Similarly, products promoted to young males were also directed towards older men with some variations. Clothing still remained concentrated with darker colors along with additions of modern sports teams or favorite television characters although there were no shirts decorated with ‘tough guy’ sayings. In other sections of the store like jewelry and shoes there was a limited supply of products for men to choose from as compared to women’s selections. For example, there were small items for men in the jewelry section such as simple chains, dull chains with small crosses, and traditional ring bands. The more extravagant jewelry for men watches that came in a variety of colors, digital or numeral faces, and thick or thin bands. Additionally, the …show more content…
Dissimilarly, the women’s sections were separated into different sections of the store because there was an overabundance of various selections of the same products. Specifically, this idea can be demonstrated by the store’s layout where an entire section of the store is devoted to purses and handbags, and women’s intimates. These differences show cultural perceptions that females have unique tastes in products; therefore, department stores like Target’s need to appeal to numerous preferences simultaneously.
There were spaces within the store that I considered to be more gender neutral than others. In the toy section, there were some toys that were specially designed for male and female children. There was a majority of toys that were neutral in their colors and packaging that encouraged both genders to use. These packages were detailed with pictures of children of both sexes using the toy to further endorse this product as being gender neutral. Likewise, the bathroom department provided an array of bathroom products in multiple colors, simple shapes, and basic patterns that both sexes would appeal too. There were some colors of towels that were
Gender Stereotypes Among Children's Toys When you walk into the toy section of any store, you do not need a sign to indicate which section is on the girls’ side and which section is on the boys’ side. Aside from all the pink, purple, and other pastel colors that fill the shelves on the girls’ side, the glitter sticks out a lot as well. The boys’ toys, however, are mostly dark colors – blue, black, red, gray, or dark green. The colors typically used on either side are very stereotypical in themselves.
Over the years, the American department store has developed and evolved as not only a commercial business but also a cultural institution. While it has weathered many storms and changes since its inception and throughout history, its most predominant enemy has been a change in the lifestyle of the American people (Whitaker, 2013). As the customer’s needs and wants have shifted, department stores have struggled to keep up with demands. It has been argued that the decline of the department store has been ongoing for the last 50 years (Whitaker, 2013). This dissertation aims to understand how the department store has historically played a role in consumer culture and spending, and additionally, how this has evolved and changed in today’s retail market. Although department stores may not be able to take all the credit for inventing modern shopping, they certainly made its conventions and conveniences commonplace. They set a new standard for the way the consumer should expect to be treated, the type of services that should be provided, and the convenience that should attend the process of acquiring the necessities and niceties of life all in one place. They made shopping into a leisure pastime. This environment meant shopping was a means of freedom to look around, pick up objects with no obligations to buy. As one historian remarked, department stores: “encouraged a perception of the building as a public place, where consumption itself was almost incidental to the delights of a sheltered promenade in a densely crowded, middle-class urban space” (Whitaker, 2006). Although this perception and view of the department store has changed over the years, this paper aims to follow the trail of how and why that happened.
Envision yourself entering a toy department and noticing numerous diverse aisles. In one aisle, you encounter toys packaged in complementary and color triads colors that include building sets (such as “LEGO”, “LEGO Super Heroes”, and “Angry Birds”) and a wide selection of action figures—Spider Man, Transformers, The Dark Knight, Power Rangers, etc. In the next aisle, adjacent to the aisle with complementary and color triads colors, you find toys packaged in shades of pink and purple. These toys range from “Hello Kitty” dolls to “Barbie Dream” house play sets. Inside a toy department, such as Toys R Us, it is extremely difficult to retrieve a toy that is not marketed explicitly or subtly by gender. If toys were marketed only according to ethnic and racial stereotypes, many individuals would be infuriated. However, we come across toy departments that are highly, as well as strictly segregated—not by race, but by gender.
