Toys"R"Us scolded for gender discrimination

[ccharles000]

US-based toy retailer Toys"R"Us has been reprimanded for gender discrimination following a complaint filed by a group of Swedish sixth graders about the store’s 2008 Christmas catalogue.

Last winter, a sixth grade class at Gustavslund school in Växjö in south central Sweden reported Toys"R"Us to the Reklamombudsmannen (Ro), a self-regulatory agency which polices marketing and advertising communications in Sweden to ensure they are in line with guidelines set out by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

According to the youngsters, the Toys"R"Us Christmas catalogue featured “outdated gender roles because boys and girls were shown playing with different types of toys, whereby the boys were portrayed as active and the girls as passive”, according to a statement from Ro.

The group’s teacher explained to the local Smålandsposten newspaper that filing the complaint was the culmination of more than two years of “long-term work” by the students on gender roles.

http://www.thelocal.se/22504/20091006/

[monmouth]

1. Such a wonderfully advanced group of people....n/t

[customerserviceguy]

2. Who obviously need something better to do

than take a toy catalog seriously.

[monmouth]

3. I think it was a school project, no? I could be wrong....n/t

[ThomCat]

4. Why? I think it's a good thing for them to be aware of sexism

and to get involved young in challenging it.

A whole lot of sexism it aimed at children, teaching and enforcing stereotypical gender roles young. Why wouldn't we want to put an end to that? And why wouldn't we want smart kids helping?

[customerserviceguy]

6. Sorry, there are "boy" toys, and "girl" toys

and while some of one gender like to play with the other gender's toys (not that there is anything wrong with that), you can still observe the effect that testosterone has on the relative differences in the playing behavior of the two genders.

It's just biological, not political.

[ThomCat]

7. That isn't what the kids complained about.

Did you read the article at all?

The boys were all pictures being active, moving and playing. The girls were all pictured being passive, either standing still or sitting.

That active vs passive dichotomy is very standard and classic gender stereotyping.

But, to challenge your statement, the different between boy and girl toys isn't that clear-cut. When boys are allowed to play with dolls they do, and enjoy it. Though they are called Action Figures instead of dolls. Girls will play with toy cars, but they will usually be painted pink and be accessories for a doll. Boys and girls will both play with toy tools, but girl tools are always made to be kitchen tools, where boy tools are made to be construction tools. The differences are decided by the manufactures and the parents more than the kids. There is some difference in what toys boys and girls play with, but it is not black and white.

Regardless of what toys the kids get though, there is no reason for boys in the catalog to play and girls to pose. That was a deliberate choice made by the designers of the catalog. That has nothing to do with the nature of boys vs girls.

[customerserviceguy]

8. It has everything to do with the way that the two genders play with toys

Boys take a more "active" role when playing with toys, girls take what is often viewed as a more passive role, even if it really is active in a different sort of way.

Why wouldn't a toy company depict the use of toys in the way that they are usually played with?

[noiretextatique]

9. nonsense

for all the reasons already stated. it's socilization that creates certain behaviors, not genetics.

[Igel]

19. Not always.

In some cases, probably.

But cross-cultural studies come up about the same, and most interestingly eye-tracking studies show that boys and girls are (statistically) different at the earliest age that the methodology can be employed--which is not long after birth. They're interested in different things--patterns versus movement, faces vs. shapes. This turns out to track nicely from 3 months to 6 months to a year to two years to three years. . . .

I'm into eye-tracking.

It was handy back when hard data were hard to come by to say that all the behavior differences were due to culture-specific socialization. When the behaviors are there as soon as the little lumps can focus, "socialization" is a bit hard to accept as an explanation. They have no language yet, just some rudimentary subconscious phonemic awareness--little kids raised in an entirely Russian, Chinese, or English milieu will focus on the same features in their environment in the same way at that age, unlike what they're already doing at age 1. Oddly, it still stands as the default hypothesis for many other behaviors (although why it's still judged default, I can't say.) Low-level facts trump decades-old socially progressive thought. The nature-nurture controversy has effectively been killed in some areas, just as the idea of autism being triggered by injections at age 0;6 or 1;0 is squashed by eye-tracking showing that the behavior is there at age 0;2 and 0;4, but subtle and generally ignored by parents.

