When I looked at Target for girls, first off you notice is the color. Everything is pink like it is the representative color of girls. Every toy is stereotypical to the gender roll that women are supposed to play. The first section is full of doll, which is pretty normal for young girls to play with. The one that I thought was surprising was a section devoted to pretend items in the kitchen, such as a stove and a refrigerator. This reinforces the idea that women are supposed to be in the home.
In the boys section of toys, the colors are all masculine such as green and blue. In the same age section for boys, all of the toys were educational. To me this says boys' education are more important.
Toys absolutely influence the way children play because the segregate them by gender. By marketing them this way they encourage gender roles to be reinforced. They point them toward a direction that they want to as a marketing company which plays into the "beauty myth."
A woman I know gave her daughter a play kitchen for Christmas while she gave her son a carpenter set. Superficially, this is what we expect little girls and boys to be playing with, but looking deeper, the daughter also has a toy vacuum and loves to play with the real one. Most of the toys she has are geared toward making her a housewife, which may be what she wants, but it also doesn't give her the chance to decide for herself. The boy on the other hand gets to go hunting with his dad and has several pretend guns. He is already being introduced to violence and the stereotypes of being a boy.
Growing up, I only had a sister so there was no lack of estrogen around our house. My favorite toys were Polly Pocket and dolls because I looked to my mother as a role model and wanted to be a mom. We had the play kitchen too, but mainly it was Barbie's. As I got older I became really interested in electronics and loved technology. That was really when the gender barrier broke. My mother has actually saved all my Barbie's which I plan to let my children play with, but I will also mix in other toys.
I had the same experience while growing up and having the little girl toys. I like the way you talked about how your mother was your role model and you wanted to be like her, "a mom." And this is true with many children. So, it is accepted to want to have the domestic house toys in my opinion, however I do feel that parents should give their children a wide variety of toys to play with. I really wish I had done this while raising my 2 little girls. If you walk into our house and their rooms, you will see so much pink! lol Pink is a beautiful color, don't get me wrong, but in the future I definitely want to broaden children's minds and let them know that it is okay to like more masculine colors and toys. After taking this class I will definitely encourage all my friends and family to allow their kids to like what they truly like. My best friend was telling me about a friend of hers from work who has 2 little boys. The friend, named Sarah, had mentioned to her husband that she would like to put their little boys in gymnastics and he said, "absolutely not!" The husband wouldn't even allow their kids to sit in the Tinkerbell section at the Ice Capade show at the state fair, because he didn't want his sons to want to like and act like little fairies. So, obviously the gender roles continue when it comes to what parents want their kids to like and not like. Hopefully, this trend will end. If it doesn't end, then hopefully it won't be so stereotypical.
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