Gender Inequality In Children

Improved Essays
Gender Inequalities in Children’s Everyday Life How did the color pink, butterflies, dresses, makeup and dolls become a symbol of a girl’s? Why do we relate GI joes, dinosaurs, camouflage, the color blue, and dirt to boys? Why are boys thought of as the stronger sex and girls as the weaker sex? Why are certain everyday household activities deemed unmanly or manly? We are hurting our children by forcing societal gender roles upon them by telling/showing them what to wear, what toys to play with and even what emotions they can and cannot show.
It was between 1900 and 1930 that children’s fashion started to change. Boys fashion took on a more grown up male appearance and things that were once neutral like flowers and pink became known as a girls
…show more content…
In the 1920’s the toys were segregated by gender, girl’s toys focused on domesticity and boy’s toys prepared boys for working in the industrial world. Boys got erector sets to build while the girls got sewing machines to make clothes. Going forward girl’s toys become more pink, become sexualized (dolls with breasts, big lips, makeup and skimpy clothes), and less practical for everyday household chores like before. Boys toys seem to keep the same idea of building things, but add in dinosaurs, guns, cars, camouflage, blood, guts and action figures with really detailed abs. Toys start to play into how we see boys and …show more content…
All household work should be taught to both boys and girls and chores should be matched up by the ability to do the chore. When it comes to toys I think kids should be able to play with whatever it is they like to allow their imagination to grow. For the most I think boys and girls should have freedom to wear what they want with some guidance when needed, like if it’s snowing outside or your climbing a tree a dress may not be the best idea. Allowing kids to freely express them selves would decrease angry outburst and turn them into happier healthier

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Gender roles and stereotypes have always been an issue in society, and they still are to this day. Although feminism and woman’s rights have come so far in the past years, there is still more progress to be made and the sexist labels do not only happen to women. Having gender stereotypes, that begin when we are young, creates the platform for many of these sexist issues that women, as well as men, are still facing. The article “Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls” written by Katha Pollitt expresses the ideas of male and female stereotypes along with feminism.…

    • 965 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Boys would have Tonka trucks, toy hammers, screwdrivers, drills, match box car and the most used toy, Mr. Potato Head™. For girls, the toys revolved more around stereotypical feminine activities. Some toys that girls had included; The Hula Hoop™, Play-Doh™, Barbie™, etc. Some other toys were offensive to some women, but for most women, it was not unheard of for things to be sexist. Even though toys back then were known as sexist, there was also a new booming business with unisex toys. Many toys that were unisex were board…

    • 1271 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. Looking at commercial advertising of boy and girl’s toys; girl’s commercials played soft musical tune, while boy’s toy commercials had more of a rock and roll musical tune. Furthermore, the media enforced general roles to the viewers by only including males in boy’s toy commercials and females in girl’s toy commercials. The settings for boy’s toy commercials were usually outside and consisted of darker colors. In addition, they included toy weapons and/or action figures (males with large muscles) that provoked thoughts of violence.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender Neutral Toys

    • 1551 Words
    • 6 Pages

    As discussed above, parents pre-conceived notions of gender have a huge impact on how a child will learn to see gender themselves. There are many ways to teach their children gender equality though. One example would be to allow their child to explore both stereotypical “boy” and “girl” toys. If the child prefers one over the other than so be it, but exposing them to both options allows them to have options. Another tactic parents should understand is to allow their daughters freedom, and their sons to be nurturing.…

    • 1551 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Eckert Gender Roles

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In “Learning to be Gendered”, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet (2013) argue that from the time that children are born, they are taught how to behave based on their gender. This is gender socialization in its basic form—defining the way each of us should act based on gender. In the words of Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet (2013), “at birth, many hospital nurseries provide pink caps for girls and blue caps for boys, or in other ways to provide some visual sign of the sex that has been assigned to the baby”(p. 737). This is an example of how society places expectations on the colors males and females are understood to associate with. As children get older, they continue to experience pressure surrounding their appearance and…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender Specific Toys

