After doing this week’s reading of Chapter 3 and watching MissRepresentation, it really
made me think about gender marketing differences in the children’s section of the store. I
for one have two daughters and will admit, I have never given really much thought or
really looked at the boys section of the store, be it in the toys or clothing section. I did a
little bit more though on my last trip to Walmart and what I saw shocked me overall. There
was a definite difference in the areas for boys and girls.
You don’t really recognize that they are suggesting gender roles for children at such a
young age but upon traveling through store there is an absolute difference. Depending on
which way you are moving through the store you’ll either come across the boys section or
the girls section first if you’re coming from the side where the boys section would start first
you’re greeted bike bikes and like the 12 Volt powered cars those type of toys and then it
runs into the voice action. Where if you come from the side of store that the girls to start
on it starts with a toddler toys with your mixed in between boys and girls but you can kind
of tell the difference because as it starts to get older the toys become more gender
separated like there’s little tiny boy action figures that parts aren’t small enough for them to
swallow and there’s a little girl dolls that have parts that they can’t swallow. And then as
you progress through the aisles you’re greeted with very distinct boys and girls sectional
toys. There’s even an aisle that kind of divides the section between boys and girls and that’s
with general neutral toys like board games and puzzles and she little like dollar store toys.
The girl side of the store you see a lot of girly colors so you see lots of pink which include
the different shades of pink; hot pink, light pink, then there’s some light blues thrown in,
there purples, and yellows. The toys are very gender obvious as to what society thinks
females should be. There’s the play kitchens, baby dolls, pretend food and even shopping
carts. I was rather intrigued by noticing that there was girls specific Legos and Nerf guns
that were geared towards young ladies. And of course there is all your Disney Princess
stuff which includes dolls and dress up clothes. I also saw beautician supplies. Of course
