I came across this video on Tumblr and Riley Maida, a four-year-old girl at a toy store, who questioned the unfairness of the idea that “all girls have to buy pink stuff while all boys have to buy different color stuff”.  This video impressed me a lot and had reminded me of Alyssa’s blog post about the “Let Toys Be Toys” campaign.

As Alyssa mentioned in her blog post, the campaign was undertaken to caution retailers against using gender marketing to sell toys to either boys or girls. In the stores, many toys are placed on shelves under “Boys’ Toys” or “Girls’ Toys” signs. This is very inappropriate and misleading because different genders should have their own option in choosing what toys to play with. Even a four-year-old girl can understand and bring out the important message that toys should not be limited to one gender only. Marketers should take this issue seriously and stop limiting children’s imaginations and interests by promoting some toys as only suitable for one specific gender. All children should be exposed to all kinds of toys (except those violence games) to develop their potentials. A girl’s talents in engineering might be hindered if she never has a chance to play with the “boy’s toys” like Legos. And a boy might develop his interest in fashion designing after playing with Barbie dolls. No one knows! Retailers should not categorize toys by gender because some kids might love to play with toys which are not promoted for their gender. It is very unfair to them if they are not directed to all toys in the stores in order to choose the toys that they truly want to play with.