Playing is important for children's development and learning of the world. Education now, recognizes that the child should have access to toys and games experiences. Toys that focus on activity, in manufacturing and technology they offer significant space skills, practice problem solving and encourage children to be active.
Role-play and small-scale theater, they offer practice in his social skills. Arts and crafts, on the other hand they practice selective skills and persistence.
Boys and girls, they need to be developed in all the above cases, but due to marketing the games are divided into different sections, boys and girls. Activities/constructions and games technology, they are reserved in advance for boys, while social role plays and arts/crafts for girls. But, both boys and girls can only lose from this separation.
The Marketing It counts
The way games are rated and displayed, influence consumer buying habits. Many people feel uncomfortable buying a pink toy or a "boyish" toy for a boy, for a girl.
Other buyers again, they simply ignore the limited options on offer. Maybe they don't point out the lack of construction toys from the "girls section" or the lack of arts/crafts from the corresponding "boys section". If he is not given the opportunity to choose, a child may never find what they are really interested in or like to play.
And children pick up these messages about what girls and boys should like in the same way they pick up other social norms.. Like for example, they realize that it doesn't do to hit others, they also understand the gender norm.
These rigid boundaries, they distract children from their real preferences and provide fertile ground for bullying (bullying).
Stereotypes
Children are not born with preferences for their future careers, or with an opinion of how much their work is worth, however, the stereotypes we see in game marketing are linked to the disparities we see in adult life. In a recent survey by the Welsh organization Chwarae Teg it was shown that children, at the age of the first school years, they already have a clear view of which jobs are suitable for boys and which for girls. Opinions that can be very difficult to influence later.
Themes of luxury and beauty in games, aimed at young girls contribute to a disturbing emphasis on outward appearance. Stereotypical attitudes about boys are just as damaging. The constant enforcement of such messages, is enhanced in advertising and toy packaging. I mean, that boys are inevitably rough, dirty and only interested in action and violence, while for the more calm ones, sensitive and more creative boys, the message is floating around that they have got the subject wrong boy, which fuels the child's low self-esteem and even undermines their performance in school.
Examples of Stereotyping
The action figures, like the hulk, dominated the boys' games category, for decades. Muscular and aggressive subverts stereotypes surrounding masculinity. On the other hand, toys like the little ponies that flooded children's television and store shelves from 1981, they forcefully dictated through marketing that pink and glitter is for girls…
What Should Be Done;
You don't need to, rather than changing the way games and books are viewed. The organization should be based on subject and function and not on the basis of gender. It's an easy change that serves multiple purposes.
Already from 2012 up to 2016, many branded and non-branded game stores, reorganized the display of games based on the above criteria offering easy access for consumer choices.
The Attitude of Parents
Psychologists and sociologists are happy to see the rejection of stereotypes, from the parents. Researchers are concerned about the impact of games that have been gender-segregated for years... Lisa Dinella said, associate professor at Monmouth University and principal investigator of the Gender Development Laboratory. The dolls and the kitchens games, continues Lisa Dinella, are the appropriate tools for training children in the cognitive sequence of events and language practice. the bricks they teach spatial skills and lay the foundation for learning mathematical principles. Both sexes can only lose, if we restrict them to different areas and they cannot explore both.
Bibliography: British Campaign Let Toys Be Toys – White House meeting on: Gender Stereotypes.