuzzy sweaters makes me chuckle, because I recognize I’m stereotyping based off my own gender establishment.
I read an article recently on this same phenom, and it mentioned that a family portrait of the US president Teddy Roosevelt in the early 1900s has him in a dress with curly hair down to his shoulders. The gender stereotype for clothing for kids combined with colour is a very recent development in the US.
How did you decide which are “boys toys” and which are “girls toys”? Could it be that the word clouds are actually just reflecting YOUR personal bias? That is, if a commercial used the words “love/babies/fashion”, you declared it to be a “girls toy” and if it included the words “battle/power/heroes” you decided it was a “boys toy”. From that slant, the clouds reflect nothing but your own bias on what toys go with which gender.
I did explain my categories in a comment, but should have done so in the original post. You can check my response to Hank, above, and to Barry, near the beginning of the comments.
You’re either trolling or deluded if you think for a moment that babies and fashion are, in our society marketed to boys.
I made a 90′s inspired saturday morning ad for a product that gracefully yet POWERFULLY bridges this gender divide. Turbo Heather RC’s: http://vimeo.com/2830494
‘Gee. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be the case that the different words used are an effect, rather than cause, of gender differences.
Marketers really don’t care what your gender stereotypes are, so long as you buy their crap. The market is just about as good of an objetive experimental test case as one could ask for.”
Marketers do actually care what your gender stereotypes are. Over the last hundred or so years, marketers have learned that people respond to targeted, personalized marketing. Products are not just marketed as individual items divorced from social stereotypes, but are crafted both in response to AND in an effort to create ever more specific categories of self-identification. These more-specific categories of consumer identification can then be used to sell more products and manufacture more desires.
This is partly why the market is not an objective test. Rather than responding to the desires of the population, marketers specifically try to encourage the development of discrete identities that can be used to sell more products that reinforce that identity and quell fears about departing from that identity’s norms.
Also, people do not act as isolated consumers, each discovering their own desires in a vacuum. Boys do not discover that they like toys that are blue and black without social influence. Nor do they come up with statements like, “That’s a girl’s toy” without being told this by others. Rather, people act together to create understandings like these and teach them to children. Certainly children would choose toys, on their own, that show some bias toward their gender as we understand it. But the bias would not be as strong without heavily gendered advertising, nor as consistent, nor as socially important) Advertising is an adult-created force which acts on children, who are learning how to be human from everything around them. Advertising, as a manifestation in this case of the market’s desire to create easily manipulated, discrete consumer identities, is not a blank and neutral canvas on which natural desires are inscribed, but a consciously directed social force like any other. As such, it can be critiqued and altered to achieve other goals.
thanks – much more elegently put then what I tried to say above. Should have read your comment first.
Very interesting exercise. I was a little disappointed to find out the bias-prone way you gathered the data, I was hoping you had scoured web sites or something. Of course that isn’t how toy marketers reach their young audience, but maybe some kind of voice recognition of many more commercials would have been more elucidating. Ok, I guess I see why you went about it the way you did.
But you were the one deciding if it was a boy toy or girl toy weren’t you?
Sorry, should have read all 185 comments first.
But I do think minimizing your bias (or at least stating it) is essential.
No, I should have included my reasons for categorizing the toys in my original post. I did look at several websites, but I want to stress that this was just a simple exercise. It is in no way an exhaustive look at this issue–just an initial glance at some trends.
Very nicely done. Can you post the underlying raw data?
Thanks for asking. The post with the raw numbers just got published.
I thought the Word Cloud was really interesting! I would like to see the list and links that you mention we could ask for. Thanks!
Hi. I added the source documents to the recent post about the numbers behind the word cloud. Here is a link.
Brilliant article. But I do still struggle with the premise: what is or is not a “boy” or “girl” toy. I am female but I grew up wanting much of what you call “boys” toys. GI Joe, XMen, Transformers, and other “boys” toys do have female characters and can be related to by females. HotWheels don’t have characters, but I do ask you what the difference is between the boy who wants a toy jeep and the girl who wants the Barbie Corvette?
We can’t use the location in the toy store as our ruler because retailers are not qualified to determine what is or isn’t a “boy” toy. They may do so because of the marketing (“boys” toy commercials predominantly have boys in them) but aren’t those commercials produced by ad agencies? What qualifies an advertising agency to decide what toys a girl should or should not play with? The agency may look to the manufacturer for guidance in what market to sell to. But the problem is everything is connected to everything else. Are “girls” toys marketed to girls or does the marketing target the female demographic because that’s who seeks them out? Perhaps in the end it’s the parents who decide what is/isn’t suitable for their child — and the marketing words are just what the ad agency expects to put in a gender-specific ad?
I might ask is it any different than the Ford Pickup truck ads that also include words like “power”, “ultimate”, “action”, etc. But any woman living in a rural area can tell you they’ll buy a pickup truck if their farm needs one — there is no gender stereotype there. (And for what it’s worth, I’m a female & I drive a F150 and I find the Ford truck ads a bit insulting and offensive).
Perhaps the only thing we’re discovering is how out-of-touch the advertising agencies are?
Isn’t the point not the manufacturers’ or ad agencies’ motivations or starting points, but our, as parents and consumers, being discerning enough not to just “swallow it all whole” and question society’s / ToysRUs’s / toymakers’ assumptions? We have to STOP THE CYCLE.
Agreed. But many do swallow it whole and too few question. I’m not blaming or chastising people–this is the way things have always been and many don’t even realize that these ideas should be questioned and challenged.
Thanks a lot for your comment.
The idea of what constitutes “boys” and “girls’” toy is indeed subjective and I struggle with it too. I chose to look at the way the toys are presented to consumers through advertising and merchandising because this kind of categorization tends to have a lot of influence over parents’ purchasing decisions.
