Gender-neutrality @ Harrod's

[lovesbabysquirmy]

An article I found rather interesting...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/20/harrods-toy-kingdom-boy-girl-divide

"Gender-neutral? Harrods' new Toy Kingdom tries to end boy-girl divide - London department store organises new multi-sensory toy zone by theme rather than sex."

So I wonder where/how they stock the ponies?   

[partypony566]

Gender neutral? Why the heck have they done that!?

[Zombelina]

I think that's fantastic! Thanks for sharing the link LBS. I wish more stores would do that instead of herding children to pre-determined girl or boy aisles. When I was a kid I always felt I was doing something wrong if I wanted to look at the action figures because that was "boy territory" Kids should be free to look at whatever toys interest them without any strict gender-coding making them feel bad about it!

[ShortyBoo]

It sounds like a neat idea. I know when I was a kid, I played with both boys and girls toys because I was kind of a tomboy, but also because I had two brothers and was the only girl. So while I had My Little Ponies and Barbies, I also had G.I. Joes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They would never admit it now, but my brothers also played with my Barbies as kids, mostly to have wives or girlfriends for the G.I. Joe figures.

If they get rid of gender sections in toy stores, maybe next they can work on getting rid of the massive amount of pink. I mean, there's nothing wrong with pink. It's my favorite color, actually. But pretty much every girl toy is either completely pink, or has some pink on it somewhere. When I was a kid, I didn't like pink, I liked blue so it made me go for boys toys more than girls. And it's sad to see how much more pink there is now than there was in the 80s. Just look at the MLP line. Almost every single pony either is pink, or has pink somewhere on them, be it their hair, cutie mark or eyes. It's crazy. And yet, the pink ones are usually the last ones to sell. Everytime I go to the pony aisle, even when the others are wiped out, I can always find lots of Pinkie Pie, Twinkleshine, Cupcake, Lulu Luck, Cherry Pie, etc. Then there's all the pink Celestias that never seem to sell. I wish they'd get a hint. Not every girl loves pink, and even if they do, they don't want everything to be pink.

[StarDragon]

I love it! I wonder if they have a space-theme aisle, that would be amazing. ^_^ Too bad there isn't one here in the states.

I would feel so much better bringing my (future) children to a store that focuses on gender-neutral toy aisles. As a girl, I hated anything pink mainly because I was headstrong and pink merely symbolized that females had certain roles in society (and also I was told frequently by older kids, mainly boys, that "no" I couldn't play adventures or dinosaurs or cops n robbers because I was a girl and was supposed to play with barbies).
I support kids being able to choose what they like, not being told. Because that is early permission to do what they want to do in life, become anything they want to be no matter what gender they are.

[partypony566]

Honestly? I've got kids and I can tell you something for a fact, kids don't care about being gender neutral. My eldest daughter also doesn't care if she wants to buy a rocket or a football, the same way my youngest daughter doesn't think about how her dolls, ponies and pink sparkly things are 'female'. They actually don't care. It's adults that have the issues about it

[StarDragon]

Honestly? I've got kids and I can tell you something for a fact, kids don't care about being gender neutral. My eldest daughter also doesn't care if she wants to buy a rocket or a football, the same way my youngest daughter doesn't think about how her dolls, ponies and pink sparkly things are 'female'. They actually don't care. It's adults that have the issues about it

Coming from a girl who hated dolls and pink sparkly things, I certainly noticed as a child. 
(I've got plenty of stories from my parents to back me up too! lol)

[Elisto]

I think my parents somehow mostly shielded me from gender-segregated toy advertising. I loved MLP, and other "girl" stuff, but I also loved toy trucks and had both a toy kitchen and toy workbench, among other things. I never really saw this as unusual or thought of myself as a tomboy either. However, I also know if I were more aware of toys marketed as for girls or boys, I would have felt intimidated by it because I was always a little afraid of doing/liking the "wrong" thing. I think some kids are more sensitive to that.

I think this is a good thing, assuming Harrods continues this. I realize toy-aisle segregation is claimed to be grouped by what boys and girls are seen to usually prefer, but it also ends up reinforcing those differences as though they are what boys and girls are supposed to prefer. Like how I got lots of baby dolls and Barbies from family members because of course girls like that! (I didn't). And sure, it might seem harmless, except that it's not when things like blocks and building toys and such get partitioned as "for boys" because playing with certain types of toys, like blocks, actually can help kids develop skills like math and spacial reasoning. Besides that it seems wrong to suggest that kids who like something outside their expected interests like something "odd" or are unusual in some way.

[InkyMilk]

I personally don't see any problem with the way toy stores display their toys now with the "pink" and "blue" aisles. There's no rule stating boys can't look for a toy down the pink aisle and vice versa, and I feel that if a child is uncomfortable doing so, its a matter of the way their parents have educated them about their gender role, not a result of the way the store is displaying their products. I like the way the toys are grouped because it makes everything easier to find, and it just all around looks cleaner with things grouped by their coloring. Dolls in once section, dress-up sets, action figures, electronics, sports items, etc. It just so happens those toys happen to be designed in a certain color, which is part of their appeal in the first place (as much as I love normal colored ponies, if they were ALL shades of brown, tan and black I don't imagine they'd have the same charm to as large an audience as they do now).

