With my kids, we tend to stick to more gender-neutral toys, wood blocks, that sort of thing. Get a lot of toys from Hapé, that sort of thing.
Went to a kid’s birthday party today. Family has 2 boys. Played with the toys in the basement. And jfc, damn near every toys was heavily masc-coded. i swear to god, there was a toy fire engine that had literal muscles on it. Every vehicle had big chunky wheels and seemed to be designed with a certain masculine aesthetic. There was this cop car designed like a tank that shot out discs. Every toy just seemed overly aggressive and bought specifically to signal MY SON IS NOT GAAAAYYY!
Like, I was raised with “boy toys” like Tonka trucks. But those just seemed more like realistic representations of real thing. Even something silly like Transformers, their vehicle forms were like boring-ass sedans and shit. So many toys today seem like they have to crank up the gender coding to 11 (boys and girls); while at the same time there are a ton of toys that aren’t problematic at all.
I feel like this says a lot about the social reproduction of gender and capitalism.
Yup, toys are weird, parents are freaks, doctors delivering babies that are obsessed with their genitalia are freaks. I was in the bluey section of target with my daughter. Another dad and daughter were there shopping for the daughter’s friend’s birthday. She was like, “oh, we can get her a bluey toy.” and the dad said no that’s a boy’s toy. The daughter went on to explain that both Bluey and Bingo are girls, and still the dad said it was a boys show.
Sorry for the anecdote, but it was recent and very weird. Still thinking about it.
Rectangular character = boy, I guess?!?
Pondering the inherent masculinity of the rectangle