Koyu Kawasaki

Toy Store Analysis

Although I saw many things that I expected to see at the toy store, there were many
things that were new and interesting to me.
As expected, most of the toys were organized by gender. Each aisle was shelved with toys
designated to either a boy or a girl. If not by aisle, the toys were split into two sides: one side
shelved with boys toys and one side with girls toys. Assuming that the toy companies targeted
their audience for children 12 and under, the toys were separated based on the concept of what
most children at this age range would like to play with. This separation ties back to what Shaw
and Lee (2008) were trying to convey in their article, Learning Gender. In this section, Shaw
and Lee explicitly defines gender as a process that individuals spend their life time shaping and
refining to the point where gender identity becomes a stable characteristic. In addition, gender is
a learned behavior, not genetically predisposed, enforced by numerous people, family, and
authority. In other words, gender is a process that is socially constructed. In this case, by looking
at the organization of the toys, children are taught which toys are meant for each gender all based
on the classification created by the society. Even at this small level of classification of
separation, children are taught on the idea of separation based on gender, rather than unity. In
addition, children from both gender may appreciate and enjoy playing with toys that were
assigned to them. However, there is a possibility that some of these children were forced to learn
to enjoy playing with gendered toys.
Based on the ways the toys were organized, the society attributes certain characteristics to
each gender. For girls, ponies, Barbie dolls, baby dolls, bracelets, and Hello Kitty were some of
the most emphasized products. In addition, most of these toys used multiple light colors with
pink as a central color, resulting in complex color structure that make them eye-pleasing

Koyu Kawasaki
products. From these characteristics, it is safe to assume that society portrays girls to be passive,
soft, and emotional. Most importantly, society values girls based on appearance and physical
beauty, and this idea gets embedded not only in girls but boys as well. This idea refers back to
the concept discussed in the film, Miss Representation (Newsom et al., 2011). The film discusses
how media portrays and emphasizes the physical beauty of women as opposed to theior
intelligence, athletic abilities, or other characteristics attributed to men. As a result, it creates an
unconscious thought among many girls that intelligence is not needed for girls, and the only
thing they need is beauty. In addition, it was interesting to rediscover the significance of
assigning baby dolls to girls. From the traditional point of view, girls are expected to be married
off to a man and take care of the children and family household. By teaching young girls to play
with baby dolls, society is mentally training them to become a house wife who will be taking
care of their children, whether we are aware of it or not. What this means is that our society fails
to shift away from the traditional perspective on women. Our society still sees women inferior to
men just like what Baumgardner and Richards (2010) discuss in their article A Day Without
Feminism. As proof, women are still being paid 70 cents for every dollar a man makes for the
same work.
On the other hand, some of the popular products for boys were Lego, action figures, Hot
Wheels, toy cars, and toy weapons. Different from girls toys, most of these toys mainly used one
or two colors of blue, red, green, or yellow, creating simplicity in the products. Based on these
characteristics, our society portrays boys to be strong, aggressive, and action-driving. Similar to
how toys influence the way girls think, these toys affect how boys think as well. For example,
many boys grew up with car toys and Lego. One of the many possible reasons as to why most
engineers or architectures are men may be due to the fact that they have been associated with

Koyu Kawasaki
ideas related to constructions and mechanics since they were young. Lego allows children to
build anything they imagine to create from simple blocks. Because the front covers of many
Lego boxes display spaceships, copters, cars or other forms of vehicle, many boys tend to create
vehicles of their own. This idea gets embedded in the mind of these boys as they continue to
build more complex things as they grow older with different materials. In other words, Lego is
the foundation of how boys will turn out in the future.
Keeping in mind that Lego is traditionally associated with boys, one specific thing that
caught me by surprise was that there were Lego box kits for girls. I identified these Lego boxes
were meant to be played by girls for different reasons. First, the boxes were on the shelves
designated for girls. Second, these Lego boxes were in light purple color with cartoon girls on
the front cover. Third, the boxes displayed examples of houses, which were colored in
combinations of pink, light purple, and light blue. This shows that even when the same toys are
used by both genders, the contents or the products of these Lego pieces must coincide with the
items associated with gender. However, we can also interpret this as our societys attempt to
gender blend some of the toys in order to reduce gender separation. Although some of the
traditional toys mainly used by boys were being neutralized, such as Lego, I did not see any
traditional girl toys that were gender neutralized. For example, it probably would have been
socially acceptable for toy companies to create pony dolls suitable for boys. They could do so by
changing the colors of the products from purple and pink to something more neutral like brown
and tan colored pony dolls. Based on these observations, it is socially acceptable for girls to
associate themselves with male items, but it is not acceptable for boys to associate themselves
with female items. In essence, females are praised to climb up to males values and beliefs, but
males are humiliated or looked down upon for climbing down to females values and beliefs.

Koyu Kawasaki

Koyu Kawasaki
References
Baumgardner, J., & Richards, A. (2010). A Day Without Feminism. In Manifesta: Young women,
feminism, and the future (10th anniversary ed ; 1st rev. ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux.
Newsom, J. S., Scully, R. K., Dreyfous, G. W., Redlich, S. J., Congdon, J., Holland, E., Cvetko,
S., ... Ro*Co Films Educational (Firm). (2011). Miss representation. Sausalito, Calif.:
Ro*co Films Educational.
Shaw, S., & Lee, J. (2008). Learning Gender. In Women's voices, feminist visions: Classic and
contemporary readings (4th ed.).