Gender Roles in Toy Design - Exploration Project

Gender Roles in Toy Design Exploration Project

By Toni Pilling

2

Contents Science research

p 4-23

Field research

p 24-41

Marketing/advertising research

p 42-57

Appendices For each section I have a number of appendices alongside which I have labelled by letter. The list of these are below and are referenced to when necessary throughout.

A

B

C

Science research A.1

Nature VS Nurture notes

A.2

Dr Nick Neave full interview notes

A.3

Play research notes

Field research B.1

Focus group report

B.2

Toys and career connections survey report

B.3

Parents opinions survey report

Marketing/advertising research C.1

Advert analysis notes

C.2

Toy store analysis notes

3

Science Research

Introduction During this section I looked into the science and psychology behind why we choose certain toys as a child. This research was pretty extensive, I did a lot of reading around and spoke to an expert on the topic.

My Assumptions •

The reason we choose certain toys is mostly down to our environment

•

Play helps towards a childs development

•

Gender stereotype toys are generally seen as a negative towards a childs upbringing

6

Contents Nature Vs Nurture debate

p 8-15

Interview with Dr Nick Neave

p 16-17

Play research

Are gender stereotype toys good or bad?

p 18-19

p 20-21

Conclusions from science research

p 22

References

p 23

7

Nature debate Are we naturally attracted to certain toys?

Tests have shown that females have a preference for

lilac-pink and bright colours.

D

RO U N They also have a preference to details too.

shapes and more

ST RA IG Whereas males prefer HT edges and absence on detail.

ER Males and females share a preference to

bluish colours.

Females used to be gatherers and child bearers. They could detect

yellow fruit and edible red leaves

against green

foliage as their eyes are more sensitive to the spectrum of light that detects red. They also had the ability to spot

8

flushed faces in infants.

Females are superior in

object memory

and have been

shown to siginificantly outperform males on the recall of object locations.

They also scored higher on tests for identifying emotions showing that they have higher

empathetic abilities.

Males used to be hunters so needed to be able to detect and evade predators and trackdown and target prey.

They are more accuracte at

targeting,

intercepting and guiding projectiles. This correlates with superior

3D vision.

They also have higher field independence/ dependence which helped detect and distinguish

camouflaged objects.

Males produce more testoterone when developing their sex organs which

aggression, higher visuo-spatial abilities and competitiveness.

correaltes with a

Higher visuo-spatial abilities means males can mentally rotate 3D objects in space easier in their imagination.

9

An experiment was conducted on young male and female monkeys to test whether we are innately attracted to certain toys or not. They were given dolls and trucks to play with.

The reason this was done with monkeys is because they have had

no exposure to gender stereotypes.

Female monkeys barely touched the vehicles

They instantly went for the

dolls

This could be due to maternal instincts

10

Male

monkeys played with vehicles twice as long as the dolls

They instantly went for the

trucks This could be due to the male brain preferring things that move around more

11

Nurture debate Are we attracted to certain toys because of our environment?

Advertising

Packaging

Teachers

environment could be

What factors in our influencing what we play with?

Friends

Parents

12

Perceived gender of toy

An experiment was conducted to test whether a

parents confidence would change in a child depending on its gender. They introduced each one to a ramp which they could adjust and estimate from how high up the child could crawl down.

100 babies were experimented on and in every instance the parents estimated a

higher height for the males. This experiment shows how

differently parents act towards different genders, are we limiting our children because they are female? -

self fulfilling prophecy.

“A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior.�

13

An experiment was conducted to test whether the

gender of the child

affects playtime with an adult/parent. The adults were introduced to a child that was dressed up and presented as the opposite sex (e.g a girl dressed a boy) and then asked to play with the child.

Play with the truck!

