Once, the only aisle in the toy store that was mostly pink was the Barbie aisle. In the last few years, however, the pink has spread. Toy makers are increasingly marketing their products to girls and boys separately. Moreover, in a trend many find disturbing, the marketing of these toys shows a tendency to confirm certain gender stereotypes. The girls get the princesses, the boys get the superheroes. The girls get the makeup, the boys get the chemistry sets. The boys get Star Wars and Harry Potter LEGOs, the girls get LEGOs with boobs.
Attention to this phenomenon has been on the increase in the last couple of years. Books like Cinderella Ate My Daughter and Pink Brain, Blue Brain, as well as blogs like Princess Free Zone have attempted to draw attention to the increasing gender divide in the way our culture markets to and educates young children.
Well, it turns out that parents and child development experts aren’t the only ones noticing this trend. A video recently began circulating in which a young girl complains about the problem, too. The video, which has nearly 2 million hits on YouTube, shows a young girl named Riley making her opinion on the marketing of children’s toys clear: “the companies that makes these try to trick the girls into buying the pink stuff instead of stuff that boys want to buy.”
What do you think about Riley’s rant? Let us know in the comments.