Gender and toy ads

[Rydia]

I recently came across this on youtube and I'm curious of everyone's opinions.

I didn't think that most of the girls commercials were that bad. She said that boy's commercials ecourage them to build and make things, however, some of the girls commercials in her video had them making snow and cakes.

I think that banning all advertisements towards kids is going to far. I don't see the commercials are that damaging. Though it wouldn't hurt to advertise legos towards girls as well as boys. (I used to love legos when I was younger)

 

[Tipsynaruto]

Oh yea, cuz without commercials, boys will suddenly play with those dolls and girls will suddenly develope an interest in nerf wars and playing in the mud.

I know thats grouping and stereotyping, but they market to the largest target market. Thats how all commercials are. You don't waste money on targeting people that aren't going to bring in a big deal of profit. So if a girl wanna buy nerf guns, regardless if its targetted at boys in the commercial, they'll buy it. For guys, if they seriously wanna play with dolls, nothing like the commercial is gonna stop them.

Plus, from memory, i disagree with the creativity part as the repetitive subjects such as maths and physics are dominated mostly by males while the more creative parts such as business, marketing and english are often more female dominate, or with females getting higher scores. So i cant agree with female creativity getting unnurtured by the commercials

Lego i can agree tho. Like, the fireman set and the police set are somewhat aimed more at boys while the horse and house sets are kinda aimedc at girls.

Tbh, id buy any lego if i think i can scavange pieces from it. You'd be surprised that a lot of the stable lego sets and houses have some pieces that i have used to make guns, castles, ships and tanks.

Yknow what.... i think this woman reminds me of my high school english teachers. Looking at a simple commercial aiming at their main target market then over analyising it.

 

[Howl]

I don't remember ever looking at an add on t.v. and telling my parents that I wanted something I saw. As a matter of fact, I think that Legos are directed towards boys and I played more with Legos and video games than I did with my Barbies. I did have one of those nifty plastic kitchen sets, but It wasn't cool enough. My dad gave me some of his old pots and pans and I made mud cakes & stuff like a real grown up.

It's hard to put myself back in the perspective of a little kid, but I just don't remember noticing gender division in toys. If I liked something, it wasn't because I saw a little girl or boy playing with it on t.v..

 

[Ilyena]

Banning all advertisements towards children would never happen. I don't see why commercials are a big deal. Toys tend to be marketed towards a specific gender but that certainly doesn't mean a parent can't buy a nerf gun or toy army men for their daughter or an Easy Bake Oven for their son.

I think people spend way too much time trying to find things to complain about and protest. Pretty soon, they'll want to just ban all commercials because they're either pushing food that will make them fat, pushing toys that will make them conform to a gender, pushing cars that they can't afford, etc. It never ends. People just won't be satisfied until they can blame someone else for their own lives being shit.

I grew up watching commercials like that and I certainly have never felt that I had to conform to certain gender roles.

 

[Davey Gaga]

Chicken/egg. Are boys commanding and conquering because of television ads, or are television ads for Command and Conquer aimed at boys because they're inherently more attuned to that? Are girls interested in nurturing babies because Fischer Price tries to sell dolls, or have does Baby WeeWee appeal to girls in a natural way?

I'm more inclined to believe that the companies have found target demographics for their products and jump on it, not the other way around. Is it reinforcing gender stereotypes? Probably. Are gender stereotypes accurate? Probably.

Typical EQUAL RIGHTS rant on Youtube I'd otherwise skim past.