Of course, not all parents are swayed by this advertising and, as you say, ultimately it is up to them to decide which toys their kids can play with. But for many parents and kids, advertising exerts a strong influence on their ideas of what kinds of toys and play are gender-appropriate.
I certainly appreciate your comments about the kinds of toys you played with as a child (I too had “non-traditional” interests like Hot Wheels and hockey), but I wonder if it would have been the same if you had been a boy wanting a Barbie or a purse.
My main concern is the influence of gender stereotyping on boys, and I find that they tend to have less freedom to go outside of gender norms than girls. I think toys and other areas of pop culture reinforce the messages that they receive elsewhere about traditionally female things being off-limits.
And, as far as advertising aimed at adults goes, you are right. Gender bias exists there too, but a thought came to me as I was reading your post. In the case of adults, products sometimes speak to a need. For kids, advertising is more about creating a want, so I think there is a difference in that regard. Using your example, a woman on a farm needs a truck and will buy one regardless of the fact that it is marketed to men: she can disregard the bias in the ads because she needs the vehicle to do a job. Similarly, she can ignore the bias towards women in an ad for a cleaning product or washing machine because she needs those products.
Toy advertising does not respond to a need and I think its gender messages are harder to disregard. When ads say that boys play with Kung Zhu fighting hamsters and not cuddly Zhu Zhu pets they are also, subtly and unconsciously, telling male viewers which of those two toys they should want.
I had a similar struggle with kids clothes, with not wanting to define “girl’s clothes” and “boy’s clothes,” and a small vocab adjustment was a revelation for me. Just in case it is useful for you too: consider “boy’s toys” vs “toys in the boy’s section.”
Excellent idea. I personally never use the terms at home, but it would be good for me to make that distinction in my work.
Perhaps it is not so much whether it is a “boy” or “girl” toy, but whether the advertising targets boys or girls? I have seen plenty of basically gender-neutral toys, like Legos, Tinker Toys, and Lincoln Logs, that have been packaged differently (i.e.made pink) to appeal to girls. It seems like there has been a push to further gender-differentiate between boys’ and girls’ toys — why does the “girl” version of a gender-neutral toy always come in pink or purple, while the “boy” version is black, brown, or blue? Why are there different versions at all? In the 70s my Legos were red and yellow, and my Barbie Dreamhouse was orange.
Excellent question about the colours. I wrote about this in a post called Pinkwashing Board Games. I wasn’t aware that this trend had reached Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys too. remember my Barbie Corvette, also from the 70s, being orange. My Cher dollhouse was a teal colour, if I remember correctly. And our LEGO was primary colours–that’s it.
Interesting about LEGO. I find that it is getting more of a gender divide in its marketing. I wrote about that too in a recent post.
The problem with most female characters in “boy toys” is that such individual toys are marketed differently…either as sexy eye candy for the boys or as the “barbie” corvette not the mud running jeep.
I try to encourage my older daughter (5 y.o.) to break social norms by playing with whatever she wants…but to do so with her own flair and panache. The result…I have an ice hockey player who wears pink laces in her skates that loves to knock the boys over to get the puck…and then changes into her flip flops and sundress…she’s just as likely to pick the “boys” toy in her happy meal as the girls…but there are times when its a struggle because her friends or their parents tell her that she should act like a girl.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150121064683529
What has always boggled my mind has been the apparent double-standard between Guys and Girls. Society makes it very easy for Girls to challenge the accepted gender norms in most areas, and in most cases even encourages them to do so. But Guys are expected to be Guys, 110%, All The Time, No Ifs, Ands, or Buts.
Agreed. There is much lower tolerance for cross-gender behaviour among boys than among girls and it shouldn’t be this way.
Coincidentally, this means that everything boys do and like is awesome and worthy, and everything girls like is stupid and worthless.
Not sure how you drew that conclusion. Could you explain? Thanks.
Observation? As a woman (and a housewife), I see this *constantly* in our society. Someone who gets paid for what they do “works”, while I just “sit around the house all day” (never mind that the household couldn’t function without me.) Who receives more respect, someone in a traditionally male field, like a doctor, or someone in a traditionally female field, like a nurse? How about a homemaker? A maid? How many girls aspire to be lawyers? How many boys aspire to ‘stay home’ and raise children?
Even the feminist movement has largely bought into the ‘boys are better’ ideology–focusing, for example, on achieving equal numbers of men and women in various traditionally male professions, or equal pay in these professions, rather than encouraging respect for and male participation in traditionally female occupations.
So you see girls who eagerly (proudly) proclaim their disdain for all things girly. A girl will happily tell folks on the internet about how she hated dolls or loved trucks as a kid. Very few boys will do the same–I doubt any men in this thread have confessed that they hated cars and always wanted dolls and ponies. A girl who overcomes the shortcomings of her gender by acting ‘male’ is cool, while a boy who acts ‘female’ is a sissy who’ll get beat up in school.
Agreed about the double standard at work here and the general devaluing of the feminine in society. These are both major themes in my book and the lack of attention to the gender issues boys face was, of course, my primary motivation for writing it. Thanks for your comment.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Is the mirror a reflection of you or are you a reflection of the mirror? To suggest that male and female roles are merely a product of societal dictation is to make a conclusion of consequence based on an observation that may or may not support that conclusion.
The one comment that claims that bias is marketed to us is blatantly wrong. Markets are biased towards us. I couldn’t resist the witty word reversal, but this is true. Marketing does not create things in people. It appeals to a pre-extant desires people have.
The Hypodermic Needle Theory has been disproven. Violent television does not “create” violence in subjects. It can only impact the pre-extant violent nature of a minority of viewers. Marketing, no matter how hard they try, cannot seduce anyone to become something that they did not desire to be before.
Just the same, gender-selective advertisements illustrate what people are on the most basic level, not some bizarre attempt to transform people into chauvinists and housewives.
YES!
WTF is wrong with being a housewife?