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Toys and Books: Tools for Teaching Gender Specific Behavior Toys are the most obvious, and therefore the least expected, method of influencing a child's behavior. It's a subtle method that starts when children can't even walk yet. At first the toys a child is given are gender neutral toys such as The Little Tikes Go and Grow Lil Rollin Giraffe, Fisher-Price Lil’ Snoopy, and The Playskool Poppin’ Park Elefun Busy Ball Popper. These toys are slowly replaced with more gender specific toys like Thomas The Tank Engine and Minnie Mouse and the Smile & Style Mirror by VTech as babies grow older. These toys are colored coded according to the gender of the child who is supposed to play with them.…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1918 Gender Stereotypes

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Starting at a young age, children are often dressed in and surrounded by what is seen as appropriate colors based on their gender-blue for boys and pink for girls. Disregard for this standard may cause preconceived judgement and a distorted idea of one’s character. Not many parents stop to understand why these colors have been assigned to their respective genders, and simply go along with the cultural norm. But I believe many would be surprised to find that that in 1918, it was the exact opposite. In many cultures around the world, it remains opposite, or completely different colors altogether.…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Toys play an important role in gender socialization. Huge corporations, like Toy’s R US and Wal-Mart, have manipulated children into gender roles by exposing them to toys that act as social indicators of gender expectations. Gender socialization and Gender roles, are the processes by which individuals are taught how to socially behave in accordance with their assigned biological sex. The required behavior, individuals are expected to commit to, are set on societal norms dictating the types of behaviors that are desirable solely based on sex. Gender has been constructed by society in numerous ways.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These images changes children 's understanding of men’s and women 's roles in society. It discourages girls from being leaders, and puts down boys who enjoy things that are seen as feminine. This puts women at a disadvantage of being promoted in a job later in life, getting equal pay, and more as they are seen as incapable of doing the same level of work as men. It also causes men who do not fit in the man stereotypes to made fun of by peers, and feel discouraged to take on roles that are seems to be…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sexism In Children

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “When it comes to child custody, however, sexism is the rule.” (Schlafly) Child custody is a delicate proceeding cope with parents in the means of divorce. The evaluations regarding child custody always consider multiple factors that best fit the interest and situation of the child. For a parent to obtain sole custody, where one has the physical and legal rights of the child must be able to provide the necessary maintenance and support. Throughout the history of child custody, instances show women commonly successful in child custody over men.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is absurd to place specific roles in the hands of each sex, “They knew if they kept bouncing it up in the air and saying how strong and active it was, they’d be treating it more like a boy than like an X. But if all they did was cuddle it and kiss it and tell it how sweet and dainty it was, they’d be treating it more like a girl than an X,” (Gould, 1972, 3). Teaching children that they must act a certain way because of their gender is…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Often times children will also be told what they can associate with and what is right and what is wrong. The article “Gender Identity Development in Children” mentions that at a young age, “children learn gender role behavior—that is, do¬ing "things that boys do" or "things that girls do. " It often occurs that children are scolded for doing something that is not feminine or masculine. However the problem is not just about who gets to play with what toys. This expands up to how each gender is treated and often times the treatments that both genders receive are very…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When we are born we are immediately brought into this human-created institution. Instead of uniting us, gender as a structure does a better job at hindering us. Our parents begin dressing us in either pink or blue clothes, buying us either dolls or dinosaurs, setting expectations of how we dress, act and play based upon what gender we were assigned. However, the concept of gender as a social institution also gives us hope that we can change what is acceptable as either male or female and as time goes on we will see more and more change about how we define…

    • 1020 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Gender Inequality

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Gender equality is a hot topic that stirs up a multitude of emotions on both sides of the argument. For women to be seen as equals from all perspectives, there needs to be further restructuring of the social policies that perpetuate gender roles and the functions that they serve in society (Zimmerman, 2012). Structural functionalists posit that gender roles arise from the need to establish a division of labor that will help maintain the smooth running of the family and will therefore contribute to the stability of society. In this view, girls and boys are taught different approaches to life. Boys are taught to be goal oriented, to focus on tasks, and to be the provider as well as the protector of the family and society.…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    My parents taught me that women have to act sensitive and nurturing, while my brother had to behave taught and love sports. I was taught those ideas, but as I grew older my perspectives have changes and I will develop a different gender ideology for my…

    • 851 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics