Childhood Gender Socialization And Toys

Looking back at our childhood, most people remember the happiness that would follow with getting new toys or books during the holidays. I remember for Christmas every year as a child, I would avidly rip open my presents, thrilled to see my new American girl doll, bratz doll, or baby alive toy. Little did I know that these toys in which I possessed the majority of growing up, would shape the person I am today as well as heavily influence my childhood. In most instances, parents will bring their young children to either the "girl section" or "boy section" of stores, not realizing the lasting impacts that they will have on their kid's future. Childhood gender socialization is reinforced the strongest via books, toys, movies, and even clothing/costumes.

Gender is the psychological, physical, cultural and other distinguishable traits which are associated with the sexes, male and female. Meanwhile, socialization is the process by which we learn the norms and values of society as well as how to interact with one another. Through socialization we are expected to learn our roles in society as well as the roles of those around us. Together these two concepts make up gender socialization; which is, the process of learning the attitudes and expectations of a person based solely on their gender. Gender socialization explains what causes males and females to behave in certain ways and why society expects males and females to behave in a certain way. Men and women weren't born with these presumed distinguishable traits, and were however taught these at an early age either indirectly or directly. This can be taught directly simply by teaching your daughter to "act like a lady" or commanding your son to "man up". The ways in which people raise their children cause gender. This can be done indirectly as well, simply by giving your son or daughter a certain

The only things essential to playing with this toy is taking care of a baby, saying in the description, "They're great teaching dolls because they help your daughter how to take care of someone else, focusing on feeding, comforting, cleaning up, and potty training". These lessons being taught to a child is teaching the young girl compassion and sympathy, two traits which are associated with woman but however not with men. Aside from just compassion through helping someone else, young girls are also taught how to act "lady like", by learning manners. They learn manners by whenever they feed their baby or whenever they change their babies they will always receive a thank you or an I love you. It is also ironic that all of the baby alive dolls are baby girls and not boys. The boy is not crying or shouting that it needs help, but the girl is. This corresponds with the belief that woman is so dependent and that woman always need to be taken care of, but a man can easily handle himself. By subtly having this factor within the doll, the girl's self-image can be easily distorted as well as her view on the male gender. Now rather than viewing herself as an independent being, she may instead always look for assistance and help from someone else. The female baby cannot even sit up on her own and needs to always be held. The idea of