I think you’ve clearly never had a 3 yr old if you don’t think kids will act out things they’ve seen on TV.
You’re also completely delusional if you think boys have a pre-existing desire for the color blue, and girls for the color pink.
“It can only impact the pre-extant violent nature of a minority of viewers. Marketing, no matter how hard they try, cannot seduce anyone to become something that they did not desire to be before.”
Yes, ads do not create things in people–Wendy’s ads don’t suddenly make me hungry–but if I am hungry, that Wendy’s ad might push me to choose Wendy’s instead of McDonald’s.
The fault in your argument is that you say a “minority” of viewers possess an inate violent nature. That is not true. Yes, some humans are more likely to commit acts of violence, but anyone is capable of violence, even extreme violence.
1. This article was fun, given that I am a visual learner. I really believe that has more to do with how I learn than my gender.
2. Why do we stick people into 2 genders? Not all societies have done this.
Like a teeter-totter, one needs a bit of wood in the middle to hold this all together. I think there is a range of genders that we beat out of our children way too soon.
3. Like a few commenters here, there seems to be an overwhelming characteristic shared by all/most genders, “Tell me what I am so I can keep this all straight!”
4. Today, 1 news item is the discovery of the “the first gay cave man.”
He was too much of a girly-man, it seems, to be faced to the manly west and was instead laid to the feminine east. And, he had female items in his grave. BTW, this was way before both cave art and advertising.
Thanks for posting this – I’d love to read anything further on your methodology and findings.
Can we assume that you didn’t include the brand names of the toys in the analysis, but did include the tag-lines?
I ask because ‘friendship’ and ‘magic’ are so large, but there is no mention of ‘my’, ‘little’ or ‘pony’.
Just wondering if those words were included in your analysis as part of the branding of an existing product, or whether it is likely that those words were present already in advertising of similar toys so it was picked up as a tag-line for a new product?
You are correct. I omitted the brand names, like “Battle Force 5″ and “My Little Pony”.
I’ve found this whole study extremely fascinating as it’s something I’ve been keenly aware of since I was a child myself. It also seems that the responses you’ve received to this study have unearthed an underlying unease (and in some cases hostility) with the subject. People cling very hard to the belief that boys like boy things and girls like girl things, and those seemingly “few” children who blur the lines are odd exceptions.
However, it’s interesting to note the number of female commenters who proudly admit being interested in so-called boy toys, and the lack of boys who claim the opposite. To me, this would indicate that while “women’s lib” has helped girls feel more comfortable taking on traditionally boyish interests, there is a sad lack of support on the male end. Or perhaps the types of toys marketed to girls are ones that really don’t appeal to _children_ in general.
I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine regarding baby dolls and how we both felt about them growing up. By the end of the conversation we both agreed that their is something was always something deeply unsettling abouyt being a child and being encouraged by ads to take care of a hyper-realistic (read: UGLY) baby doll that cried and wet itself. Seriously… is that meant to be “fun”? Do real mothers find diaper changing “fun”? And even if they do, is a child meant to find those chores fun? That’s not to say that children of both genders don’t feel the need to nurture their toys, because they most certainly do, but the emphasis on motherhood is odd. Perhaps there is something fundamentally askew with girls’ toys in general.
Adventure and imaginative play are where it’s at. I think that’s really what any child wants, regardless of gender.
Which leads me into another interesting anecdote. My fiancé’s mother ran a nursery school where one of the children, an autistic boy, spent most of his days dressing up in the fantasy dresses and costumes and pretending to be the characters. It seemed that it wasn’t so much that the boy wanted to be a girl so much as, being autistic, he was unable to pick up on the social cues of the other boys that told him dressing up was a ‘girly’ thing to do. The boy simply wanted to play make-believe, and the dresses provided that outlet. It is very telling that when a child is unable to absorb the stigmas being thrown at him from the media and his peers, he finds fun in anything.
In the the autistic community there is a far higher ratio of non-gender conforming behavior. I think your study touches very closely upon the issue of how society and culture subconciously construct our gender idenitities, and it would stand to reason that those of us who find it harder to take social cues (ie: peer pressure, advertizing) also find the lines between the genders a blur.
Sorry for the wall of text, and thank you for getting the cogs in my brain moving again!
Blair,
Very well stated, and even hinting in the last paragraph that non-gender conforming individuals are borderline autistic. Did you notice the increase in the number of cases of autism is going hand-in-hand with the number of non-gender confrming children?
Perhaps the whole “women’s lib” movement is the one doing the brainwashing? Convincing women that they are genetically equivalent to men. (They’re not, by the way, females have 2 X chromosomes, whiles males have an X and a Y) I’m sorry as much as you want to point out the similarities between red and blue. They’re both colors, both primary colors, even. Both their names have the letter ‘e’ in it. You’ve got yourself convinced that red = blue, when it doesn’t. Even colorblind people can tell them apart.
Time to trade in those cogs for some neurons.
I read Blair’s post again and there was nothing there indicating that non-gender conforming people are borderline autistic. Blair was merely pointing out that people who don’t absorb gender cues from the wider society may be less inclined to limit themselves to behaviour deemed acceptable for people of their sex.
I cannot speak for everyone in the “women’s lib” movement, but I have never known anyone to tell me women are genetically equivalent to men. Of course there are physical differences. The point is equality of opportunity and treatment. Just because women are physically different does not mean that we should be pre-judged, treated as less capable, or denied opportunities simply because of our biological sex.
And my last statement applies equally to men. Just like women, they should not have assumptions made about them because of their sex, be treated as less capable (e.g. in the area of parenting), or denied opportunities because they are men (e.g. the opportunity to pursue employment in “non-traditional” areas).
Yes, thank you for clarifying my point. Again, it seems like this subject really does get people’s backs up.
And @Colorblind, I am not trying to argue that red is blue. I’m aware that chromosomes determine our biological gender and our bodies, as well as various hormonal triggers. However, the topic being discussed borders on the classic nature vs nurture debate: How much of our behavior is determined by those chromosomes and how much has been learned concsiously or subconciously through our interaction with other human beings?
Many commenters here would have us believe that what makes a boy act “like a boy” and a girl act “like a girl” are purely biological presets with no creedence given to the fact that we understand gender in those terms based on societal example.
When it comes to nature vs nurture, regardless of which truly has the bigger impact, we’ll never fully know because the very logic used for explaining it is a product of societally agreed upon language and concepts — social conventions, needed for our understanding of reality and order, yet subject to change and reform as new understanding arises. Maybe I was a girl who liked camo and adventure games because I’m biologically atypical, or maybe I liked them because… I just did. As a person. Who likes things. There is that possibility.
Very interesting and scary! I thought that hunt or nurture were necessities back in the days, but to see that we appearantly are supposed to raise our children with these ideas STILL in 2011… and people wonder why womens´work are less valued than mens´… :-S
I think it would be interesting to see this done @ various dates in the past IE 1990 – 1980 ETC and watch the trends / world events show up and when “modern” gender typing started
[quote]For example, a Ladies’ Home Journal article in June 1918 said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” [/quote]
also I think seeing foreign versions would be neat as a way to see cultural “Values” portrayed/pushed
That thought occurred to me too as I was doing this. There are a lot of ways an exercise like this could go and back in time would definitely be interesting.
I could see someone arguing the case that this is indeed a form of brain-washing (just another root of the kyriarchy, as it were). I mean, people internalize gender stereotypes and expectations to the point where people express incredulity and/or distrust when they see me, a young man, wearing pink nail polish in public for no other reason than enjoyment.
Thanks for posting this. It’s not unexpected, of course, but seeing it presented graphically is a bit disturbing.
In preschool while the boys were outside beating up each other, I played indoors with the girls who’d dress me up like a living Ken doll. I’d get so lost staring dreamily into the eyes of their cute leader while having final say on the clothing items filtered through her first. People seem to think there’s something wrong with a boy that likes girls and vice versa.
In third grade I wanted an Easy Bake Oven, but not in pink. Of course that was the only color they came in. What kid doesn’t like cupcakes?
At the university, I scored a perfect 4.0 in a gender differences class. It was offered as either PSYCH or WOMEN, and having heard how some parents get upset seeing WOMEN on the report cards, I chose it instead of PSYCH, and of course my parents were no exception: “What are you doing studying women?!”
I don’t know… maybe because I like women? Love them… Want them in my life… Prefer women over men in countless ways… Could care less if the male population vanished but would have no reason to live if women disappeared… I don’t know, what do you think I’m doing studying women?
I would argue this is the tail and not the dog. They know what boys and girls respond to and advertise accordingly. The differences are already there and not created by (but exploited by) advertising.
Oh, Please….get over it!
Shortly after the movie Alien came out, I wanted nothing more than to get the Alien doll/figurine that was advertised on TV. My parents said “No.”
I still wonder to this day if they would have said “Yes” if I was a boy. After all, they refused to let me play drums in school band because, apparently, drums aren’t appropriate for girls. They told me to choose the saxophone. Ironically, my brother got to play drums in school band and my parents listened to the Carpenters.
Very interesting project. Also, it looks like the boycloud uses a lot more verbs than the girlcloud, though it’s hard to tell which form of the word, noun or verb (e.g. “designs”), is being used. Do you have enough data (or interest) to analyze that?
Hi. Thanks for your question. I am interested in doing a lot more work in this area, but I am losing sight of my original purpose here
I really just wanted to point out the words used in the ads for toys marketed primarily to boys, and show how those words reflect the stereotyped nature of the toys. I added the girl’s cloud as a contrast, but did not intend to do a lot of direct analysis between the two lists at this point. All of the great discussion on this post has led me in a bunch of different directions that I did not anticipate.
I am definitely considering this as an avenue for future research though, and, yes, the contrast between the number of verbs vs. nouns would be an important part of that.
Geez, what a bunch of crapola… from so many commenters. While it’s true marketers want only to maximize sales by every means possible to claim their tactics are only reflections of natural distinctions or simply catering to targets is disingenuous at least and invalid at worst. These are the same people who tell you you’ll be more popular if you use their toothpaste, mouthwash, hair gel, deodorant, car, condom, bla bla bla. To pretend the TV watching masses are too smart to be suckered is simply ignoring reality. Finally, to accuse you of reflecting your biases makes me believe the commenter has seen few commercials aimed at children. Here’s a clue: if the commercial features children of one gender it’s aimed at that gender.
I lied. The people who dispute you because they were allowed some toys usually “appropriate” for the opposite sex seem to miss your point while making it for you.
So, you spent an (not determined) amount of time watching commercials (with no explanation of what channels or what shows, or even what time of day and/or week you’re watching.) I’m sure that if I was just as selective, I could prove any point I wanted to as well.
Oh, but you did it with a couple of pretty images. Makes provable information secondary, as long as the chart looks pretty.
Thanks for your comment.
I did indicate channels and times of day in the introduction. And by listing the toys I showed which types of toys I was looking at. Yes, they are highly gendered toys, but those are the ones I see advertised most frequently during the time slots I mentioned.
I made no claims that this is an exhaustive, rigidly scientific analysis. These are my observations made with an admittedly very small set of data, and I intended it to show trends and be a starting point for further discussion and analysis.
I think that the results would be similar no matter how many commercials I looked at, but that will be seen when I do more research, fully documented and far more detailed.
Let’s be practical, can we? A toy replica of an Air Force Fighter Jet is definitely going to require an entirely different set of adjectives than the Barbie Dream House. This is simple common sense, particularly for advertisers and not necessarily gender based. I could say a lot more, but several others have already made my points for me. Kudos to you commenters.