[partypony566]

Inky I agree. It's the parents ( as I said in my last post) who teach the kids about the girl toys/boy toys thing. After all, how does a two year old know that star wars is a 'boy' toy? They don't. ( I collect star wars btw and I'm a girl lol ).

The same way, how does a 3 year old know that pink dollies are for girls? They don't. It's the adults that buy into the gender thing, not the kids.

[little.fox]

Honestly? I've got kids and I can tell you something for a fact, kids don't care about being gender neutral. My eldest daughter also doesn't care if she wants to buy a rocket or a football, the same way my youngest daughter doesn't think about how her dolls, ponies and pink sparkly things are 'female'. They actually don't care. It's adults that have the issues about it

It's not that kids care about gender equality/neutrality etc, but they do generally get ushered into the set roles of each gender very early, and these roles severely limit what we feel is ok to do in life, what we play with and who we are. If something like this will help bring down those concrete walls in between the gender roles, I'm all for it.

[Leopard_Print_Unicorn]

I used to play with "boy toys" as well as "girl toys" because most of my neighborhood playmates were boys, and I think I was one of only four or five girls out of my entire pre-school class.

My most frequent playmate, my younger brother, had this thing where he NEVER wanted to be the bad guy and he NEVER wanted to be girl characters. So if we were playing Star Wars, I had Leia and Darth Vader; Transformers, I was the Decepticons; He-Man, I was Tee-La and Skeletor.

Looking back it doesn't make much sense because the "bad guys" were always so much cooler. Just means I get to tease him about being a goody-goody

[biologistkid]

I love that they've taken steps towards gender neutrality. Granted, until toy companies get in on some of this, I doubt we'll see major strides in ending the "pink-washing" of girls' toys, (among other things), but at least the stores are doing their best to break down a few of these walls.

And while not all kids notice, plenty of them do. I remember my sister, when we were young, grew very upset that nearly all toys marketed towards girls were pink. She loved the toys, but hated the colours. Eventually she was turned off towards "girl" toys entirely (because she was tired of being told that, "oh, it's pink, it MUST be a girl toy", or "oh, it's blue, that is a BOY toy") and stopped buying them altogether in favor of gender-neutral toys such as stuffed animals like cats and horses.

[StarDragon]

Let's not forget that peers are influencing factors as well, not just parents.

I know my brother and I used to watch the same shows, Power Rangers, My Little Pony, Care Bears, until we started school and all of a sudden he didn't want to watch shows with me anymore because kids would make fun of him.

There's no rule stating boys can't look for a toy down the pink aisle and vice versa, and I feel that if a child is uncomfortable doing so, its a matter of the way their parents have educated them about their gender role, not a result of the way the store is displaying their products.

I agree, it's not all just about the stores. It's also about society, what parents teach kids, how kids treat other kids, etc. But I think stores can help lessen the pressure by simply painting over the pink and blue with white. (The Target I go to has tags sticking out in the aisles to show people where the monster high/pokemon/ponies are, etc which I think works even better than pink and blue aisles.) ^^

[starrypawz]

Hmmm interesting.
I think in a way having a 'gender neutral' toyshop makes sense orgnisation wise as I'd much prefer to go into a shop and have it set out like:
Sports, Animals, Vehicles, Collectables, Soft Toys, 'Make Believe' etc.
Growing up I was very 'girly' until I was about 10 after that I started to become a fair bit more 'tomboyish'. And I didn't 'grow out of it' as it were in fact I think I've become more so as I've gotten older, or maybe a bit 'neutral' as I'm not that into a lot of what are supposedly typically 'feminine' things like makeup, fashion etc.but I did have an influence of 'boys' toys as I had two older brothers so I tended to play with their handmedown Lego and Brio trains as well as my Barbies, Dolls etc.

My local toyshop I think is quite obviously segregated to some extent.
As whilst the toddler toys and 'science' toys are generally lumped together one side of the shop has all the 'girly' toys like dolls, ponies, fur real, whilst the other side has the more 'boy' like toys like the Lego, Playmobile, Action figures etc.

I wonder if after a while they'll stop the 'girls toys=pink' I've noticed whilst boys stuff seems to get a fair bit of colour variety a lot of stuff aimed at girls seems to be mostly in shades of pink and purple.

I think peer influence does affect quite early on, in my early years of school I had quite short hair (pageboy cut I think) and I remember getting picked on by a girl because apparently short hair meant I was a boy. I ended up refusing pretty much to have my hair cut for years. Yet now I have rather short hair again.
I also remember when in the school library which we got to go to each week and pick out a book I used to get weird looks, there was this section of Asterix comics and I went through a stage of reading quite a few of them and it was weird because 'comics are for boys'.