Let me preface this post by saying I love me some Target. Great fashion finds at bargain prices, groceries, home goods, AND Starbucks in one convenient stop? My idea of bliss. However, in spite of my big time love affair with Target, I have a bone to pick with their toy department.
I have a precocious 15 month old son who loves to play. Blocks, stuffed animals, building toys, drawing toys, puzzles, push toys, cars, tractors, you name it. He’s in this sweet phase where he likes to pretend play. He will hand me a mega block and pretend to eat it making super cute “nom nom” noises as he does it. Slurping from a red block like it’s soup or juice, smacking a blue block like it’s a bunch of berries. Adorable. So, last week I was at Target having a little me time when I decided I would look for some play food for him to play kitchen with.
I searched aisle after aisle and came up empty handed. Even when I went to the “Pretend Play” aisle, I found it jam-packed with Marvel Comic toys complete with a huge Incredible Hulk display that shouts “HULK…SMASH!!!” when you walk by.
I went up the next aisle, noticeably pink and obviously shouting “YOU MUST HAVE A VULVA TO SHOP HERE!” and finally found some play food. It was in a pink basket and found alongside a pink broom and dust pan and a plethora of other pink household play items. To summarize, the aisles obviously designated for little boys were blue, full of building toys, cars, action figures, and tanks while the aisles designated for little girls were pink, and full of dolls, domestic toys, and dress up items.
This got me to thinking. Do we really need such blatant consumer-driven gender definitions for our kids? I know a day is coming when my son will come home from school and say “dolls are for girls” or “blue stuff is for boys.” Sadly it’s inevitable, but I’m doing my best to let him just play with what he wants to play with. No judgements, no assumptions, just play. Why should the kitchen play items be marketed towards girls in all their pink glory? Why should the building tools be bedecked in blue packaging? In our house, daddy does 90% of the cooking (thank you, lord) and mommy worked in a hardware store during college and can use tools. Traditional gender roles in families have shifted, why are our toy departments still reflecting these age-old archetypes?
In 2012, UK retailer Harrod’s launched a store where the toys were grouped in themes rather than gender. It’s beautiful, exciting, colorful, and encourages children to explore what interests them with no boundaries. What perplexes me is that Target is almost there. Follow me on a tour for a moment:
Infant toys are gender neutral, bright primary colors and not separated in any method other than age appropriateness. Notice the background pegboard on the aisle is gray/white and really lets the toys stand out.
Toddler toys are also gender neutral, set against a yellow pegboard and again, set apart only by which toys are safe for a certain age.
What happens when your child graduates from the toys geared towards 18 month – 3 year olds? BOOM…pick a color, pink or blue. If only the sorting of toys by age and interests could continue past the toddler aisle. I think it stands to reason that manufacturers could broaden a given toys’ consumer base if it weren’t pigeon-holed into a gender specific aisle. I mean, do girls really need their own “toy blasters” let alone a separate aisle for them? Remember when Nerf toys all came in yellow or orange and everyone could play with them? Now we need a pink camo “Rebelle” version of a Nerf blaster?! Oy!
And I’ll be honest, even as I consider myself to be an educated, post-modern woman, I have found myself gravitating first to the “blue” aisles because I have a son without even realizing it. Damn you, manipulative marketing!  I know this isn’t solely a Target problem. It’s a toy marketing problem and all of the big box retailers are suffering from a case of gender stereotyping in the toy aisles.  As it turns out, I’m not the only mom to be frustrated and raise a flag. Wendy Kent from Madison, Wisconsin has launched a petition at Change.org calling on Target to remove gender coding from their toy aisles. The petition has over 3,000 signatures and is growing daily.
If this ruffles your feathers too, pull out your soapbox, sign the petition, and share this post! In the meantime, you can find me traipsing down the pink aisle with my little man in tow to pick out a broom and dustpan set.
I am 100% with you! I teach Kindergarten and The boy color/girl color business drives me crazy. I’m also really confused about the implication that boys wil not need role play practice for things like cleaning, cooking, and caring for babies. Last I checked, that’s just regular people stuff to do. Thanks for your blog.
Oh, and HEB sells toy food in an adorable little HEB red shopping cart. It’s precious.
Yet another whiny post about something that isn’t even a problem. Boys are different than girls. That’s why the toys are different. Why is this a shock, or a disappointment? My son doesn’t like playing with Barbie dolls because he likes batman. I find this normal.
Thank you. Everybody needs to get their panties out of a wad and lets talk about things that actually matter.
I don’t care. The more people push this to be some sort of pseudo activism, the more I don’t care. Let me enter a store and just buy what I want to buy. When my kiddo wants action figures, I go to the action figure aisle. When my kiddo wants play pots and pans, I go to the play kitchen section. When my kiddo wants a bouncy ball, they can pick for themselves pink, green or blue.
I didn’t think this was a big deal, but an interesting point of view. My girls loved Teen Titans action figures and I knew exactly where to find them because there was an action figure aisle. Yes, it seemed to be geared toward boys, but if your kids like to play with something, you just got it without considering what gender aisle you found it in. Likewise, my friend’s son who came shopping with us sometimes, liked My Littlest Pet Shop merchandise and even though those things are in the “pink” aisle, he would wander around there for what felt like hours and I never had a second thought about it. I guess they could take the gender out of the toy displays, but I’m not sure kids will even notice.
Completely agree. Signed the petition!
I would absolutely not sign that petition because my little girl LOVES the pink isle!!! And all of my little girls friends LOVE the pink isle! Most little girls love that isle and if they love the action figure isle more I’m going to venture a guess to say they don’t care that it’s blue. I was not a girly girl and I had no problem as a kid shopping in the blue isle! Instead why not contact who makes the brooms and food and ask them to make gender neutral ones as well?
I’m offended. At everything. Please sign my petition to make all toys grey and make all children wear grey sweatsuits all day every day. Also proposing that we assign children numbers instead of names.
You can find petition here:
http://www.takethefunoutofchildhood.com
This is the best. Why is everyone offended about everything now a days? Like we have nothing better to do with our time. Thanks for the best comment on here… and best statement of this entire blog post.
This is ridiculous! Believe me, a little blue paint would never in a million years keep my very feminine daughter from buying something on that aisle if she was interested in it. I appreciate the different colors! PLEASE find something else to spend your valuable time worrying about!
I remember when I was a kid and Kevin in Home Alone 2 had a Talk Boy. So they came out with Talk Boys that kids could buy and use. So cool, huh? And I begged my dad for a grey one because I didn’t want pink. But he made me get the pink one and I remember him saying, “You get a pink one because you’re a girl.” And that really hurt my feelings. It made me feel like I wasn’t worth getting a grey one like Kevin had. (Thankful he bought me one and the pink one worked just as well, but that’s not my point) So since then it’s always irked me that it has to be blue or pink. I’ve always thought there’s no reason to genderize certain toys…a toy is a toy and a kid just wants to play with a toy. So my boy girl twins have boy AND girl toys surrounding them and they get to play with whatever they want. Not everyone gets that and that’s fine.
Loved this post!
I am never offended by gender marketing because, having both a boy AND a girl, I realize that they really are completely different and that’s ok! It’s not bad for a girl to like traditional girl toys or a boy to like traditional boy things.