The adult tried to make the little “boy� play with trucks

14

The child actually had its eyes on the doll and wanted to play with that

The child was revealed as being a girl in disguise and the adult was shocked

“girls” to play with stereotypical girls toys and the “boys” to play with stereotypical boys toys even when clearly on the footage the child In most cases the adults tried to convince the

was rejecting the toy. Even after the experiment they were adament that the child wanted to play with these toys. This just shows how much of an influence parents/adults can influence a child’s decision to play with certain toys, its in their subconscious to pick gender stereotypical toys.

15

Interview with Dr Nick Neave To get a few more insights and to back up the research I had already done I thought it would be best to arrange an interview with Evolutionary Psychologist Dr Nick Neave, (see appendix B.3 for full interview notes).

“

to have certain traits...

“ 16

arguement has been going on forever and will continue to go on...

...decide whether to create something to

one sex or be gender neutral but don’t force it

appeal to

upon them...

“

“

difficult to solve nature/nurture debate as this ...too

“

“

biological predisposition for boys and girls ...always going to be a

...look into collecting, problem solving, puzzles, education as these have all been proven to

appeal to both sexes...

17

Play research Another part of my desk research I conducted was into the importance of play, types of play and the stages of play that occur in early life.

Why is play important?

75% of brain development occurs after birth

doubles

A childs brain size in the first year

in

By the age of 3 it has reached

80%

of its adult size

Play helps a child...

18

Develop social skills

Build confidence

Feel loved, happy, safe

Learn about caring for others

Develop physical skills

Connect and refine pathways in the brain

Spin to reveal...

Sta

rt

he

re

Unn oc

ay

l lp

cia

h 4 e wit l o d ia s S un iali soc o ar soc rn a to le n en, ules i g r r be hild c

up

i

ed b nd irth pl om ay 3 cle mo mo ar ve n pu me ths rp nt os s, no e

ra

Associative play

Solitary play

around 3 more interested in other children than toys, learn do’s and don’ts of getting along with others

3 - 18 months exploring world, watching, grabbing, rattling

Pa r

all el

1 pl a 8m ay in long onth te s pr rac ide s op ti 2 er on child yea ty , u r rig nd en, rs ht erst no s“ m and in e”

r ke

a pl

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rs ea y 2 er loo h g n s ot nin d O th g r on in a an m tch , le ips 18 wa ren sh ge ild on ua ch lati ng la re

19

Are gender stereotyped toys good or bad?

Most of the research I have done is against having children playing with gender stereotypes toys. Some people have the opinion that gender stereotypes are a positive so I decided to read around about this side of the debate. I have already shown that we have innate preferences for certain toys so why should we not keep toys seperated?

Opinions about why gender stereotype toys are a positive for children

stereotypical blue or pink romper suits those

XX and

XY chromosomes will out in the end.

If little girls didn’t have those

dollyhugging

instincts we would all be in a pickle because who in the future would do the mothering and who would work in all those vital caring professions from midwifery to primary school teaching and nursing?

hardwired into being obsessive, aggressive show-offs and risk-takers,

And if little boys weren’t

who would spend hours in the lab before making great scientific breakthroughs or drilling for oil or defending the nation?

20

“

Give a girl a doll and she will cuddle it and nurture it. Give a boy a doll and he will either torture and dismember it or use it as a hand grenade.

“

“

“

No matter how hard you try to bring your kids up in a gender-neutral way even if you refuse point blank to dress them in

girls the kind of toys they most want just to demonstrate how enlightened and post-sexist you are?

The

neglect of boys is a

longstanding problem, but its latest front may be the most toxic we’ve yet seen. Under the label “gender-neutral parenting,” liberals are now trying to

liberate boys from boyhood.

They wouldn’t put it that way. Gender-neutral parents love to tell you how they aren’t hostile to masculinity.

They just broadly support whatever their kids want to be.

“

What if there is a

sound biological

“

“

deny boys and

“

“

Is it really “fantastic” to

“

“

Homogenising messages to children surely does them a disservice by failing to acknowledge their unique characteristics.

reason for the way men and women are programmed to think and behave in different ways?

future of our species depends on it?

