Sears Gender Roles

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Pages: 6

From dolls to Legos to cars and trucks, toys have always been a part of a child’s development, but were they always so designated for a specific gender? Finding toys specifically for a gender was extremely rare before the 1990s, even though sexism and gender discrimination were very usual, but that does not mean that toys were not tied with a gender (Sweet). Girl’s toys from the 1920s-1960s were focused on nurturing and housework; one of the big leaders in this toy release was Sears (Sweet). Sears released toy brooms and mops in 1925 proclaiming that it was “a practical toy for little girls” and that “every girl likes to play house, to sweep, and to do her mother’s work for her” (Sweet). Toys like that were made to prepare young girls for the domestic tasks in her future and remained common until the 1960s (Sweet). While the feminine toys were mainly focused on domestic skills, masculine toys were focused on industrial working (Sweet). Similar to the feminine ads, Sears released an ad in 1925 for an erector set claiming that “every boy likes to tinker around and try to build things” with the intention that it would help them “learn the fundamentals of engineering” (Sweet). In other words, companies selling toys, like Sears, were targeted for a specific gender. Gender-coded …show more content…
Stereotypes are learned at young age and if enforced, stubborn by the age of 7 (Miller et al.). Children are likely to learn activity stereotypes, like girls play with dolls and boys play with cars, before learning trait stereotypes, like appearance, (Miller et al.). Older children playing with gender specific toys could very likely make them more stubborn to believe the toy related stereotypes (Miller et al.). Removal of the gender specification at an early age could lead to fewer cases gender stereotyping in the