Yes, gender discrimination is a marketing gimmick

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So here I am working in Afghanistan with the United Nations. I just arrived back upset at our housing compound (yes, all UN staff in Afghanistan have to live together in a compound since it is “unsafe”). I was upset because I was with a colleague at the Ministry of Higher Education and she told me about looking for a restroom, but a ministry official told her there was none for women because women using restrooms is “disgusting.”

Yes, Afghanistan, like many other countries (including the U.S.) has its challenges in gender equality. I knew from my work, education, and experiences why gender inequalities exist, but that night, I just needed to quell my immediate disappointment.

In my head, I told myself that one of the main contributing factors to gender inequality was the environment surrounding children that indoctrinate gender roles, norms, and expectations. I looked into commonalities of children around the world, and one main thing stood out: kids like to play and play with toys.

There was already discussion in many circles in the U.S. about the genderization of toys when I was in Afghanistan at the time (mid-2012), so I was not really surprised that toys can, have been, and are currently used as a vehicle for what society “expects” of females and males. What I learned that night shocked me: all of this genderization in the toy industry is just a marketing gimmick.

I was reading the work of Elizabeth Sweet at the University of California, Davis, Jo Davis at the University of Maryland, and many others. Many parents in U.S. say that pink is for girls and blue is for boys and that is how they are hardwired.  However, according to Professor Jo Palotti, kids were not color-coded at all until the early 20th century.  It was not until nursery colors were introduced that the genderization of colors began. In fact, pink was considered a masculine color before all of this. Pink and blue were essentially chosen at random, and marketing these colors along with other creations to justify gender differences was and is created for ease in market segmentation to boost sales—especially in the 1980s when the intense amplification of pink and blue began. Disney picked this up and reinforced this idea full-force with their Disney Princess toy line (especially in the 2000s).

Furthermore, I looked up the senior management at major toy companies and found out most of these brands are ran by Caucasian males of older age. A simple google search of any major toy brand will showcase this, but the genderization of toys is only on the tip of the discrimination in the toy industry. The toy industry executives refuse to make certain toys because they do not “sell,” so you can forget about having good toys for children with diverse backgrounds including people with disabilities and diverse families (e.g., family with two dads or two moms).

All of this was quite disturbing to me. We challenge the gender disparities and other inequalities in education, STEM, politics, etc., but little attention is to where gender norms begin: kids and what they play with. It bothered me so much that I decided to leave the policy world behind (since policy work has its limits in reaching kids’ playtime) to fight this head-on with Woozy Moo—an advocacy and toy resource platform for parents. Biased marketers and executives’ obsession with the all-mighty dollar should not interfere with anyone’s identity.