The branding Ms. Klein wrote about only appears to work because the idea of “choice” as defined by the brick-and-mortar retailers is an illusion. Anyone entering a department store or mall understands this quiet truth. There are many styles to choose from, it seems, b...
Inside Toyland, written by Christine L. Williams, is a look into toy stores and the race, class, and gender issues. Williams worked about six weeks at two toy stores, Diamond Toys and Toy Warehouse, long enough to be able to detect patterns in store operations and the interactions between the workers and the costumers. She wanted to attempt to describe and analyze the rules that govern giant toy stores. Her main goal was to understand how shopping was socially organized and how it might be transformed to enhance the lives of workers. During the twentieth century, toy stores became bigger and helped suburbanization and deregulation. Specialty toy stores existed but sold mainly to adults, not to children. Men used to be the workers at toy stores until it changed and became feminized, racially mixed, part time, and temporary. As box stores came and conquered the land, toy stores started catering to children and offering larger selections at low prices. The box stores became powerful in the flip-flop of the power going from manufacturers to the retailers. Now, the retail giants determine what they will sell and at what price they will sell it.
Based on my observation, Walmart is one of the toy retailers labeled and categorized toys by gender. They placed “Girls” and “Boys” signs over their toy aisles. Initially, I studied the toys under
The Target store located at Dallas Highway in Marietta, Georgia, was chosen for the fieldwork assignment. This particular store was selected because of recent renovations to the toy area. The new arrangement of the toy department appears slightly different than traditional organizations of toys in the past. The location of the toys is in direct relation and physical flow from the baby equipment, supplies, and apparel. Toys transition from birth in the infant area initially in terms of age demographics, type of activity, and brand of toy to more obvious gender divisions beginning in the preschool toys. In the toy section for school age children, gender separation is clearly established. Gender divisions become more obvious in this age group according to colors, themes, and character depiction. The girl toys feature pink, purple, and pastel colors. The highlighted décor in the store’s displays and packaging for girls involves embellishments such as pictures of girls, flowers, glitter, and jewels. The boy section portrays color schemes that are primarily in blue, red, yellow, gray, and black. Packaging images are of male children. The sections including educational toys, games, sporting equipment, outdoor play, sound and music, building, puzzles, and arts appear to be more gender neutral although some gender specific items can be identified by color or themes such as princess/fairytale or Ninja Turtle. The configuration of the toys clearly states that color, themes, and character representation are irrelevant to infants and toddlers, while parent’s attitudes about color and gender may be important aspects of unintentional socialization in the maturation of children. Marketing strategies appeal to children, but adult’s perception of ...
To begin with, toy stores play significant row when it comes to the gender socialization process in children. I recently visited a Toys R Us in a shopping center near downtown Redwood City. Although It is located on the east side of Redwood City the shopping center is fairly neat and seems to have a wide variety of shoppers. The store was rather big and neatly organized. The front of the store for the most part was gender neutral. It was easy to navigate through the story and find the girls and boys toys. For the most part, boys toys were in blue boxes, while girls toys were in predominantly pink boxes. On the one hand, the boys sections were dominated by darker colors like blue, yellow, and black. On the other hand, girls sections were lighter
The clothing for both boys and girls sections are close together. I noticed that there are articles of clothing that are similar for boys and girls, but they are called different names to make them more masculine or feminine. For example, shirts for girls are called fashion tops and just shirts for boys. Some patterns that I saw in the clothing/toys is that for almost each advertisement or label had a picture of a boy or a girl to indicate which toy or clothing is meant for which gender. I did find some things that I thought were unusual. One thing that I noticed for boys is that the majority of the boys toys were more expensive compared to the girls toys. For example, I did not realize how expensive Legos and other building toys were compared to some dolls for girls. A set of Legos could be up to sixty dollars just for one set! Another thing that I noticed about the boys toys was that there were a lot more choices in ratio to girl’s toys. For girls, one could either choose from dolls (Barbie’s), dress up clothes, or play make-up. As for boys, there is so much more to choose from, they have cars/trucks, sports equipment, Legos, guns, different trading cards (Pokémon, Yugioh, sports trading cards, etc.)
