Gender Stereotypes In Toys

Register to read the introduction… Advertisements, TV, magazines, and other things like this are often the biggest source of fuel to the fire that is gender stereotypes. Typically in these types of media you will see a blonde, thin and smiling girl and an extremely muscular, powerful and handsome man. Companies use gender to sell their products by using sex-appeal quite often. Sex sells, and unfortunately in this day and age, so does sexism. A good place to find a commercial that shows heavy gender stereotypes would be during the Super Bowl. You would think that because advertisement during the Super Bowl goes for so much money, those companies would want to put out their best, but instead what happens is a lot of reinforcing of gender stereotypes. A specific example would be the hyper-sexualized Carl’s Jr. commercial featuring Kate Upton, which was actually banned from the 2012 Super Bowl, but it was shown during the Academy …show more content…
While we as a society have made great progress in the world of gender stereotypes, toys make it look like we’re still in the 1950s. Girls are given dolls and fake kitchen sets, to represent how women are supposed to be domestic with a main priority of home and family. Boys are given trucks and action figures because these things are considered tough. Toys are specifically marked “boy”, or “girl”. Even if it isn’t directly said, it’s said through the use of color or images on the packaging. As a little girl, I always had dolls, but as a little girl I never thought about the message that those dolls and the fake household items, and the dress up clothes were sending me. Growing up with a brother, I always wished I had a sister, because there was no one to play games that I was taught to enjoy with. “House” a popular game among young girls including me, and dress up was strictly off limits as a game played between my brother and I, he wouldn’t do it because it was “girly”. The one time it did happen, we got in trouble, because my brother was in makeup and a dress. We got in trouble not because my parents were against it, but because my parents were concerned about what would happen socially to him if my brother were to transgress into the “pink” zone. What I find interesting now that it wasn’t a big deal for me to be wrestling or playing tag though. While I did and till do prefer more gentle activities, maybe due to …show more content…
Because of these gender roles there are new political terms like “the glass ceiling” and “the glass escalator”. The glass ceiling is the invisible, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps women from getting to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements. Once she gets to a certain point the ceiling will keep her from getting any higher up, while men often takes a smooth ride on an invisible escalator all the way to the top floor of whatever profession he’s trying for. This happens mainly when a woman is in a male-dominated occupation, and vice versa. Politics are a great example. Politics are considered to be male-dominated. We still haven’t seen a female president because males are typically just viewed as stronger, and more able to handle the duties and responsibilities of managing a country. In this country we have public figures like Marc Rudov being interviewed, and asked what the downsides of having a female president would be. Rudov replied "You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings, right?”. This statement just shows how women and girls are often viewed as weak, fragile and not