I guess I don’t really understand the point of this post. Don’t we have far more important things to focus on, in the world and society, than gender stereotypes? Really?! What are we going for? Equal opportunities? If so, we’re certainly taking the long way to get there by picking on toy commercials. If the goal is gender unification, which is what it ultimately seems to be, why?!! Do we really want to be a genderless society? As a woman, I enjoy my femininity to the fullest. I embrace it and all that it entails. I celebrate it. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy donning a football jersey and some sneakers when I’m watching my Buckeyes wipe the field with the Wolverines. Even so, I still look like a woman and I’m proud of it! While I do desire, and will fight for, equal pay in the work force, I’m still a female in every other respect and there is NOTHING wrong with that! I’m sick of people trying to make it seem as though there is something wrong with girls being girls and boys being boys. That’s just all kinds of wrong, rolled up into some politically correct bunch of psycho-babble. How absolutely boring to be genderless! Feminized men and masculine women until it’s all grey and everyone the same… Where’s the fun in that? Look at the big picture. That’s where your type of thinking is ultimately going to steer society. I love strong men with deep voices and body hair. I love that women are softer, smaller and have sexy curves. Why can’t we embrace our differences? It’s what makes life so interesting and fun!
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that if my daughter wanted to play soccer and climb trees instead of playing with an assortment of Barbie dolls, that I’d have an issue with that. I would not. Nor would I have an issue with my son playing with dolls as opposed to playing football, if that was what he wanted to do. As a parent, it’s my job to be supportive and encouraging of their interests, while setting a good moral example and teaching good values, such as respect, acceptance, forgiveness and tolerance, to name a few. Worrying about how advertisers are marketing toys based on gender just seems superfluous, bordering on the ridiculous. I, for one, have much bigger, more important, fish to fry
Thanks for your comment. The problem you mention in the first paragraph–about the words describing the actual nature of the toys–has been pointed out many times and rightly so. I tried to clarify this in my follow-up post. I’m not sure if you saw it, but here is a link.
As for the part about creating a genderless society, that is certainly not my intention. I am pointing out stereotypes because of the limits they place on people. People should be able to follow their interests without someone telling them that their actions are wrong simply because of their biology. I noted this in the introduction to my book:
“Before I am accused of trying to turn boys soft or make them into “honorary women,” let me state that a wider view of masculinity does not mean denying a boy’s inclination for typically masculine activities and toys—boys who love trucks and motorcycles should be allowed to play with trucks and motorcycles…At the same time, boys should be given the opportunity to follow other interests, even if those interests lead them into territory traditionally considered to be feminine.” (“honorary women” quote from Nathanson, Paul and Katherine K. Young. Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture. (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), 8).
Embracing differences is certainly a welcome idea. But trying to tell a boy he has to conform to a rigid idea of gender is not, and that is the message that is regularly delivered by pop culture (including toys and their marketing) and in the wider society. So that’s why I think it is important to talk about gender portrayals in all areas of kids’ pop culture, including toy marketing.
Surely though the type of toy determines the language you’re going to use to describe it though? You’re hardly going to have Tiny Tears with Flame Throwing Battle Action or a Dino-Ninja Transformer – Look! He Really Nurses and comes with a Special Bracelet Just For You. There’s no real reason the ads for those toys couldn’t feature children of the opposite gender to the one you’d probably expect and yet still use exactly the same advertising copy. By the time it gets to advertising copy, the stereptyping is already ingrained. The language used has very little to do with it any more – it comes in at the design stage, the test marketing stage, the development stage… the language is just informed by the product, in the end.
My nephews asked for dolls and prams and kitchen sets as well as Action Man and Bob The Builder (who, incidentally, is very much marketed in a unisex way in the UK at least). I grew up on science sets and Star Wars and Scalextric. What parents don’t always seem able to get is that the language of the toys isn’t GENDER specific, but specific to the type of play – and it’s the type of play that is typically targeted at one gender or another. Given the choice, some kids will play with things that fall outside the stereotype without any prompting at all – I know, because I’m a girl who grew up with grazed knees from falling off my BMX and who never played with Barbie or wore pink. I like things that explode or do grossness. I grew up to be an engineer.
If people are responsible enough to not use Nickelodeon as a babysitter, teach them not to listen to peer pressure and limit their children’s exposure to advertising, kids do make their own choices. And what’s more, it doesn’t take any kind of agenda to do it, just decent parenting and good role models. My biggest hero growing up was my dad, and he always took the time to show me things I was interested in. Despite working six days a week, he made sure I got to go to museums and car shows and air displays, took me out in his truck and never once said “you can’t do that because you’re a girl.” Gender stereotyping may be reinforced by advertising and the media, but it starts at home.
You’re absolutely right about gender stereotyping starting in the home. Media is only one part of the puzzle, although an influential one.
I would add, though, that boys often seem to face disapproval for cross-gender play that girls do not. It’s great that your nephews are not among them, but research has shown that boys and their parents are sensitive about boys doing things intended for girls. (Wood, Eileen, Serge Desmarais and Sara Gugula. “The impact of parenting experience on gender stereotyped toy play of children.” Sex Roles 47, no. 1-2 (2002): 39-49; Pike, Jennifer and Nancy A. Jennings. “The effects of commercials on children’s perception of gender appropriate toy use.” Sex Roles 52, no. 1-2 (2005): 83-91.)
As for your statement that the advertising copy is reflecting the nature of the toys, again you are right. I have addressed this in the comments, not that I would expect you to read them all
I said this in response to another person who noted the same thing you did:
“…the people who write the copy for these ads are just describing the toys as they are—a toy that is designed for battle will necessarily have lots of references to fighting in the advertising copy.
My concern is: why are the toys themselves so stereotyped to begin with? This is an issue for the makers of the toys, and one that is separate from the marketing, although it is hard to distinguish one from the other at times.
