“After all, a princess can play with worms. And ninja cupcakes are quite tasty.” Doctor Zimmermann stated in an email to The New York Times. Children’s toys are more gender-typed than 50 years ago. While America has made some huge steps towards removing gender stereotypes from the workplace and government. We almost had a female president, while that is all great, we still have an issue, children are being raised with these toys that only give them half the amount of skills they need to be successful adults. Children’s toys should not be gender-typed.

 Children are missing many skills by playing with gender-typed toys. Traditionally masculine toys like blocks and puzzles, encourage visual and spatial skills, while traditionally feminine toys encourage communication and social skills. Dr. Spinner stated. “If children only play with one, then they are missing out on a whole host of skills,” she said. They are also limiting their own interests and the scope of their futures.

 Once children are at a school-age social exclusion can affect many pieces of their development, such as lower academic success, along with a negative impact on mental health and/or well-being. With social exclusion comes gender segregation and children who are uncomfortable speaking to their male or female classmates. They don’t know how to interact with each other. The other day my mom said boys will be boys for an excuse for my brother dressing in the same outfit almost every day, but at the beginning of 6th grade, I had to start dressing how she wanted. My brother gets to wear what he wants but I have to be a proper young lady. This happens in families across the country it all begins with the toys we play with as children. It is not our fault but the companies that label them boys and girls toys.

   Toys can limit a child's career choices because they never have an experience with one set of skills when they are “working their jobs” as 3 year-olds, playing. A gender stereotype is one of the first things that develops in a child after they can walk because when they are five months old they see all the colors. Red and shades of it are the first colors they see. So a stereotype can start from five months old, a seed to grow into a tree. Many scientists have stated that careers can be limited simply based on the toys we play with. Some examples of this are that “female adolescents indicating they want to be models (32%) or actors (29%) compared to engineers (4%) or scientists (14%). Stated Spinner(A child psychologist) in the article ‘Peer Toy Play as a Gateway to Children’s Gender Flexibility . . . .’. Also in that article, they stated that traditionally male toys encourage skills for a career in science or the military, and may make aggression seem acceptable. While a traditionally female toy may promote nurturing and empathy skills and send a message to children that appearance is what matters most. There was a study done and the results were girls who played with barbies were interested in things like modeling and acting. Children who played with Mr/Mrs. Potato Head had similar career ambitions. Toys can affect your child's future and may limit them.

  As children age, they are more open to toys/clothes that aren’t labeled for their gender. A preschooler may go towards an item that is gender-typed. Professor Blakemore says too early childhood development teachers/educators and parents with young children. If you want to develop children's physical, cognitive, academic, musical, and artistic skills, toys that are not strongly gender-typed are more likely to do this. Both types of toys give children important life skills such as science, building, cooking, cleaning, care for infants, spatial, nurturance. Although moderately masculine toys encourage physical, cognitive, academic, musical, artistic skills more than moderately feminine toys, girls are losing many skills at a young age. Not all the toys are made the same.

The gender apocalypse, that's what some people believe with happen if we stop gender-typing toys. They say that children won't know which toy to get. They say children will get teased for liking things outside of the norm. Maybe they will but they still are much happier when they don't have to pick between princesses or superheroes. It is senseless to make individuals fit in that tiny box. Children are unique and wonderful humans who have their own, ideas of what is fun and exciting. Now parents say it will just be a sea of beige but before the 1970s toys were less gender-typed and there was plenty of colors. Stop putting your children in boxes.

Gender-typed toys are wrong, they enforce an age-old stereotype that is simply ludicrous. Multiple companies have removed boy and girl from the toy aisles but “girls toys” are still drenched in pink, and “boys toys” are colorful and stereotypically masculine. Children are missing out on skills they need to be successful adults. Push yourself and local stores to remove the labels for girls and boys from toy aisles and clothing sections. Let the kid choose what they like. Don’t be ashamed by your little boy who plays with dolls because you accept a girl who wants to play with dinosaurs and vise versa. Let kids be kids.

                              Works Cited

Blakemore, Judith Elaine. “ What the Research Says: Gender-Typed Toys.” NAEYC, NAEYC.

Klass, Perri. “Breaking Gender Stereotypes in the Toy Box.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Feb. 2018.

Maloney, Carolyn. “The Pink Tax.” The Pink Tax, Joint Economic Committee , Dec. 2016.

Spinner, Lauren, et al. “Peer Toy Play as a Gateway to Children's Gender Flexibility: The Effect of (Counter)Stereotypic Portrayals of Peers in Children's Magazines.” SpringerLink, Springer US, 23 Jan. 2018.

Talks, TEDx and Elizabeth Sweet, directors. Between the Blue and Pink Toy Divide. YouTube, YouTube, 16 Nov. 2015.