What indeed if the

21

Conclusions from science research What does it all mean?

From my research I have found out that choosing certain toys can depend on nature and nurture. From all these differences in men and women innately it is not a surprise that toy manufacturers purposely genderise toys as there are differences in our brains which make us more attracted to certain things.

However I am still of the belief that it is mainly down to the child’s environment as the nature side of the arguement applies to how the brain was during the start of evolution. One statement from the BBC documentary I watched stuck with me “the differences between males and females personalities/preferences is smaller than the differences between groups of males together and groups of females together,” this just shows that we are becoming more gender fluid slowly so in my opinion nurture outweighs nature.

The interview with Dr Nick Neave was very helpful and made me realise that I do not need to try and solve this whole debate as it is an arguement that will be going on forever. However the points he made about creating a toy/game with aspects that help both genders is a really good idea and will be something I will be taking forward when generating concepts.

Research into the importance of play was fundamental for my project to show why playtime is important during early life. I can use these points to help validate any concepts I come up with and associate them with a certain stage of play when looking at age ranges to cater for.

The arguement about why gender stereotype toys are positive for children is really controversial and an opinion that I think I am fully against. I can see where some of the parents/journalists are coming from and get there point of view but I think I am of the belief that we should be letting our children play with what they want and not have specific labels for each sex. There is only the nature arguement that really backs up this point of view.

Final insights •

Nature and nurture both have an influence on toy preference

•

The nature vs nurture debate will never be fully solved

•

Play helps with a child’s development

22

References For my dissertation I am doing about gender and video game advertising so some of the books included here have been read more for that however are still very relevant to this section and have been helpful towards my exploration too.

Anon. (2007). Stages of Play During Child Development. Available: http://www. child-development-guide.com/stages-of-play-during-child-development. html. Last accessed 29th Nov 2016.

Cassel, J and Jenkins, H (1999). From Barbie to Moral Kombat, Gender and Computer Games. London: The MIT Press.

Delingpole, J. (2014). Why it’s not sexist to say boys should never play with dolls.

Express.

Gilmour, H. (2014). Should all marketing to children be gender-neutral?. Campaign.

Kirkham, P (1996). The gendered object. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p80-102.

Lu, Rachel. (2016). Why Gender-Neutral Child-Raising Is A Terrible Idea. The Federalist.

Mosley M and Roberts A. (2014). Is Your Brain Male or Female?. Available: http:// www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04knbny/horizon-20142015-7-is-your-brainmale-or-female. Last accessed 26th Nov 2016.

Moss, G and Hamilton, C and Neave, N. (2006). Evolutionary factors in design preferences. Brand Management. 14 (4), p313-323.

Sparke, P (1995). As Long as it’s Pink, The Sexual Politics of Taste. London: Harper Collins.

Sweet, E. (2014). Toys Are More Divided by Gender Now Than They Were 50 Years Ago. Available: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/toysare-more-divided-by-gender-now-than-they-were-50-years-ago/383556/.

Last accessed 17th Nov 2016.

Torney,B. (2013). Playing The Gender Game - How Gender Roles in Toys impact Toys & Games. Available: http://www.globaltoynews.com/2013/09/playingthe-gender-game-how-gender-roles-in-toys-impact-toys-games.html.

Last accessed 19th Nov 2016.

23

Field Research

Introduction Within this chapter I have shown a focus group which I conducted with children based on some of my science research to help prove/disprove the theories with nurture. I also sent out two surveys, one to find out about the connections between toys and peoples occupations, the other to find out about parents opinions on gender stereotypes.

My Assumptions •

Males are attracted to mainly masculine toys

•

Females are attracted to mainly feminine toys

•

The toys we play with as children affect our jobs roles/interests and ambition when we are older

•

Parents have gender stereotypical opinions

26

Contents Focus group

p 28-33

Toys and career connections survey

p 34-36

Parents opinions

p 37-39

Conclusions of field research

p 40

References

p 41

27

Focus group As part of my own field research I conducted a focus group at a nursery in Bolton with 8 children, age 3-4, 4 girls, 4 boys to find out their opinions on certain toys.

