Why are toys still so gendered?

Surely children play with what they want. Over sixty years ago my parents bought me a gun, holster, and caps for my gun, a cow boy outfit and I played with Johnny West, the cowboy and his horse. I had the full gear from chaps to saddle bags, rifle the works. My friend's brother had a doll which we played with altogether when we were about 8. Perhaps it is down to the families to chose what they think appropriate. My rather obnoxious cousin bought 'gender free' toys for her daughter 20 years ago and the girl turned out to be a sugar pink Barbie lover.

We had no play guns in our house (though I did as a child). Other people's children had to leave them at the gate.
We had plenty of crafts - which the boys and girls did together (including sparkly things and glitter). Both my boys wore pink (because it's just a colour) but I never bought any pink for my first child (a daughter) as it seemed to me to be strongly gendered.
We had no Barbie dolls or action men.
We did have construction toys and dolls etc, a sit-on tractor and a caterpillar.

We did our best to give our children choices and encouraged fearlessness and gentleness in the boys and girls alike but felt (and feel) the gendering is strong from outside the family whatever you do. We were not trying to raise gender-neutral children but wanted our girls to have the opportunities boys had and vice-versa.

Many girls learn from others that some things are "not for them" - too muddy, too high, too difficult and boys are called names for not being sufficiently "masculine". I still hear this in the street.

It is definitely the language in the very early days that, in my opinion, starts the gendering so that by the time we get to toddler groups the difference is embedded. I remember some research that found by 21 months children knew what group they "belinged to".
The "beautiful, helpful" girls or the "big, strong, clever" boys.

Gendered toys are the tip of the iceberg!

At least she hadn't spent money on some replica killing machine nanna8
I remember the neighbour's son bursting into our house one Christmas day dressed in combat gear and firing at us all with a replica machine gun. My DSis, who was pregnant, has never forgotten the shock.

One of my children didn’t want to allow her son,my grandson, to have guns so he did the obvious thing and got gun- shaped sticks from the garden and pretended they were guns. Duh.

Absolutely Maizie it begins with the words they hear from adults.

The only time my beautiful son was called pretty or cute by a stranger was when I dressed him in a baby smock which I myself had worn as a baby.
I remember he was sitting in the supermarket trolly seat and some ladies were smiling at him/her.
Usually he was complimented with words like clever and strong.

I didn’t let my sons have toy guns, and they didn’t seem bothered by that, they just took it for granted. I wouldn’t let them have an Action Man either, as I thought it gave a bad image of masculinity. None of their friends seemed to have these things either. We had a large back garden, and I used to watch the boys playing with their friends. They didn’t play war games. I don’t think these things are instinctive for boys. They are learnt. The only child I knew who played pretend war games was a French girl!

Maisie, they are just children, let them develop at their own rate, not what some grown ups decide is gender neutral pushing their own agenda. They are not remotely interested, let them be. Believe it or not we were not when I was growing up taught any sex education we were all lumped together as children, yet we started the swinging sixties, i did miss the swinging bit as I had to be home at 10 I don’t know what would have happened at five past that didn’t five minutes before. However luckily did get the mini skirt and no suspenders, now that was liberation.

I’d read all that research before having mine (they were 90s babies) and tried not to differentiate. Obviously I may not have succeeded- my own upbringing will have come into play. I didn’t bring them up as ‘gender-neutral’. I just let them do what suited them. I bought my daughter a Barbie lunchbox when she asked for one, and my son had Thomas The Tank Engine, as that was what he wanted. How they arrived at the decision to conform to the norms for their sex I don’t know. It wasn’t pushed by us, though - or not consciously anyway.

Mine both had lego and cars FIL built a dolls house for our daughter and a garage for our son but our son also had a doll and buggy ,an ironing board and a hoover .
Both like housework and interior design now as adults and both are real petrol heads like their dad ,both are excellent cooks and great parents .The only issue I had with anyone about the toys they had was from FIL who said he would be called (as a previous poster said ) a wee jessie he wasn't.The insults had moved onto "Gay boy" which I hated and he laughed at .He was a magnet for the girls which really annoyed the boys who called him that name

We have a good variety of both 'girl' and 'boy' toys - one GS and 7 GD played with what they wished. I've no problem with what they selected. Non-issue - many GD now do well in 'boy' careers.

I don't think it's very helpful to point to the toy choices of, say, Early Years children when we know that the gender, training? indoctrination? normalisation? starts from birth. It has even been shown that boy and girl babies are handled differently.

I wonder how the few children who are brought up to be 'gender neutral' fare?

I have a girl and a boy (not a huge sample, but still), and they are close in age. They played happily together with the same toys at home. When my daughter (the younger one) went to school she started to want Barbies and ‘girly’ clothes and toys, which my son rejected. At home they still played with Duplo and Playmobil etc together, but when friends came over they stuck to ‘gendered’ games. Even as they got older and moved onto computer games they tended to be ‘gendered’ when they got past the cartoon rabbits stage. It was peer pressure, not home or school (which didn’t push ‘gender’ in those days) that made the difference.

