Feminism. Equality. Gender-bias ... Children’s toys.
You might not see an immediate connection between these four things, but in reality, children’s toys can have a significant impact on the other three. Children are lovely little sponges that soak up the information we give them from an early age. And the message we are sending them about our girls’ role in society and their place in our culture can be a powerfully negative one, fuelled at times by the gender-biased products found in traditional toys for boys and girls.
Now, anyone who has met me knows that this is a real bee in my bonnet.
Get me on the topic of how we are failing our girls – and by extension, our boys - with toys and other products we are putting into their impressionable little hands, and I will go on about it for hours. (By the way, to everyone who has been kind enough to listen to me gently rant on about the topic, thank you very much. You are all superstars for putting up with me).
I think we only have to look as far as last week’s findings in The Good Childhood Report to see that our girls are suffering as a result of gender-bias stimuli that they are exposed to early in life. If you have not read the report, it says that our girls, aged just 10-15, are less happy than they used to be. And it goes on to say that as our girls get older, they become even more unhappy - in particular with the way they look. According to this report, some 700,000 girls in the UK fall into that category.
One girl in the report said, ‘’Girls feel pressured by boys to look a particular way and that leads girls into depression or low self-esteem and makes girls feel ugly or worthless.’
How is it even possible that a 10-year old is unhappy with her looks?
This emphasis on passive qualities for girls such as looks starts at a very young age. And sadly, most of us have contributed to it, in one way or another. We probably don’t even know we are doing it. It begins with well-intended remarks such as, ‘Ooo, aren’t you going to be a little heartbreaker!’ or ‘Aren’t you just gorgeous?” or ‘Oh, you are so pretty in your new dress! ”. Meanwhile, we tell our boys how strong they are, how much of a little man they are becoming, how clever they are.
And, then we turn around and tell our boys (or even our girls), ‘Don’t be such a girl‘. We’ve all heard comments like that - at school, in the pub, at work.
It’s a behaviour that is so inured in our society that sometimes we can’t even recognise that we are doing it. Goodness knows I’ve been guilty of it myself at times.
No wonder our girls are bewildered and unhappy.
One girl in the report said, ‘’Girls feel pressured by boys to look a particular way and that leads girls into depression or low self-esteem and makes girls feel ugly or worthless.’
We continue to reinforce these subtle messages to our children through their toys. Anyone who has ever spent any time in a toy aisle, or a playroom, or looking for a gift for girls knows exactly what I am talking about. Plastic lipstick. Pretend ironing boards. Books and magazines for 10 year olds about how to achieve a great looking hairstyle or how to get the attention of that cute boy in class. Dolls with 3 inches of makeup and 1 inch of skirt.
These messages limit our girls. They make our girls question their own strengths and potential, and confuse them about what is expected from them versus what they want for themselves. No wonder our girls, by the tender age of 10, feel that in order to be happy they have to conform to some ridiculous standard of looks or feel that they need to be what others want them to be, in order to be accepted.
And our boys are picking up on this message, too.
The issue does not stop once our children reach adulthood. There is not a magical portal through which our children walk once they are adults and suddenly enter a world of non-biased, gender inclusive acceptance. And I am not imagining this – go and read The Good Childhood Report for a start, and then have a look at the research from Brigham Young University and Princeton, which shows how women’s voices are consistently under represented, or worse - silenced - in the workplace.
Our girls – and our boys - need to be told from the time they are teeny toddlers that girls are strong, that they are smart, and that they can be anything they want. They need to know that their voices count.
Ensuring that the toys we give our children send the right message is an important first step towards happier children, and we as parents and caregivers need to take that first step for them. Making sure that our children have a broad spectrum of intelligently produced toys at their disposal - traditional boys’ and girls’ toys, gender neutral and gender inclusive toys - is the best gift we can give them.
Instead of saying ‘Don’t be such a girl’, we should be saying BE a girl, be your own girl, be the girl YOU want to be.
Because it will make a difference, for all of our children.
Learn more about A Girl for All Time®