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| Pretty in pink or just stereotyped? |
By Lisa Bradburn
It seems impossible to
get away from the fact that most girls love pink and boys blue, but has society
influenced them or is it innate? And as the director of a toy company, how do I
navigate these muddy waters?
There has been much research
into gender stereotyping in children. The media covers the topic frequently, taking the debate to the level of the national economy and campaigns such as Let Toys Be Toys
and Goldie Blox encourage girls to play with traditionally
boys toys and vice versa.
But the fact remains,
as this article in the Express supports, if you ask most girls for their
favourite colour it would be pink. And for boys it would be blue!
As a professional toy
hunter – yes, that’s really my job – I encounter the gender-colour debate
daily. The driving passion behind my business is to make it easy to find
quality gifts for children, so I list toys on my site by age and gender because
adults search for toys according to
age and gender.
Inevitably, that means
the girl’s section is full of pink, and the boy’s section is full of blue.
With companies producing toys according to gender and
adults choosing toys according to
gender, how does a company who wishes to serve its customers well and remain
profitable tackle gender-colour association in toys? How do you break the cycle
when it begins even before a baby comes into the world?
Painting the nursery
Many parents, who know
the sex of their baby, decorate the nursery in pink for girls and blue for
boys. Even those who don’t know the sex of their baby tend to decorate the nursery
once the baby is born.
Picking the clothes
There’s no better way
to tell the world, “It’s a girl!” than by dressing your baby in pink – lest the
neighbours can’t tell when you’re taking a stroll with the pram.
Just go into any baby
clothes shops and you’ll be met by racks and racks of baby blue sleep-suits for
boys and baby pink outfits for girls. In fact, the choice of pink and blue
gifts is huge, compared to the unisex items.
It’s almost an
unwritten rule that baby boys will wear blue and baby girls pink. Would you
feel comfortable sending a pink outfit to a new baby boy?
How many of us
automatically buy a blue baby card for boys and pink for girls? And the same
goes for the gift wrap. As a society this seems to be the norm…but are we setting
the scene for things to come...? Even before a baby is a few months old, have
we already conditioned and influenced its mind?
Social pressures
As babies grow up they
are not only influenced by parents, but by everyone around them - grandparents,
aunts, uncles, family friends to name just a few. And as they enter nursery and
school their circle of influence just grows bigger and bigger.
Children play and
socialize with other children and learn from them. They interact with other
siblings and friends and want to be like them. Many children want to fit in and
don’t like to be singled out as different. So they very quickly learn to
conform to what is socially accepted.
And of course, children
are also influenced by the things they see around them – toy shops selling pink
toys and blue toys. On TV and within the media they are again influenced and
form opinions.
How many times have
you (and your children) overheard a conversation such as, “That’s too girly for
you” or, “That’s more for a boy”? Are those comments based on an item’s colour
or purpose? All these things lead to children forming decisions.
They look at adults
and make judgements. Many men are comfortable in a pink shirt or jumper, but how
many would buy a pink car or carry a pink backpack?
With all these things
influencing children, how do you convince boys that it’s OK to like pink and
girls that blue is cool– or are you fighting a losing battle?
What if gardening sets
only came in blue? And all chemistry sets were pink? Would your son believe
chemistry is something he cannot do because pink is a colour he is ‘not
allowed’ to wear?
I’d love to know your
views. Does it concern you? Or are you happy that your little girl is pink mad,
or your son wants everything blue?
Lisa Bradburn
is the managing director of what2buy4kids - a place to find quality, unusual gifts for kids.
Lisa built her business out of first-hand frustration at the lack of
interesting and available gift ideas for children. Now, she hunts them down so
you don’t have to and provides endless entertainment inspiration for children
of all ages.
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