Consider a couple of examples from the list of toys I used in this exercise. (Admittedly, these are highly gendered toys, but they are also the ones I see frequently in TV ads during children’s programming.) Kung Zhu, the militarized hamsters, are all male. Transformer toys are also referred to as “he,” with the exception of character Arcee who appears on the TV show. (I did a quick check and did not see her listed as a character in Transformer toys.) Both of these toys are designed for fighting, albeit with differing degrees of violence. Matchbox Big Rig trucks are also all referred to as “he.”
The characteristics of these toys, which are masculinised by names and pronouns, also hew to stereotypes—they are about fighting and working (although the Big Rigs do sing and dance, which are not actions one would expect from a big bulky truck.)
Compare the “purpose” of these toys with that of the girls’ toys who are predominantly female and designed to be accessorized or cuddled, but not much else. Most do not have jobs and they don’t fight.”
would add, though, that boys often seem to face disapproval for cross-gender play that girls do not.
Although: http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2010/11/18/young-girl-bullied-for-liking-star-wars/
Yes, that was quite a story. I was one of the many who wrote a comment in support of Katie. It is terrible when anyone is told their behaviour is wrong just because it doesn’t suit someone else’s idea of what is appropriate for their gender. I still think it happens more to boys but clearly girls experience it as well.
As an advertiser, it’s true that we just focus on what sells. Our research is usually comprised of consumer focus groups, quant surveys and syndicated sales data that shows us which competitive products are selling/trending. So if competing products that are laden with heavy battle language are selling and our parent and kids studies validate that is where their interests are, then that is generally the direction the creative advertising will follow. What makes the situation worse is the fact that in advertising, it’s our job to out shout the other guys because it’s all about “stealing share” so the volume and gender effective language gets turned up to the extreme. This is not done with an intent to reinforce gender bias, but to get you to buy our Ninja Battle Cats instead of our competitors Dog Ship Destroyer
We use word clouds as part of our social media monitoring, but I find they pick more advertising language than consumer language so they are better at indicating what messaging the industry is using (like your example showed). To get a quick trend of what terms consumers are looking for, I will look at trending search terms using Google Analytics.
I’d be interested in seeing your exercise done on toys that are more gender neutral (like playdough, crayons, games, etc.). One thing I can tell you with regards to the to manufacturers gender bias is if they could get both genders buying their toy then they know they’ve just doubled their market share – I think that’s why you see more companies like Legos working harder to have a broader range of options for both boys and girls.
I think you did a great job on your excercise and I’m very impressed with your professional responses, no matter the tone of the comment.
Thanks so much for your comment. Clearly my own comments and those of others have displayed a fair amount of cynicism about advertising, so I appreciate you sharing your side of things.
I also appreciate your comment that it is not the intent of advertisers to reinforce gender bias. As I say in the book (and should have made clearer in this post), I don’t think toy makers create gender bias, nor do I think pop culture in general is entirely to blame for gender stereotyping. It is one piece of the puzzle, albeit it an influential one. Stereotypes and bias emerge from a rather convoluted mix of previously held attitudes passed down from family, peer attitudes, and pop culture influences.
I know it’s not up to toy makers and marketers to challenge the status quo, but I really wish someone would, for example, by creating more male baby dolls and some female “action hero toys.”
Interesting that you mention LEGO. As a consumer, I find that their products are becoming more biased, not less. I wrote a post about what I see on their website and actually contacted the company. A commenter on one of those posts noted that LEGO does sell well with girls despite the lack of gender balance in their toys. Perhaps that is because LEGO has the perception of being gender-neutral when, in fact, it seems to be less so than it used to be?
“… then that is generally the direction the creative advertising will follow. What makes the situation worse is the fact that in advertising, it’s our job to out shout the other guys because it’s all about “stealing share” …”
But the “really creative” marketers don’t follow the crowd and don’t outshout the competition. They go where the others haven’t gone. And this path does not necessarily have to pick up sex stereotypes. At least I haven’t quite given up my hopes …
This reminded me of an article in ‘Universal Principles of Design’, which is actually a really great resource for artists that not only gives a lot of useful advice but backs everything scientifically.
One article that kind of surprised me was ‘Hunter-Nurturer Fixations’: http://tinyurl.com/3px2et9 (2 pages) that might explain a driving principle behind what you’re seeing here. Maybe you’d find it and some of the articles it links to interesting reads?
Interesting. I have tried very hard to curtail advertising influences in my life but to little avail. As soon as my kids start school, friends influence them. They see me doing “mommy stuff”. The girls like pink and have dress sense, although the boy has dress sense also, and a preference for balls, cars, and bright colors. Life is gender biased. Roles are gender biased. Children are hard wired to be who they are. Advertisers are enormously influential but even in my TV-less household I see a lot of role play that is very naturally gender biased. But what I don’t see, and what I do see in advertisements for children is an excessive amount of social and appearance-based pushes for girls, and a lot of aggression tailored towards boys. Also a lot of social aggression for girls in regards to other girls. I guess aggression sells?
I teach qualitative data analysis to MA candidates in Anthropology at the University of Memphis. For several years I have been looking for a good social science example of the use of word clouds to reveal underlying biases and patterning in cultural texts. This is by far the most successful application of the technique. I will definitely direct students to this ingenious application as an exemplar of the approach. Fantastic work!
I’m still not sure what to think about this. Big weaponized robots being marketed with words like “battle”, toy pots and pans with words like “delicious”, dress-up dolls with “fashion”, and vehicles with “vehicle” doesn’t seem noteworthy to me.
At the same time, which kinds of products are marketed to which gender is noteworthy. The word choice angle just seems a bit off target.
Duly noted, thanks. There have been many similar comments. Here is my response to one of them, which I think answers your concerns:
“…the people who write the copy for these ads are just describing the toys as they are—a toy that is designed for battle will necessarily have lots of references to fighting in the advertising copy.