I wanted to find out whether they liked/disliked certain toys and whether they thought they were for specific genders because of the function/form of the toy or whether it was there outward appearance. To do this I bought 8 toys altogether, I altered the appearance of 3 of them to help match the 4 categories I wanted to create -

2 stereotypically feminine toys with a feminine output (prinecess tea set and girl doll)

2 stereotypically feminine toys with a masculine output (a spray painted my little pony and boy doll)

28

2 stereotypically masculine toys with a masculine output (green train and dark coloured action figure)

2 stereotypically masculine toys with a feminine output (both of these were spray painted, pink train and pink action figure)

To conduct the experiment I also created some flash cards to help assist the child with categorising the toys.

Each child was sat down individually and asked to put the toys they liked the most on the yellow smiley face, the toys they just liked on the orange smiley face and the ones they did not like on the blue face. After this they were then asked for each toy whether they thought the toy was for a boy, a girl or both.

Unfortunately I could not take any photographic evidence with the children but got to take a couple of photos of the equipment on the table once the children had gone out to play.

29

Do you like/dislike this toy?

30

GIRLS mainly preferred...

Masculine toys/ Feminine output

Feminine toys/ Feminine output

BOYS mainly preferred...

Masculine toys/ Masculine output

Feminine toys/ Masculine output This shows that the outward appearance of the toy is what attracts the child to play with it not the form of the toy.

31

Is this toy for a male/female/ both?

Feminine toys/ Feminine output

Masculine toys/ Masculine output

32

These results show that most children judge what makes a boy/girls toy on its outward appearance more than its form. The only toy that did not fit into this was the pony, it was seen as mainly gender neutral, (see appendix B.1 for full report).

Masculine toys/ Feminine output

Feminine toys/ Masculine output

33

Toys and career connections survey A survey got sent out via Survey Monkey and reached 30 people of all different age ranges and occupations. This was conducted to see what connections people had between their toys and careers/interests and also about what they were encouraged/discouraged to play with and the factors behind this, (see appendix B.2 for full report).

53%

of participants said they remember

playing with toys that were connected to what their occupation is, what they study or what their interests are today.

Examples of this from survey Age: 25-34 Studied: Fashion Marketing Occupation: Art and Design Interests: Yoga, travel, health Connected toys: Dolls, ‘making my own clothes for them’

Age: 18-24 Studied: English Literature Occupation: Business and Finance

Interests: Football, singing Connected toys: Subbuteo, child’s microphone

Age: 35-44 Studied: Maths Occupation: Legal Interests: Media, music, art Connected toys: Books, paints, musical instruments

34

Did you ever feel as a child that you were enouraged/discouraged by other factors to play with certain toys?

Encouraged

Discouraged

35

FEMALES

Which toys were you encouraged/discouraged from playing with?

Encouraged

Dolls

Vehicles

MALES

Discouraged

Encouraged

Vehicles

Discouraged

Dolls

The results were nearly the exact opposite for each gender showing that the “right� gender stereotype toys were encouraged and discouraged for each gender, (see appendix B.2 for full report).

36

Parents opinions I created a survey using Typeform to try and see what opinions parents had on gender stereotypes. 20 participants filled in my questionnaire which contained 16 different statements. Each of these statements followed by a rating scale of 0-10 from strongly disagree to strongly agree, (see appendix B.3 for full report).

I strongly agree that I would not buy my son a doll.

I strongly agree that girls should be encouraged to play with building blocks and toy trucks.

37

Strongly disagree

Neutral

Strongly agree

Only boys should be permitted to play competitive sports.

Quiet girls will live a happier life than assertive girls.

It is only healthy for boys to cry when they’ve been hurt.