My two fraternal twin granddaughters aged 8 are very different. One is rather girly and tends towards girly things. The other definitely prefers boy style clothes and the occasional dress. They both have their favourite soft toys. One plays with exclusively girls whilst the other plays with both boys and girls. They are free to express their desires and needs.

I’m rather convinced it’s more nature than nurture. They are just both individuals in their own right.

There's lots of research cited in the book I mentioned (Not Just for the Boys). I can try to dig some of it up if people are interested. Or watch how the classroom teacher can influence both boys and girls in this quite old BBC programme ( 2 episodes, first here www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PyQS94Pfa8). Innate may mean no more than we are influencing our children every day by our own actions. I recall Gina Rippon's book (The Gendered Brain) showed, at birth, brains of male and female babies are essentially the same, but brain plasticity leads to differences seen later.

My friend's son wanted a toy pushchair when he was about 3.

He would go to the shops with his mum, proudly pushing his football

I never had a doll, played with matchbox cars, out on my bike with boys, thought girl games to girly, my best friend was a boy, uncomplicated. I never gave it a thought, at fifteen I got interested in boys in a different way, loved dressing up to go out, make up and getting my hair done. No one made a thing of it. Been married twice. My son had a doll along with Action Man and played pretend battles, let them develop as they will, does it matter if it says girls or boys to them, it’s grown ups that cause the bother, all this hysteria about gender it’s enough to put you off growing up. Still don’t care for pink, much prefer blue or green. My 6’2 “ rugby playing son wears a pink shirt on occasion and he knows who he is.

We have 4 daughters and they varied. Most of them liked Lego, a couple of them liked dolls, they all liked cubby houses and tents. They now all have children of their own, boys and girls and they vary,too. Who cares? More an adult problem than a child’s, children just play with what suits them.

It is more important than ever now that families are smaller. 1 child only who has no access to playing with an opposite gender sibling's toys or wearing their clothes.

My 3 boys were all so different and i feel privileged that I wasn't having to put all my hopes and fears into one boy.

Unfortunately big presents were often "boy" oriented so when a toy library opened in our town I was delighted that my 3 yr old wanted a pram

Then our DD was born and she received 21 tiny dresses!! Most of which were never worn.

There is still far too much gender coding about. Our plumber's DD is at college doing engineering and she is the only girl

My boys from age 9ish, to well through their teens, were heavily into in line skating and skateboarding which featured quite a few dare devil tactics, and occasional trips to A&E, it was mainly a boy pursuit but the did have one girl they often skated with. I was so delighted to find out about Sky Browne therefore an amazing girl on a skateboard who represented Britain in The Olympics, quite fearless and a joy to watch.

Oh and before I get shouted at I know playing with dolls doesn’t make a boy gay or vice versa just a little story to show how children always veer towards what they are comfortable with

I had both boy and girls and loads of both gender toys and I don’t remember the girls ever trying to play with the cars or guns or my lad to pick up the dolls however my eldest daughter used to have a boy come back with her after school and he always played with her barbies I met up with him through work about 30 years later, after a lovely reunion chat he said I need to tell you I am gay and I told him I already knew that we both had a laugh about him loving to sit on the stairs changing Barbie dresses

The sex differences are very complex as it's almost impossible to unpick nature and nurture, the messages we send girls and boys can be very different. I am aware of the gender paradox in supposedly gender equal countries, but some of those 'progressive' countries have very high rates of violence against women so whilst they may be progressive in terms of say employment law I do wonder how progressive they are in general attitudes. It's an interesting issue

MaizieD

Baggs

And one from Scientific American: blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/taking-sex-differences-in-personality-seriously/

There are loads. It's hardly niche.

But you can still ignore toy (and clothes and shoes and hair-style, etc) gendering.

Personality differences are not the same as choosing toys seen as appropriate to gender.

No, not exactly the same, but along the same lines as....

Which you know without being told.

I had only boys, but I did try to give them a variety of toys. They liked tea-sets. They had a Fisher Price house, and boy dolls when they were little. They did play with them, but I have to admit they liked toy cars best!

I don’t remember my brother ever playing with my toys, but he was four years older that me, so it didn’t really arise. I played with his, though. I’m an expert on 1940s Dinky cars! I had a dolls’ house and a few dolls, but I was really much more interested in my cat, and animals in general.. It was my mother who liked the dolls’ house.

I am pre-Lego, but I’m quite sure I’d have loved it. It amazed me when I discovered that many people thought of it as a “boys’ toy”. Why?

I can’t cite references, but what I personally observed whilst teaching Reception showed exactly the trend that dolls/prams , dresses and fairy clothes tended to be used by girls, whilst cars, lorries and tractors, doctors, fireman police and hard hats were chosen by boys who ALSO made guns out of any material available- e.g. sticklebrix, multi-link or Lego.
Boys would also seize the big blocks and ride on toys first.
Home corner choice and sand/water play was probably about half and half.
These gendered choices were not exclusive, but I remember more about the boys who chose dresses and dolls and the girls who chose hard hats and set up building sites because it were unusual.