When you walk down the toy or clothing aisles in any sore
you are bound to see segregation between boys and girls. The products designed
for boys are seen as masculine colors such as blue, green, and black. Whereas a
girl’s product is much more appealing to a female stereotype. From the toys ad
clothes presented in stores someone can identify that boys are meant to be more
aggressive, adventurous, masculine and a girl should be more self-aware of
their general appearance and be someone who takes care of others, seen in
playing with dolls.
Toys aisles are completely separated by toys having one side
for boys and the other for girls. Even in commercials, we see that companies
target either a male or female demographic. Throughout history we can see a
change in clothing and colors which define gender. Pink was once a color to describe
masculinity and blue for femininity, until it changed. The clothes have changed
from unisex designs to being fitted with certain color, patterns, or how they
are advertised in media everywhere. People do not understand or look at the
influence that this has on children and how they behave.
People have come to the conclusion that males and females
are just as just as good as the other. Then why do we see separation in stores?
By making a product for a certain person, say a pink shirt that says “fabulous,”
it is only acceptable that a girl is seen wearing that shirt opposed to a boy. With
a society such as ours, children are being acceptable to all the form of media
and how they interpret their own sexuality only to be judged by others.
I agree with your blog very much. Why are certain things only for girls and only for guys? Why can’t a guy wear a purple shirt without being judged, or say a little kid plays with a Barbie doll because he likes it. It goes back for guys seeing the media set a social standard for guys. No showing emotions, playing with Barbie’s, knitting, doing inside chores, wearing purple or pink or light blue because it will make you seem non manly. Once the media sets the standards no guy is going to want to be seen as a wimp, or sissy so they won’t even dare doing anything that would be known as feminine. This goes along with then things in stores being separated from each other. Men clothes are on one side of the aisle while woman’s clothes are on the opposite. It starts with the media separating what’s feminine and masculine then it gets taken to stores, malls, any place that sells anything masculine or feminine products.
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ReplyDeleteSexist Advertising is one of the many types of gender discrimination in society today. I mean who is someone to say that girls can’t play with Legos? I do believe that bias in toys is the start of gender discrimination at a younger age. This will just ultimately lead to later discrimination when these kids get older. I do believe many companies are giving these young kids the false idea of their sexual orientation. Company’s such as Legos, Barbie, and Easy- Bake Ovens are pretty much throwing ideas at these kids that first, if you’re a boy your color orientation is blue, and if you are a girl you must go along with pink. As well as saying in a non-verbal way that “Hey, if you’re playing with girls toys and you are a male. Your masculinity is taken. Also, for Females if you’re playing with male toys you’re not showing your feminists sides to the highest standard. Many stores such as Target say they use signs to help customers find products faster, which in no means are they trying to be discriminate towards one gender. In some cases it makes sense, like with apparel, where fit and sizing differences between the sexes come into play. Even though this is a major problem with gender discrimination in the media I do have hope that Target and other retailers will pay attention to this exchange and consider removing gender from the way they market their toys
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