I would discourage my son from saying he wants to be a nurse when he grows up.

Boys who exhibit sissy behaviours will never be well adjusted.

I would buy my son and daughter the same kind of toys.

Interestingly this was in the top 4 most thought provoking questions as it took on average 6.85 seconds to answer.

Boys who exhibit sissy behaviours will never be well adjusted.

Girls who are tomboys will never be well adjusted.

I feel upset when I see boys put on a dress when they play dress-up.

A parent who would pay for ballet lessons for their son is looking for trouble.

38

Strongly disagree

Neutral

Strongly agree

I would not buy my son a doll.

This was also in the top 4 thought provoking questions it took on average 6.40 seconds to answer.

I would not hire a male babysitter.

Another thought provoking question which took on average 4.35 seconds to answer.

Boys, more than girls, need competitive sports.

I would be upset if my daughter wanted to play football.

Girls should be encouraged to play with building blocks and toy trucks.

This was the MOST thought provoking question out of them all taking on average 7.80 seconds to answer.

I would feel disappointed if my daughter acted like a tomboy.

It is interesting to see in the parents opinions that for the statements “I would not hire a male babysitter” and “I would not buy my son a doll” that these both have a large proportion of people agreeing which is discrimating towards boys. These also had 2 of the longest average times for answering the questions which just shows how thought provoking they were. However for the majority of statements about girls they agree that girls can ‘have both,’ this just shows how girls are

positively discriminated

by parents.

39

Conclusions from field research What does it all mean?

From my focus group this just confirmed what I already thought that children choose toys based on there appearances. However it did surprise me that they did not like what would be classed as a gender stereotypical toy for them when the outward appearance was altered to match the opposite gender. This was definitely more of an issue for the boys as they nearly all did not like anything pink, I got lots of comments about the pink colour being just for girls.

The first survey confirmed my assumption that what we play with as children can affect our future. With just over half of the participants having toys connected to their everyday lives. This could mean that if children are being prevented from playing with certain toys they could be being prevented from a different career path and interests in their adult life.

Parents were a big factor influencing which toys children were encouraged/ discouraged from playing with. I always assumed they would play a big part in toy selection and from my second survey results I found that they were more discriminating towards boys. The more I research the more I want to create something that encourages boys into more feminine roles. It seems to be the opinion that girls can play with boys toys but boys cannot play with girls toys, if I could reduce this stigma somehow I think this would be a good but difficult route to follow.

The other main factors encouraging/discouraging children to play with certain toys were friends and siblings which is again like the parents. It is the people we are around the most.

The perceived gender of a toy scored highly for discouraging a child to play with something. This was proved through my focus group as the outward appearance of the toys really affected the childrens decisions.

Final insights •

The outward appearance of a toy affects a childs choice more than the form of the toy

•

The toys we play with as children could have an impact on our future career choices/interests

•

Parents, siblings and friends have a significant impact on what toys children choods to play with

•

Girls are positively discriminated, it seems to be popular opinion that boys in general cannot play with girls toys

•

Children are usually encouraged to play with their gender stereotypical toys

40

References Freeman, N. (2007). Preschoolers’ Perceptions of Gender Appropriate Toys and their Parents’ Beliefs About Genderized Behaviors: Miscommunication, Mixed Messages, or Hidden Truths?. Early Childhood Education Journal. 34 (5), p357366.

Weisgram, E and Fulcher, M and Dinella, L. (2014). Pink gives girls permission: Exploring the roles of explicit gender labels and gender-typed colours on preschool children’s toy preferences. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. 35 (5), p401-409.

41

Marketing/ Advertising Research

Introduction One of the key aspects to why children choose certain toys is down to their environment, a big part of this is the way toys are advertised, displayed and marketed. This section covers analysis of advertising, how toy stores are laid out and what already exists to help with issues around the advertising and marketing of toys.

