Gender Space in Children’s Toys

Exploring the Perception of Space and Identity

Many attempts have been made to explore the perception of space and identity across many different discussion platforms. The topics of discussion include race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and even sexual orientation. When we talk about space and identity, the topics of gender and space take precedence. The gender space chosen impacts the socialization of the material as well as the public’s interaction with it. The paper will undertake a cognitive overview of a gendered toy store. It investigated the all-boys and all-girls building as well as the usage of space. Adverts made on favorite television shows need to observe the sensitive gender of nature. Children ads are predominantly becoming common for mainstream companies to sell much of their product, mainly toy. Upon the release of the eighth episode of the movie Star Wars, several children ads were used to sell the toys. The toys were of the army uniforms and the laser swords. The sales were significantly high. There are also some companies with kids advertising for dolls. The paper is a research presentation of the general trend in gender balance in the process of making children ads.

Limiting Gender Stereotypes and Spaces

Most of the television adverts do reinforce the limiting gender stereotypes and spaces. In most occasions, the ads show boys and girls operating on different areas. This kind of separation is what Let Toys be Toys volunteers champion against. In the case of the Star Wars ads, most of the children depicted to be holding and using the swords are males. The official movie achieved a great deal of gender balance by having a man and a female as the main actors. The ads featuring girls are peaceful, glamorous and primarily emphasize on appearance and fostering relationships. For the boys, they get always depicted as hostile, and they do stress on power and conflict. Most of the boy ads primarily sell automobile toys. Several doll producing companies and famous clothing lines use girl’s ads to promote their products. The gender message that the ads portray is that children should start identifying themselves in their tender ages. The ideology limits the children to expect a reasonably defined way of life as they grow up. In most cases, boys will cut off their association with girls. In reality, children are very playful and would fit in any social platform with a lot of ease. He or she should get presented with a variety of information and alternatives without considering the gender aspect of it. For sure, let toys be toys. The messages directed to the boy-spaces by the advertisers portray boy’s toys as full of fun and are adventurous to use. On the other hand, there is a little of elegance in the girl’s space (Brown, 460). The young girls are portrayed to be peaceful and humble. The boys will attribute the idea to weakness. That could be a fact in explaining why girls would actively play with boys when it comes to games like shooting.

Study Findings on Toy Preferences

There was a study that two hundred and ninety-two undergraduates brought together close to one hundred and twenty-six toys just to determine whether they are best fit for boys or girls or both of the two genders. The study established four categories of the toy sets. Each of the facility considered having fifteen toys, having three from each group. The second research embodied seven hundred and six students who each at a time rated the toys from one of the toy sets. The research was done on 26 scales that acted as a determinant of the toy’s characteristics. The following were some of the study findings. One, most of the girl’s toys had strong affiliation with qualities like attractiveness and nurturance with some taste of domestic skills. The boy’s toys had some different feeling. They got rated as competitive, exciting and somewhat dangerous. Most of the boy’s toys are violent and machine oriented in nature. The toys were rated as educational and were an exquisite manner of developing a child’s cognitive skills of reading, understanding, physical and artistic.

Gender-Neutral Toy Department at Harrods

Harrods-an is an internationally accredited store in the city of London. The company has revolutionized the gender space for the children’s toys. They put a primary objective of the new architecture is to group the toys thematically. It is in contrary with the traditional orientation of grouping the boy’s toys and the girl’s toys in different shelves. The company terms it as the “First gender-Neutral Toy Department.” Many of the modern parents think about gender. They must be in full control of the behavior and the relations of the small children.

Gender Spacing in Clothing and Toys

The issue of gender spacing becomes fundamentally significant when a parent wants to consult a friend to give an advice when he or he wants to buy the baby items. Most of the clothing are categorically gendered. You will find boy-toys like cars and fighter jets in a particular shelve. The other shelve in the far end will contain the girl’s pleasantries like diaper bags and sleeping sacks. It is important to note that there are a couple of gender neutral clothing that is available in the market. They are fit for the children up to around the eighteen months age duration. However, the options are always shorter in supply.

Gender Neutrality in Clothing and Toys

The recent gender-neutral lines are an incorporation of the woodland animals that are less present in the children’s clothing. Most of them featured foxes, owls, and even hedgehogs. When it comes to toys, the situation is always worse and take a precise dimension of the phase shift. Most of the children are still beautiful when it comes to gender socialization. Most of them bring up the picture of the pink toy store. The concept of gender neutrality prompts an average individual to that he or she should stop distinguishing people by gender bias. Such kind of discrimination happen all the time, and it would be an uphill task to tame the situation. Perception arises from the fact that we defiantly assert that a particular gender is the best suit for a specific position or job.

Positive Changes and Controversy with Gender Neutrality

The agitation for gender neutrality has resulted to some notable positive changes in life. An exquisite example is that most of the job titles have got altered not to point out the gender of the occupant. There are some situations where the sanitation worker is called a waste management Engineer (Manolache, 125). The aspect of gender neutrality have also lead to some controversial issues within the society. One, there is the aspect of same-sex marriage. The protagonists believe that the institutions should not limit the roles of gay couples by gender.

Impact of Gender Spacing on Child Development

The gender spacing among the younger children is a crucial issue that will undoubtedly affect the development of the child. A young girl who is meant to consume gender biased toys from her childhood will always uphold feminism. She will believe that the women’s issues are still of paramount importance. The same case applies to a boy clouded with a boy like environment in his childhood. The people who follow gender roles correctly might create a dynamic society that might come with lots of criticisms.

Works Cited

Brown, Michael. ”Gender and sexuality II: There goes the gayborhood?.“ Progress in Human Geography 38.3 (2014): 457-465.

Manolache, Elena. ”Transforming the Gendered Social Relations of Urban Space.“ Journal of Research in Gender Studies 3.1 (2013): 125.