My concern is: why are the toys themselves so stereotyped to begin with? This is an issue for the makers of the toys, and one that is separate from the marketing, although it is hard to distinguish one from the other at times.
Consider a couple of examples from the list of toys I used in this exercise. (Admittedly, these are highly gendered toys, but they are also the ones I see frequently in TV ads during children’s programming.) Kung Zhu, the militarized hamsters, are all male. Transformer toys are also referred to as “he,” with the exception of character Arcee who appears on the TV show. (I did a quick check and did not see her listed as a character in Transformer toys.) Both of these toys are designed for fighting, albeit with differing degrees of violence. Matchbox Big Rig trucks are also all referred to as “he.”
The characteristics of these toys, which are masculinised by names and pronouns, also hew to stereotypes—they are about fighting and working (although the Big Rigs do sing and dance, which are not actions one would expect from a big bulky truck.)
Compare the “purpose” of these toys with that of the girls’ toys who are predominantly female and designed to be accessorized or cuddled, but not much else. Most do not have jobs and they don’t fight.”
This may already be up there (I confess I haven’t read through all the comments) but it would be really interesting to compare these with word clouds from commercials in the 60′s – back in the day of “Suzie Homemaker,” etc. I’m guessing you’d see a huge change in the words used with girls’ toys, and not so much for boys – suggesting that while the existence of different gender roles hasn’t changed, the nature of girl’s roles has.
Yep, there have been similar suggestions. It would certainly be interesting to look back and I may do that at some point, although I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else has already done this.
How did you determine whether or not the toys were marketed to a specific gender?
Good question and one I’ve been asked a lot. My fault for not putting it in the post originally! Anyway, here is the answer I used in another comment:
“I was hesitant to even use the terms “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys” because, of course, no one can say that boys are not allowed to play with girls’ toys or vice versa. Parents can decide to buy Hot Wheels for their daughters or Barbies for their sons, but the toys and the marketing that surrounds them have a very gendered spin that defines who the toys are intended for.
Both parents and children are influenced by this messaging. Parents tend to be very sensitive about the gender appropriateness of toys, especially for boys. For their part, boys are influenced heavily by the sex of the models used in advertising, who shape boys’ ideas about gender roles and appropriate play. In fact, television advertising has been called one of “the most important teachers of gendered behaviors.”
I followed the lead of toy sellers when I categorized the toys on these lists. The toys I deemed “boys’ toys” are listed in the boys’ section of the Toys R Us website (and other vendors); they are also the brands featured in the boys’ sections of the toy catalogues that come out periodically; the ads for these include only boys; and the voiceover features male voices. The toys I designated as “girls’” are similarly categorized, show only girls, and have gentler female voices in the narration.”
It would be very interesting to see what words appear in both and their relative weights.
It is such a small sample that the word “weight” might be a bit strong
. I did include spreadsheets of the words and their frequency in another post if you’d like to have a look. Here is a link.
While yes, toys ARE gender-typed in TV ads, I can’t see them using the words “battle”, “power”, “armour”, and “launch” for the Easy Bake Oven, no matter WHAT gender they target.
This might’ve been more effective to your point if you’d stuck with similar types of toys, such as boy-targeted dolls vs girl-targeted dolls.
Thanks. You are certainly not the first to point that out
and it is a comment that needed to be made.
My interest is gender stereotypes of boys and my intention was to show the nature of toys aimed at boys. I added the “girls” list just for a contrast but, it kind of muddied my message. My mistake for not being clearer from the beginning.
Thank you for doing this very important and eye-opening study. It was really fascinating and disturbing. To me personally, the scary thing is not so much the gender stereotypes but the message, sent to half the population of developing future world leaders, that “battles,” “power,” and “launching” “weapons” are fun.
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I was visiting friends of mine and their kindergarten-age son was playing a video game. All of a sudden he asked why it was that he had to kill people (in the game). I guess he’ll just get used to it
That is scary!
A world based on the concepts of fun, love and babies might be a little naive, but a world based on the concepts of battle, power, action, launching and weapons is — well — really really familiar in a horrifying way.
Well said.
This statement will be unpopular, but the greatest source of gender bias in our culture (and the main drive of condemnation of male boys playing with “girl” toys) is religion, especially Abrahamic religions in the U.S. (90%). Do a word cloud on the bible sometime. I think it would be a shock to most people to see it distilled thru your method.
Whole families go once a week (sometimes more) for several hours to receive reinforced messages of gender bias from 2000 years ago. It’s one of the few places you still see “Men’s and Women’s study groups segregated
I don’t know if it’s the greatest, but it certainly ranks up there. Anyone looking for evidence can read the book Misogyny by Jack Holland.
And that would be an interesting word cloud.
This is so obviously sexist, you know how women seem to like shoes and handbags more than men? You don’t right? You are just brainwashed, time to stop buying all those frivolous goods girlies;)
Oh, start watching football as well, clearly the only reason you don’t like football is because you were gender brainwashed;)
I’m a guy who was big into Star Wars and He-Man as a kid, but also desperately wanted Barbie’s and Jem dolls. I was told by a female friend (when aged
that she had been told by her father that I was not allowed to play with her Barbie’s anymore when I came over. And my grandparents on two occasions flipped out, once when I played with Barbies with the kids of their friends, and another when I wanted a She-Ra Princess of Power figure (this was greatly confusing to me as the cartoon used to have He-man (the figures of which I WAS allowed to have) go and visit his sister She-Ra (of which the toys from the cartoon I was NOT allowed to have) on her cartoon quite often.