My Assumptions •

Adverts would mainly target one or the other gender

•

Adverts for girls toys would contain a lot of reference to beng beautiful and girly

•

Adverts for boys toys would contain a lot of reference to aggression and power

•

Toy stores would be split into sections for each gender

44

Contents Analysis of advertising

p 46-49

Analysis of toy stores

p 50-53

Existing campaigns

p 54-55

Conclusions of marketing/advertising research

p 56

References

p 57

45

Analysis of advertising One aspect that could affect a child’s preference to certain toys is through the way they are portrayed in television adverts.

To get a deeper understanding on this subject I read the article “250 children’s toy adverts on British TV analysed - it’s worse than we thought” from The Telegraph. This article shows the results from analysing 250 adverts, the first part is the terms used in the ads. A word cloud is shown for boys and girls.

boys adverts mainly came out with words such as battle, power, explore, control, adventure and actions.

The

girls adverts mainly came out with words such as magic, princess, friendship, hair, glitter and beautiful.

The

The adverts were categorised into 4 sections according to whether they included -

Boys

26% Girls

or

32% Boys and girls

no children at all 13%

In the adverts that featured both genders the boys outnumbered the girls

“

3:2

and all had male voiceovers.

“

29%

We need to recognise the role big companies have in telling boys and girls what they are supposed to like, and ask ourselves whether we, as parents and carers, are happy with corporate interests dictating to our children.

46

My own analysis After reading this article I decided to try my own research task to see whether I would get similar results, this helps validate whether the original study is a reliable source of information.

I watched 30 adverts from 4 youtube links (see references), during these videos I noted down the voiceover, what the gender of voiceover was, what gender the children were in the adverts were and the ratio of boys to girls in the ‘gender neutral’ adverts, (see appendix C.1 for fullnotes).

47

Results From the voiceovers I highlighted the terms used and typed these up into 3 categories, boys adverts, girls adverts and gender neutral adverts. I then used wordle to create word clouds to see which words frequently appeared.

Boys adverts

Gender neutral adverts

48

Girls adverts The common words popping up for the seperate gender adverts were not surprising and closely connected to the original experiment too.

I then split the adverts into categories according to whether they included -

20%

40%

Boys

Girls or

37%

Boys and girls

no children at all 3%

In the adverts that featured both genders the boys

3:2 on average and the voiceovers were split as 53% male and 47% female.

outnumbered the girls

The only result here that matched the article was the 3:2 average ratio of boys to girls in the gender neutral adverts. The toys that are perceived as gender neutral are mostly male, this reinforces that girls can do ‘boys’ things but boys cannot do ‘girls’ things.

49

Analysis of physical toy stores For this section of my research I visited 2 toy store, Toys ‘R’ Us and Smyths I analysed the layout of how the toys were displayed and the way they categorised each section of the store, (see appendix C.2 for all images and original notes).

As for most of the toys the way the toys are divided up is purely down to the actual toy, it is obvious which is targeted at girls and boys but this is from the packaging, there are no explicit gender labels around the whole store.

They use images of both genders above most of the toys, however not above the very ‘girly’ toys though (boys cannot play with ‘girls toys’ again).

50

No categorising towards genders in aisles/sections, just labels like the above.

Even though this is not toy layout it was interesting to see that they just label the pink and blue clothing which would normally be seen as “for girls,” and “for boys,” as just “baby clothing.”

It seemed however that sports were just for boys? Even though there was no explicit gender labelling, only pictures of boys were used here.

51

They split their aisles/sections up with signs like these, no explicit gender labelling was used.

?

There was one aisle missing a sign which contained lots of very gender stereotypical girls toys.

52

No explicit gender labels are used again however like Toys ‘R’ Us there is a clear divide between blue and pink (boys and girls) toys.

Overall I would not say that there is a huge issue with the toy stores. They have taken down all the signs that used to say “for girls” and “for boys,” I would say the main issue now is more the packaging and outward appearance of the toy that makes it look like its “for a girl,” or “for a boy.”

