Gender Equality in Kids Toys

Following the aftermath of Christmas I have begun braving people coming to my house once again and talking about what we got the kids for Christmas. Inevitably I get a reaction when people hear about two of the gifts that my 2 year old son received: a doll house with furniture and two people and a tea set. The doll house is wooden and I have plans for Jeffrey and I to paint it together, but the tea set is white, pink and purple.

The reactions I get seem to go two ways. The first is by people who think that it's great that I give my son toys that are typically 'girl' toys, and those who make comments along the lines of "well, I guess we can tell you wanted a girl", or "but they're girl toys/colours". I very much object to the whole idea that a doll house or tea set has to be a 'girl toy' or that purple and pink are 'girl colours'. If you ask my son to choose something and there are a number of different colour options, he will go for the pink 9 times out of 10. The 10th he'll choose the purple.

Jeffrey loves to have a tea party and has a great imagination and does role play with his toys - which is why I gave him the doll house. With his cars, animals and soft toys he has always done this role play with them. Creating beds, taking them shopping, cooking for them etc. So why not give him a doll house? It's just the same thing: him rein-acting the things he sees in every day life around him and this is great for his development.

This is the same with a tea party. Jeffrey has always liked to have a tea party. He used to get his food and dishes from his toy kitchen (which just happens to be predominantly pink by the way - it was the kitchen I liked most in terms of size and layout at the time) and set everything up for him to have a tea party with his toys. And then get anyone else who was around involved too. So why not give him a tea set?

I was talking to my friend Emily* about this recently. Emily has a little boy called Stuart* who is 3 months older than my boy Jeffrey. Stuart has cousins who are girls and so when he goes to their house he plays with their toys. Emily says that he gravitates to the prams and dolls every time, but that she would never buy him those for at home. I was a little bit taken aback. I asked the question: if he likes playing with those sorts of things, why not get him something like that for at home? Her response: he can play with them at his cousin's house so he doesn't need them at home. Also, they are always in pinks and purples and not in boy colours. I wasn't sure how to respond after that, so I left it alone.

If you Google "gender equality in kids toys" you'll come up with all sorts of articles discussing the issue. So it is obvious this is something that people are interested in and talking about. In fact, in one article I came across in the Sydney Morning Herald it talks about a group called Play Unlimited which has formed to lobby big toy companies such as Toys 'R' Us into no longer segregating toys along gender lines. I am completely with them on this. If you go to their 'Why it Matters' and 'According to the Experts' pages there is a lot of good information there that to me makes a lot of sense. Kids do understand labelling from a young age and even if there is a toy they would like to play with, if it is marketed to girls (and they are a boy) they will discount it and move on to something else as they will see it is not for them.

An article on Mamamia discussing the gender equality in toy issue takes the opposite side of the fence. The article discusses that even if the toys are not segregated along gender lines anymore children will still gravitate towards toys based along gender lines and that even though boys and girls may play with the same toys, they do not play with them in the same way. I would agree with this - of course kids play with toys in different ways. Though I would also say that who cares if my son doesn't play with a toy in the same way as a girl? If he wants to play with it, let him. 

I don't push Jeffrey to play with these 'girly' toys, he chooses what he likes to play with all by himself. He equally loves to build Duplo, run and play, throw balls and rough-house with us. I'm also not trying to justify giving him these toys - I don't feel I need to because there is nothing wrong with it. What I would love though is that rather than people seeing/hearing that Jeffrey received these toys and plays with them, and jumping on the gender issue, they could see what I see. A kid who loves to use his imagination, and for now doesn't care that toys/items are 'girl' colours. A kid who engages in role play and doesn't need me to entertain him all the time. And above all, a kid who is having a great time.

In the future I am going to continue providing toys that he is interested in, regardless of the colour or perception of the toys being for girls. I don't think the way toys are marketed is going to change any time soon, and as a society we will probably still be having this discussion in 10 years time. But for now - back off of my kid and his choice to play with toys that interest him.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.