Gender Neutral: The Oscars and toys

March 7, 2010

The New York Times Op-Ed page had a mind expanding editorial on why Oscars are gender based. The piece, by Kim Elsesser, a research scholar at the Center for Study of Women at the University of California, Los Angeles, asks the question: “[Why] is it considered acceptable to segregate nominations by sex, offering different Oscars for best actor and best actress?”

To make her point she muses as follows:

Suppose…that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented separate honors for best white actor and best non-white actor…Surely, the academy would be derided as intolerant and out of touch; public outcry would swiftly ensure that Oscar nominations never again fell along racial lines.

I have written several pieces questioning why we still categorize and merchandise toys by gender. Yes, I know, it makes it easier for shoppers; well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. One thing it does do, however, is keep us thinking in the silos of gender when we create and market toys.

So here is the question: Will we sell more toys if we go gender neutral?

After all, how many wonderful toys don’t get made because they are “genderized” (I just made the word but it seems to fit). In the same vein, how many toys lose a boy following because they are labeled as a “Girl’s toy?”

I think there is a trend here and I am going to bet that in a few years we are going to some see gender neutral toy departments. Will we sell more toys when we do?

Posted by Richard Gottlieb on March 7, 2010 | Comments (2)

March 13, 2010

In response to: Gender Neutral: The Oscars and toys
b commented:

There's a related flap going on with respect to Disney's new Rapunzel movie... Which they renamed to Tangled because girls will watch movies with boy names/about boys but boys won't watch movies with girl names/about girls. And all of that goes back to the idea that male is the "default" gender and female is a "deviation" from that default, which is insanely pervasive in society and especially in children's media/toys. Nostalgia Girl also recently did a video (which I found through the Sociological Images blog) on the same phenomenon in 80s cartoons - those that had female main characters at all, which was a minority, often had the girl as a "version" of the boy lead. How that would affect a gender-neutral toy market is an interested question. On the one hand, right now it's more acceptable for girls to buy boy toys than vice-versa. So perhaps the market would expand, because all of those "girl" things would be marketed in a way that tells boys they're okay as well. But on the other hand, some items are made in a "girl's" version and a "boy's" version (even if the only difference is color) - if the boys lost their "own version" would they be resistant to something they know girls are buying as well? Will they find ways to declare gender, possibly based on color or design of packaging, even if the manufacturer wasn't intending that? And, of course, there is the fact that there are, to some extent, actual differences (on average) between preferences that may not be 100% the result of social influences - even baby monkeys show a difference, with the boys preferring mechanical toys and girls preferring dolls. So kids may "know" that some toys are gendered even if they aren't marketed that way.

March 8, 2010

In response to: Gender Neutral: The Oscars and toys
chepp commented:

For the Oscars, if gender was omitted they would only have half as many actor awards to present -- no one in the business would accept that. For toys, if gender merchandising was omitted I wouldn't expect any loss of sales. If a girl really wants a toy truck, it's still available but on a different aisle. Why would a toy not get made just because it is not "genderized"? there are plenty of non-genderized toys on the market so it seems like a non-issue.