53

Existing campaigns I wanted to find out what is already being done about the issue of gender stereotypes in toys. I managed to find two campaigns which have done a lot of work to tackle this issue.

“ “

Pinkstinks is a campaign that targets the products, media and marketing that prescribe heavily stereotyped and limiting roles to young girls. We believe that all children girls and boys - are affected by the ‘pinkification’ of girlhood. Our aim is to challenge and reverse this growing trend. We also promote media literacy, self-esteem, positive body image and female role models for kids.

“ “

Pink Stinks

“Girls are becoming increasingly disillusioned about the media’s portrayal of women. Over half of those aged 11 to 21 disagree with the statement that ‘girls and young women are portrayed fairly in the media’.”

The Girls’ Attitudes Survey, Girlguiding UK, 2011

Video campaigns from Pink Stinks

There’s more than one way to be a girl

A visit to Toys R Us

They try to tackle companies that ‘pinkify’ products and challenge them.

Slap: on the face of childhood - teaser

54

“

“

Let Toys be Toys Let Toys Be Toys campaign is asking the toy and publishing industries to stop limiting children’s interests by promoting some toys and books as only suitable for girls, and others only for boys.

They have managed to get nearly

ALL signs for boys/girls out of stores 5/6 catalogues showed no boys at all playing with baby dolls or pushchairs They are currently campaigning against how toys are marketed through the catalogues, advertising and packaging.

Article about toy adverts 2016 on campaign blog Smyths Toys ‘If I were a toy’ ad caused a bit of a stir this year by including a boy playing at being ‘queen of the land’. Tesco’s Christmas toy ad includes girl toy testers zooming around with cars and helicopters and a boy dancing with an interactive furry toy. New online ads from Chad Valley (Argos own brand) show boys and girls playing together with a vehicles playset and a doll’s house.

This just shows how much affect a campaign can have, the advertising and marketing of toys is becoming more gender fluid.

55

Conclusions from field research What does it all mean?

The advertising of toys must obviously influence a child’s choice. It was not shocking to see that boys were encouraged to discover and build whereas girls seemed to dream and be in a magical fantasy world. These types of adverts will really be affecting whether a child see’s a toy as ‘for a boy’ or ‘for a girl’ and probably influences how parents think their children should be. Why can it not be that as well as girls playing with boys toys, boys can play with girls toys? Girls are positively discriminated and I feel like this is a major issue and something I really want to think about when generating ideas.

I really struggled to find any faults in the toy store layouts which just shows that the existing campaigns I also looked at are really working to remove gender labels. It is a real positive to see that toys are not split as girls and boys in any stores now.

The two existing campaigns that I have found have done a lot of work to tackle gender stereotypes in toy design and the marketing of them, they both seem to have a large following which shows that this is an issue that many people are passionate about. These campaigns could also be potential collaborators for my final major project.

Final insights •

Toy advertising plays a major part on influencing children to buy certain toys, they blatantly split toys into 3 groups

•

Girls are seen to be okay to play with ‘boys’ toys but boys are seen to not be able to play with ‘girls’ toys

•

Toy store layouts are not an issue with gender stereotypes, this area has already been addressed

56

References Peck, S. (2015). 250 children’s toy adverts on British TV analysed - it’s worse than we thought. The Telegraph.

Toys for Kids Pro. (2016). BEST ***Toys Commercials 2016 *** #25. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeOfAgaZDJw. Last accessed 18th Dec 2016.

Toys for Kids Pro. (2016). BEST ***Toys Commercials 2016 *** #41. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwwM5IAxHwI. Last accessed 18th Dec 2016.

Toys for Kids Pro. (2016). BEST ***Toys Commercials 2016 *** #43. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxJ94gpY2E4. Last accessed 18th Dec 2016.

Toys for Kids Pro. (2016). BEST ***Toys Commercials *** #45. Available: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCydwHrZpq4. Last accessed 18th Dec 2016.

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