Even as an adult toy collector (which I got into in my mid twenties I believe due to childhood issues of having toys so tightly controlled (what I could and couldn’t have, then having them taken off me quite suddenly when I was 11 as I was deemed ‘too old’) – I collect both He-Man, She-Ra AND Jem (of the cartoon rock band) figures. Gender stereotypes can create mass confusion (and resentment which lasts long into adulthood) for children, and it still amazes me that parents are so unaware of how long hurts can last from childhood. I myself deeply resented my grandfather all the way up to his death for what I preserved as a purposefully executed public humiliation of me by loudly chastising my desire for ‘dolls’ as a child. It may sound like I got too serious about it, but when you’re 8 years old and someone does that to you it’s not something you forget easily.
As for the TV ads, no they didn’t CREATE the gender stereotypes, but they sure as hell reinforce them. But then heck – tobacco companies would have 5 year olds smoking if they could get away with it so it’s not really an ‘evil’, so much as an annoyance, and in a perfect world marketing companies would act more responsibly when advertising to the very young.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I think it is really important to point out the lasting impact of gender stereotyping and to help people realize that it affects boys as much as girls.
This wordcloud stuff doesn’t “proof” anything, because the author was the person grouping several commercials to the gender. HE was the one who put the dolls and barbies and stuff to girls and the robots and action figures to boys. No wonder the result is stereotyped. I think you should consider also the type of advertisement in your “scientific” report. This would most likely show that words as “battle” “action” etc. are most used in advertisements for actionfigures and stuff, while words as “fun”, “love” etc. are more used in ads for barbies and dolls. This is by no means an indicator for stereotypes in advertisement.
For the record, the author is a “she”.
I should have outlined my criteria for dividing the toys into boys’ and girls’ categories, and I apologize for the oversight. I followed the lead of toy sellers who place all of the toys I designated as boys’ in the boys’ section on their website and in their print catalogues. I also looked at the ads themselves, which feature boys exclusively and include male voices in the narration. I used the same method for the girls’ toys.
I made no claims that this was a “scientific” study. I merely said it was a mash-up and something I found interesting. I also acknowledged that this was far from exhaustive and really just a starting point for future examination.
What the words really reflect is the nature of the toys that are marketed predominantly to boys and how they hew to stereotypes of boys–noisy, aggressive, and belligerent.
Do any of the ads actually SAY girls cannot play with Hot Wheels or boys with Zhu Zhu pets? Is there a law against it? Is there a law against girls wanting toys advertised with the words “battle” or “power?” Action toys are advertised with action words and nurturing toys are advertised with nurturing words. Boys tend to prefer one group and girls the other. How is that stereotyping?
But where do these preferences come from? That is where stereotyping enters the picture. Toy advertising can influence children’s perceptions of what is appropriate behaviour for their sex, as noted in a study I read: “children are aware of the gendered portrayals in commercials and thus have learned the ‘appropriateness’ of toys through modeled behavior…[R]epeated exposure to these images contributes to the development of children’s conceptions of gender and their expected roles as men and women.” The authors of this article conduct their own study into the impact of nontraditional gender depictions and conclude that: “even after a brief exposure to nontraditional images both boys and girls were more likely to report that the toy advertised was for both boys and girls…If brief exposure to nontraditional images creates change…imagine what prolonged exposure could do for children’s beliefs and their behaviors.” (Pike, Jennifer and Nancy A. Jennings. “The effects of commercials on children’s perception of gender appropriate toy use.” Sex Roles 52, no. 1-2 (2005): 83-91.)” Parents also tend to be very sensitive about the gender appropriateness of toys, especially for boys. (Wood, Eileen, Serge Desmarais and Sara Gugula. “The impact of parenting experience on gender stereotyped toy play of children.” Sex Roles 47, no. 1-2 (2002): 39-49).
I think I agree with Steve. These preferences come from genetics. Boys are born differently than girls – not all but many. Before I had children I would have agreed with the author, but now I look at my two boys, who love playing with toys that reflect violence and I have come down on the side of genetics. For the longest time I would not let them have guns, and then I realized I was basically telling them they were bad people because they wanted them. I realized the guns don’t cause the violence but telling people they are bad for wanting them creates self esteem issues. Telling an adult not to think about or have an interest in sex does not make the interest go away; I think it’s the same. When I was in college I was taught it was society that made boys boys and girls girls. I remember the parents in the class would roll their eyes. Now I would roll my eyes too. I simply don’t believe I have created aggressive boys. They were BORN that way. And as they age they get calmer and softer, not harder and more aggressive (which they should if accumulated advertising causes it).
they don’t have to say it in the ads because everyone knows it anyways and acts accordingly. Stereotyypes are stereotypes because they influence our behavior. Is that a bad thing? Mostly not, but it starts to get tricky when they restrict access to society’s resources.
A way out of this? Very easy: Just being aware of the fact that stereotypes influence our behavior. So next time you go to toys are us, remember that maybe the boys and girls section should not restrain your decision of what you buy. And when you are interviewing for a job position and think “she is just not going to be able to handle this”, then maybe you wat to think again. So easy. No accusations, no “we should all be equal”.
After all, you want to make the best decision, don’t you?
There is indeed a law, which can be quite savagely enforced by both children’s peers and their parents. It applies to both sexes, but boys in particular will feel its force if, say, they choose to play with dolls at nursery or school, in the form of mockery and ostracism, while they’ll often find themselves firmly steered from the ‘Pink Aisle’ at Toys R Us, with a “those toys are for girls”. Pressure is put on children to make the “right” choices in all sorts of ways – to the point where it really isn’t a choice at all.
To which I’d add this : if it was all a matter of girls’ and boys’ “natural preferences”, there wouldn’t need to be all that pressure to conform. The fact that there is punishment and coercion and all kinds of gentle and not-so-gentle pressure on children to act in certain ways is a very clear demonstration of the fact that these choices are not natural, at least not for everyone. Nobody ever put pressure on an apple to fall downward.
Thanks so much for this. I was really struck by how sad I felt reading the words from ads directed at boys.