This week, I decided to choose the toy store assignment. I went to Target and went down the boy and girl toy isles. I wasn't very shocked to see that the boys isle had mostly toy weapons, and muscular action figures, while the girl's isle was mostly pink dolls and "domestic" toys.
Here are some pictures from the boy's isle.
Here are some pictures from the girl's isle:
Something that was pretty shocking was that Wonder Woman was found in both isles, yet her look was much different in the boy's isle than the girl's isle. On the left side is the boy's isle action figure, on the right is the girl's isle doll. You can definitely see some noticeable differences in the physical appearance of the dolls depending on the sex they are targeting.
That's so sick about how Wonder Woman is physically changed to attract young boys. I mean, thats what it looks like. Do little kids even care?
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ReplyDeleteHey Abbey, I did the same activity, and I also went to Target. Some of the things I noticed about the toys was the packaging colors were different; the girls' toys had pink packaging, and the boys' toys had blue, green, or earth tone packaging. I thought that your comparison of the Wonder Woman and Super Girl dolls was extremely interesting. It is amazing to see how the girls' doll is more sexualized, whereas the boys' doll is more like a realistic person. In "Generation M", they discussed how stores market their toys differently to boys and girls through the packaging of toys, the type of toys, or design of toys. You found a perfect example of this type of marketing.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I like that you actually went down the toy isle. It is interesting to see that wonder woman looks different in the boys isle, that is something that I never noticed. thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI actually did a project on public backlash of Target taking away the gendered signage for their kids sections and this is super interesting to me how honestly they dont really need the gendered signage and colors on the wall. The packaging itself genders it enough.
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