The economic cost of gendered toys

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Is there a sign saying parents are only allowed to buy the color/gender coded kits for the matching gender child?

No.

But children pick these messages up. Go into your average toyshop and the coding is very clear. And, it's more colour coded than it was when I was a kid.

Is it the reason girls are put off from the high status scientific and engineering fields? No, highly unlikely that it is. It is a contributing factor? I would think most likely, yes.

Just as marketing computers, computer games, and computer magazines at boys and men has, in my opinion, a good deal to do with the drop off of girls from computing and gaming after the initially very ungendered explosion of home computing in the 1980s. Something that has only recently started to change.

Even now, in some shops, the computer games magazines are housed on the 'Men's Interests' shelf. Something that has been pissing me off for a very long time.

The masculinisation of computer gaming is something I watched happen around me. Because I, along with about half the girls in my class at school, was a gamer. Loads of us had home computers. I had a Vic20, my best mate had a Commodore64, others had BBC MIcros, or ZX Spectrums. When one of the teachers started a Computer Club after school it was a pretty steady mix of boys and girls. And most of the games were aimed at no particular gender.

I watched that change. I saw gaming become a boys thing, and games become marketed ever more strongly at boys. The magazines changed. Suddenly the front covers of gaming magazines like PC Format had big breasted babes on the front.

And what was the overall culture telling us? Well, we had the rise of the computer geek/nerd. And that was a male image. The lads got teased for being pasty faced nerds without a girlfriend. And the girls? We became a dangerous novelty in gaming. And the gaming communities did not want us there. I know this, because as a female gamer, I faced things the male gamers just didn't.

It's hard to stay on something when the rest of the people involved are actively and explicitly telling you don't belong.