Why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff?
Caught on camera in the âpink aisleâ of a US toy store, posed a multibillion dollar question: âWhy does all the girls have to buy pink stuff, and all the boys have to buy different coloured stuff?â
Her impassioned critique of profit-boosting gendered toy marketing has been viewed over 4 million times on YouTube. She isnât a lone voice. Campaigns such as Let Toys Be Toys in the UK have also expressed frustration at the way manufacturers and shops have increasingly restricted the interests of girls to the narrow domain between the twin pink pillars of femininity â being caring and being pretty â while the broader, âdifferent colouredâ terrain is for boys.
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The group has recently expanded its focus to include , after the publication of titles such as The Brilliant Boysâ Colouring Book and The Beautiful Girlsâ Colouring Book. It argues that, if the purpose of books is âopening minds and hearts⊠broadening horizonsâ, such titles do the opposite.
In a recent , politicians Jenny Willott, Elizabeth Truss and Chi Onwurah also expressed concern that the âpinkificationâ of toys for girls was adding to gender inequality in careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Willott, for instance, drawing on a basic tenet of early education, observed that âchildren learn through play; itâs how they develop skills and interestsâ.
But the detrimental effects of this kind of marketing, though clearly only one factor in a mix of many influences on the young, may run broader and deeper. It polarises children into stereotypes. Itâs not just that vehicles, weapons and construction sets are presented as âfor boysâ, while toys of domesticity and beautification are âfor girlsâ. Toys for boys facilitate competition, control, agency and dominance; those for girls promote cooperation and nurturance. These gender stereotypes, acquired in childhood, underlie a host of well-documented biases against women in traditionally masculine domains and roles, and hinder men from sharing more in the responsibilities and rewards of domestic life.
Relentless stereotyping
True, there is no research linking gendered marketing of toys and books and later occupational discrimination or sharing of household chores. But the smart money would say the effects wonât be trivial, given that children are enveloped in some of the most relentless stereotyping to be found in the 21st century.
A common rebuttal to movements towards more gender-neutral marketing, of the sort recently promised by store chain , for example, is that what we see on the shelves reflects âinnateâ sex differences. Even , and there are no sexist toy ads in monkey society.
Newborn boys and girls, untouched by the forces of gender socialisation, supposedly show . And, we are told, girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), who are exposed to unusually high levels of testosterone in the womb, .
But these findings are far less compelling than they appear. For instance, if the preference of female rhesus monkeys for stuffed animals shows that love of dolls is âinnateâ in girls, what do we make of the fact that the was a stuffed dog, which they played with more than a third longer than a toy car?
, more methodologically rigorous than the much-cited mobiles versus faces newborn study, found no sex differences in the preferences of babies for looking at objects versus faces. Both preferred the latter to an equal extent. And girls with CAH â born with atypical or masculinised genitalia, who undergo intensive medical and psychiatric intervention and have physical characteristics inconsistent with cultural ideals of feminine attractiveness â may be more willing to play with âboy toysâ because of unconsidered , rather than because their brains have been âwired for wheelsâ.
Self-socialisation
Existing science simply doesnât support the view that gender-neutral toys or books are, at best, a pointless railing against nature or, at worse, politically correct meddling with childrenâs âtrueâ natures. Social experience isnât something that interferes with the emergence of a childâs ârealâ, underlying design. It is an integral part of the construction, step by step, of the developmental pathway â destination uncertain.
Moreover, developmental psychologists have found that children are very aware of the importance placed on the social category of gender, and highly motivated to discover what is âfor boysâ and what is âfor girlsâ. Socialisation isnât just imposed by others; a child actively self-socialises. Once a child realises (at about 2 to 3 years of age) on which side of the great gender divide they belong, the well-known dynamics of norms, in-group preference and out-group prejudice kick-in.
When Rileyâs adult companion makes the common mollifying observation that, âIf boys want to buy pink they can buy pink, right?â, he is only right in the way that itâs technically correct to say that men can wear dresses to work, if they want.
Gendered toy and book marketing doesnât create gender stereotypes, roles and norms, but it does reinforce them. It may be profitable to corporations, but there is a social cost â and science offers no moral comfort that there is a biological justification.
Why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff? Letâs keep asking.
This article will appear in print under the headline âBiology or balderdash?â