Many of the toys I had consisted of pink frilly things that were given to me by my parents or other adults. My dolls were Bratz dolls that were full of different outfits and makeup, teaching me to worry about the way I looked. My animal related toys consisted of little plastic horses and farm animals that were always in “gender neutral colors”, they always came in a red pack and any accessories were always bright and yellow or green. While when I had a gender-neutral toy, a leapfrog leader, that had a distinction of being a girls because of the case being pink and purple, not in in of the “gender neutral” color categories. My sports toys were the same, my soccer balls and basket balls were not neural colors, but pink or purple,. I also played with “boy toys” like cars, footballs, baseballs, however none of these things were ever bought for me. If I asked for these “boy toys” I was told that they were for boys not for girls, experiencing cultural competence, because no adult in my life thought buying a girl those types of toys were
... black packaging that depicts a man ever so chivalrously allowing a women to enter the protection of his manbrella. These products, while seemingly innocent, are constant reinforces of gender stereotypes. A choice between the Dude Wipes brand and the Playtex Wipe is not just about splitting consumers into male and female buyers. This process bears implications of what it means to fall under the category of the male box and the female box. These products reinforce the gender related characteristics that our society has labeled as masculine and feminine. Men are not to show compassion or empathy, and women are not to be tough, or in charge. Beyond the inappropriate societal reinforcement of gender norms, the products targeted at women are often more expensive then similar products aimed at a male consumer. In a world of blue and pink packaging, women loose every time.
3) When I visited my channel target, Express, I saw women in their late twenties of different ethnicities dominating the store at the sale rakes with few men in sight. The men that where there where with a significant other. Customers where mostly browsing and had no bags in hand from other stores nor was there anyone at the checkout counters making purchases. The set up of the store catered more towards women, the more expensive merchandise in front with sale rakes in the middle of the store followed by accessories by check out with a smaller men’s section to the side. If one did not enter they would never know men’s apparel was sold there. This was odd to me being in an urban location downtown Los Angeles; Express demographics show a wide range of age, gender, ethnicities, and income level. Downtown LA is made up of a male dominated location, making up just over half its residents at 55.39% of the total population, women being the remainder 44.61%. The average age of these residents are twenty-five to thirty four followed by thirty-five to forty-four. There is a predominantly Hispanic or Latino race making up over 17,000 residents followed by Caucasians at just over 6,000. The average household size is three people with an income per member being $4,851.96.
I conducted my research and collected my data for this experiment at 3:30pm on Tuesday March 8th, 2016 at the Walmart Supercenter in Abilene, Texas. I walked around the toy section of the store and observed the differences between the aisles that are clearly assigned to certain genders. The store has sectioned off specific aisles for each gender and they make it very obvious which aisle is for girls and which aisle is for boys. The “girls” aisle has barbie dolls and princess dresses and the packaging on these items are bright pink. The “boys” aisle is filled with star wars action figures and toy guns all dressed in black packaging. There are obvious stereotypes and gender roles being subconsciously produced in these aisles.
Ron Johnson spent a great deal of time and money to promote his ideas of “stores-within-stores” by turning floor space into an area to house several branded boutiques. He did this in order to attract a target market of a wider demographic which includes age, gender, and generation. One of the m...
Gender is something that is done. People everyday do actions that define whether they are “masculine” or “feminine”, which helps them define who they are. So therefore in society, there are unsaid gender roles. Gender roles are the stereotypical behaviors that have been carried down for many years. For my “Gender in America” class, the other students and I were told to go into the the “real world” and to watch and observe different gender roles and actions take place in a public setting. Our goals were to see how one acts “masculine” or “feminine” and if gender roles are heavily practiced today. For my “real world” experience I went to a shopping mall. I thought this would be a good place to observe gender roles because of the very popular