We got our kid all sorts of things. Gender neutral plush animals, "boys" toys like cars and trucks, "girls" toys like kitchen sets. The gender neutral toys were used to bludgeon things. The cars and trucks were cars and trucks. The kitchen sets are fine, but he doesn't "play tea", he plays "start-up restauranteur". And the "foods" are sometimes a bit rough on the imagination. He quickly settled on "boy" books--cars and trucks and planes and trains. In most ways, he fit the stereotype quite well, in spite of the fact that his daddy and mommy both have no interest in cars, the stay-at-home caregiver was daddy, and daddy does all of the cooking. (Like mommy and daddy, however, he has no interest in sports of any kind, and to say he throws a ball like a girl would be to insult girls, unless you mean to say that he throws a ball like he throws a girl--invariably poorly.)

Just as my brother's family decided, we went with a no-guns rule. What he watched on video didn't have guns. Yet somehow he saw or heard of them and the next thing we knew a paper towel tube and a wooden dowel were guns. That rule died a quick and painless death. Now, at age 5 he likes walking around with a little cute kitchen plunger held in front of him as he says "exterminate"--he likes to play Dalek. So obviously he's been exposed to Dr. Who.

[seabeyond]

24. it is the blanket statement and perception, girls passive, boys active...

that is being challenged.

having raised two boys and plenty of nieces around, yes there are difference, and not challenging differences in gender, though it is generalization. my oldest was articulate early, communicative, early reader and fell into line with more what girls were credited for from the books in development.

but anyone around both gender know, throw out a ball, girls and boys are going to play with it, like a ball, kicking it, chasing it, throwing it.

[seabeyond]

10. go on a playground and see how "active" both genders are. running, skipping, jumping. you are so

full of it.

while all the little kids play in front of us waiting for our older kids at middle school, it is a gender mix. all running

to suggest girls sit quietly and boys run around is just plain and pure oldfashion sexist attitude.

go into a chuckie cheese. see girls sittin quietly, .... no, running around.

go into any environment where active exercise is and you will see the girls equally ACTIVE.

are you around kids? at all?

[lolly]

23. Many girls *want* girl toys

Because their friends have them, or they see them on TV and think they're pretty (my girls all did like pretty things) but then get bored with them. Often there's not much to DO with a girl's toy.

For example, girl's toys are big on locket type things or secret compartments to put little jewels or doodads into. So, they put the jewel in, take it out, put it in again, then what? Big Whoop.

Toys that end up getting played with are toys they can do something interesting with.

[seabeyond]

25. the pink in toys r us would blind boys and i. we hadnt been in that department ever

and had to go in to buy a present for a girl friend and were floored on the sameness of it all. had interesting conversation with very young boys and conditioning, adn at such a young age.

i had a niece that wanted all girlie stuff. had a niece that refused all pink and all girlie stuff. had a niece that didnt take a stand, just tended to arts ect... and sport stuff, and a little in the doll department.

and two boys that had as many gi joes as any girls had barbies.

[seabeyond]

13. does that testosterone stop little boys from liking books too? seeing that they are

so active, they would never sit still to read a book. do we not encourage and buy the books for the little boys because after all they are different? and then what do we teach our children, our boys and what are they missing out on.

even having posted and walking away from the thread, .... i still am bothered what you say

my boys, two of them, love books. my oldest preferred books to toys. he used imagination when young. no particular toy did it for him. more creating villages from streams or guns out of his plastic hockey stick. one sittin outside and playing, one running around.

my youngest spent lots of time, and will still go to his gi joes.

damn good thing i didnt do the deciding on what they do, and allowed them to chose themselves.

they are both in their room reading right now. for pleasure. not homework

[dalaigh lllama]

17. So which toys are for boys and which for girls?

I'd sure appreciate some examples

[customerserviceguy]

29. Here's something from the National Retail Federation

2008 Top Toys for Girls

1. Barbie
2. Disney Hannah Montana
3. Dolls (generic)
4. Bratz
5. Nintendo Wii
6. Video Games
7. Elmo
8. Disney High School Musical
9. Disney Princess
10. American Girl

2008 Top Toys for Boys

1. Video Games
2. Nintendo Wii
3. LEGO
4. Cars (generic)
5. Transformers
6. Elmo
7. Star Wars
8. Hot Wheels
9. Remote Controlled Vehicles
10. Xbox 360

Source: http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=605

You can argue socialization all you want to, but a few million years of pre-civilization human history have shaped the male gender generally into hunters, the female gender generally into gatherers. It's pretty hard to shake that all in a few decades. We can have legal equality without having biological equality.

[dalaigh lllama]

30. If you ever have children, try this experiment

Give them their choice of "boy" toys and "girl" toys and see which they go for, before they've been preconditioned. It might surprise you. I had one brother who played dolls with me (after I promised I'd never tell his friends), and we both played with erector sets and Lincoln logs and race cars. My parents were definitely ahead of their time. And my daughter beats just about everyone's butt on her "boy" Xbox games.

