I worked in a Toys R Us for years. It never ceased to bother me that there is a clearly defined (and labelled) Boys World and Girls World. Among other fabulous standards, it was implied that Lego and MegaBloks are for boys. All dress-up is for girls. Play food? Girls. It was disgusting.

There was an outdoor dept for outdoorsy toys, and a preschool dept for babyish toys; heck there was even a brainy section for things like LeapFrog products, globes and such. But the majority of the product fell into one gender’s ‘realm’ or the other.

Amen! This Halloween has frustrated me to no end. My daughter has the choice of being a princess, a lamb/cow, or something skanky (she’s not quite 2 yet). She happily plays with her older bro’s toys (which also includes a variety of cars, dinosaurs, and dolls).

I remember when our Toy’s R Us had “Boy’s” in blue and “Girl’s” in pink! The aisles were color-coded!

Tonka specifically says FOR BOYS in their ads. Its enough to make me not buy them.

You know what my boys are going to grow up capable to cook, do laundry, vacuum, and do dishes. They will be able to sew, and do all the things they need to live on their own without a woman, they will not be helpless. And, if they choose, they will be daddies and they will carry around babies, and change diapers, and potty train them. (And right now as they are 4 and 2 they think they will breastfeed, and who knows maybe they will)

Toys ‘r’ Us’s whole web page is divided into “girls”, “boys”, and “baby”. Sure I can buy my kids whatever I want and they will play with whatever they want. But you know what, my son has been reading since he was 2 ½ and while I try to keep fliers away from him its not like I lock them up. He knows that boys are “cool” and girls are “pretty”, and all that BS no matter how much I try to keep them away from it.

I gotta say, yes, the gender stereotyping is pretty rampant, but it’s about how you teach your kids, too. Me, I was (am) a tomboy… I leaned toward stuffed animals more than dolls, and since there were only boys on my block growing up, I tended toward playing with Legos and Hot Wheels and Micro Machines alongside my My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcakes. And there’s nothing like a good ol’ rock-thowing fight. ;p Kinda depends on the environment… if your girl plays with other girls who are all about dolls and ponies and pink, they’ll assimilate that… which is not to say, don’t give them a chance to play with action figures and cars, but rather that their social group will shape their biases. This is why gender bias is so hard to extinguish… it’s a group dynamics thing. Unless absolutely everyone is in on it, it’s not going to go away, because in some aspect, the roles are going to be repeated and conformed to. Just… get your kids some rocks. They’ll find all sorts of uses for them. ;p