JBC p. 207 Toy Store Observation

Since we are not able to physically go into stores right now due to Covid-19 I looked at the top 3 places online that came to mind: Walmart, Target, and Amazon. One of the first things I noticed is in the search bar when you type in ‘toy’ the suggestions say things like ‘toys for girls 3-6 years’, ‘toys for girls 8-11 years’, ‘toys for boys 3-6 years’, ‘toys for 1 year old’.  I understand the 1 year old suggestion for people shopping for showers, etc,  but I thought it was quite interesting and specific- the boys/girls and age ranges. When I just searched ‘toys’ a lot of gender neutral toys and games came up mostly just bright colors; more rainbow, then either the usual blue or pink. But, one thing that caught my eye was a car one of those for kids to drive around in and in the photo the boy child was driving and girl in the passenger seat it came up in several of these type of toy ads/photos, giving more power to the boy child and that the girl just needs to sit to the side and look cute. The difference though when you click on their suggestions of ‘toys for girls 3-6 years’ and ‘toys for boys 3-6 years’ is vastly different girls are all pink and mostly dolly type things or doll houses; and boys are robots and cars or dinosaurs. So, you can extremely tell which is supposed to be for boys or girls. Now though I think it all depends on the parent because when I was a child, if I wanted hot wheels or bionicles my parents let me have them; or if I wanted Bratz dolls or a kids makeup set they bought them for me as well. I always had a choice; I was never told which toys I could or could not have. I see in marketing how extreme they are to target to either boys or girls but as children I don’t think they see that at all- at leas,t I have no memory of it. If I saw a cool toy that was all, the whole toy section was my section.