This passive woman stuff is not intrinsically in our genes -- a lot of it's been imposed thru various religions. Ireland had a pretty equal society (woman warriors, lawyers, etc.) before the Roman Church prevailed, and many of the native American tribes were matriarchal before Europeans arrived.

The problem I see with labelling toys for one sex or another is you're already limiting a child's potential interests from the get-go.

[seabeyond]

32. video game, passive. wii, passive. nt

[dalaigh lllama]

39. I'm not that familiar with the wii, but I thought it encouraged activity

And after watching the kids and their cousins play "Guitar Hero" last holiday get-together, I wouldn't describe that video game as passive. :-)

[customerserviceguy]

33. Well, my children are all grown and gone

and someday, I might be able to see how my grandchildren deal with play.

I do note that the Wii and other video games are on both sets of lists, but I'd bet that the games played on each set of systems is different between the genders. While I certainly acknowledge that society has done much to limit the legal rights and abilities of girls/women, simply trying to make a politically correct toy catalog is not going to change any tastes or preferences.

There are inherent differences in the genetic makeup of human males and females, while it might be convenient to ignore them, it's not terribly useful in the end. As long as people of both genders have the right and the opportunity to pursue what they desire in terms of toys, careers, or lifestyle choices, we can acknowledge and celebrate the differences that are observed in the two genders overall.

[dalaigh lllama]

38. I think we probably agree on some inherent differences between the sexes

but the less labelling we see of what's appropriate for boys or girls, the more personal strengths each individual will be able to fully develop. I know I've seen this scenario in the toy section many times:
"Mom/Dad. Isn't this cool! I really like this."
"Junior/Princess! You don't want that. That's a girl/boy toy!"

It'd just be nice if that sort of negative reinforcement became obsolete.

[customerserviceguy]

46. There's a big difference

between a parent actively seeking to deny, dismiss, or ridicule a child's choice of plaything, and depicting various toys in a catalog being played with by their targeted audience.

[seabeyond]

31. sittin on ass with video is " few million years of pre-civilization human history "

is this your argument and you are stickin to it

bah hahahaha

[customerserviceguy]

34. You've mischaracterized my argument

so let me expand on it. What the aggregate of members of one gender prefer to play with, as opposed to the other gender, and how those things are played with comes from hard wiring in genes that have been shaped by millions of years of human development.

Testosterone endows a human being with upper body strength that is most useful in hunting prey that moves around. Those human tribes that developed hunting skills outsurvived tribes living on the periphery of the Ice Age that subsisted by only gathering. Each advance and recession of the Ice Ages pumped "hunter" genes into the equatorial populations, spreading the intelligence that comes with hunting skills throughout the human genome.

It is only natural to see vestiges of this in the way that young human beings react to the things they are provided to play with.

[seabeyond]

37. you dont have kids do you? nt

[customerserviceguy]

44. Had three, two boys and a girl, in that order

All grown and gone, and with spouses, but no grandkids yet.

You?

[seabeyond]

40. you might check out ardi on discovery channel sunday night. a rethink on all the evo psycho babble.

Her hands lacked many of the specializations that allow modern-day African apes to swing, hang and easily move through trees. Those specializations apparently evolved in large primates after they separated from the last common ancestor with humans more than 6 million years ago. (Few fossils of such primates are available because they lived primarily in forests, which are not conducive to preservation of bone.)

The finds "are turning evolution on its head," Lovejoy said.

The most controversial aspects of the papers involve the authors' -- particularly Lovejoy's -- interpretations of what the fossils say about behavior. Of particular importance, he said, is that the sizes of males and females were about the same, and that the specimens do not have large, sharp canine teeth. Both findings suggest that the fierce, often violent competition among males for females in heat that characterizes gorillas and chimpanzees was absent in Ardipithecus.

That implies, Lovejoy concluded, that the males were beginning to enter into monogamous relationships with females and devoted more time to caring for their young than did earlier ancestors.

"This is a restatement of Owen Lovejoy's ideas going back almost three decades, which I found unpersuasive then and still do," Pilbeam said.

Hill was more blunt, calling Lovejoy's speculation "patent nonsense."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-fossils2-2009oct02,0,3420742.story

[customerserviceguy]

45. We're discovering more about evolution

with every new fossil find, but it's 1) clear that humans engaged in hunting behavior, and 2) completely unfair to dismiss anthropology as "evo psycho babble".

[seabeyond]

48. how much is conditioned how much innate. the problem here,

taking into consideration so many of zillions of years ago as action to our behavior and totally ignoring the today, the conditioning, the social conditioning adn all other for a set of guessed behaviors is absurd. lazy. shortsighted.

[customerserviceguy]

49. I just compare the time frames

Five thousand years of human history versus at least a couple of million years of humans existing as hunter-gatherer societies, and that probably has much more influence on the play of children than any sort of social conditioning.

[Geek_Girl]

35. I've bought my 6 year old daughter all kinds of girls stuff

Dolls, Barbie's, the Barbie Cruise ship Polly pocket stuff ect.. I spent a fortune last christmas on this stuff but

she never plays with them. Her favorite toys are the Wii, DS and my husband's old Lego's.

This year I'm sticking with a few video games and soccer stuff and maybe a football. Apparently she loves playing football at her school and she plays for a soccer league.


I just don't think kids fit into these predictable molds and they change over time. Last year she was into care bears.
:shrug:

[customerserviceguy]

36. A few anecdotes about "my girl plays with Legos" and

"my son plays with tea sets" doesn't change the majority of the preferences of children of each gender. And we should expect a toy catalog to cater to those preferences. Obviously, any child perusing the catalog can ask a gift-giver for what they want.

[Geek_Girl]

47. I think that's my point I don't believe the majority of children have these preferences

However, I don't believe that I have a right to tell a toy company how they should market their products. If they miss the boat on how children play and the kind of products they want, and their stuck in some 1950's marketing mentality, then thats their problem.

[customerserviceguy]

50. And that's why I made my first comment on this thread

These kids need to find something else to work on besides telling a Fortune 500 company how to make a profit.

[Control-Z]

14. You are so

predictable :yawn:

[niyad]

20. sigh. . . you do understand about influence, don't you? "oh, don't

[Cerridwen]

27. Yeah. If only they could wage a war on one or two fronts.

Maybe three if you count a "war on drugs."

Four if you count a "war on poverty" (or the impoverished).

Maybe they could even wage a war on regulation.

Gawd. Just think of the things they could do if only they'd wage the proper wars as defined by US exceptionalism and chauvinism rather than waste their time on such worthless topics as creating even playing fields (pun most definitely intended).

Silly people. Don't they get the importance of US concerns?

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

5. Toys"R"Us are still around?

:shrug:

Toys"Я"Us... Since this spelling, I've see it a lot lately. I don't know why daycare use it in their name, and it reminds me of someone who can't spell.

[Quantess]

11. How did you make the backwards letter?

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

16. Google's your friend...

:hi:
Google... backward r and then Copy & Paste

The only thing is democraticunderground doesn't know what to do with it in the Subject, just Message field.

Instead of showing Toys"Я"Us it shows >>>> Toys""Us

[Igel]

22. You can cut and paste,

or you can install a Cyrillic keyboard. It's the last letter in the Russian alphabet.

Потом можно писать по-русски!

[Igel]

21. Precisely.

It's parodying kiddy writing.

And, yes, when kids are learning to make letters they don't always get the directionality of a symbol right, so they especially have trouble with p/d/q/b, and reverse letter shapes. S is particularly common, I think (at least with our tyke).

They're born with a predilection for boustrophedon, it would seem.

[Quantess]

26. I had to look it up...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

Interesting!

[KatyaR]

12. I saw some ad the other day on TV here in OKC that was for

some kind of remote-controlled truck for toddlers. It was advertised something to the effect of "every little boy will love it!" No mention of girls at all.

I'm a girl, and if I'd had a toy like that when I was little, I would have LOVED it.

[Vidar]

15. Makes me smile. Give 'em hell Swedes!

[Brickbat]

18. Outstanding. Right on!

[LeftyMom]

28. The blue wall of toys and pink wall of toys were probably the first clue.

If you want toys that aren't hideously gendered, they're pretty much the worst possible store to shop.

[southernyankeebelle]

41. Lets put it this way. Its a step in the right direction. I rather have these

children looking to the future instead what we have here in the states where a bunch of bible thumpers want to rewrite the bible because its to liberal. That my friends is going in the wrong direction. I am sure the liberal god wouldn't be to happy.

[seabeyond]

43. or... where our young girls are encouraged to play with pole dance dolls and wear thong underwear

a nation of extreme. madonna or the whore.

[marmar]

42. Isn't Sweden considered the best country in the world for gender equality?

It's easy to see why.