Marketing wordclouds: “girl” toys v. “boy” toys
April 7, 2011
by Kathryn Ciano
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Check out these wordclouds filled with marketing words used for toys. Can you tell which words are supposed to appeal to girls and which to boys?
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Over at Free Market Feminism I wrote:
More than anything, this exercise simply helps visualize how we perceive gender at all. Free marketers might support gendered toys, because so much of raising kids is helping them find peace with their biological selves.
In this high-speed time when so much of “women’s rights” is concerned with tamping biological selves — not to mention clocks — it’s telling that the “girls’ toys” wordcloud includes so many nurturing words.
Boys’ toys teach values like “power” and “battle” that are ambitious or at least competitive. Marketing to girls deals with emotion, “friendship,” babies, and sharing.
The illustration is simple: We tend to teach gender identity at an early age. The lesson is more complicated, and much more important: Feminism is not about denying gender; it’s about being a full human being, gender included, who is fully cognizant of choice.
The lesson, then, from these wordclouds is that a great deal of what little girls learn from an early age has to do with skills that tend traditionally towards the “supporting role” of the free market spectrum.
Little girls will hear the words “fashion,” “cute,” and “style” repeated like a din in the marketplace; if “boy” words like “heroes,” “action,” and “rapid” are important, girls will have to take an extra cognizant step to hear them.
When the core of some belief system — like feminism — is to root out differences it can be tempting to focus on explanations for apparent differences, like the nature/nurture debate.
When it comes to “free market feminism” the point is that it doesn’t matter why women are different in some ways from men, as long as everyone enjoys the same opportunities. Feminism should never be about sameness, or diluting differences. Feminism is simple: it’s about equality.
You said “Feminism should never be about sameness, or diluting differences. Feminism is simple: it’s about equality.”
I agree. The problem isn’t that there is a difference in focus, but that there is virtually no cross-over. Girls get no action words and boys get no emotion words. So it is no surprise that girls lack confidence to do and boys lack confidence to feel.
A very thought provoking article, I am fascinated with word clouds. I always liked the fact that most toy stores have the pink/lavender and camouflage isle arrangement. I have a nontraditional daughter and putting all the traditional fashion and doll toys in the pink isle made it easier for me because we knew what part of the store we didn’t need to go into. It was a time saver for a busy Mom. Now, even though there nothing to watch on the “women’s content channels”, I appreciate their existence because it concentrates a lot of garbage content and offensive advertising in one place which is easily blocked.
Also since men seem to have some hard wired association between underwear and female empowerment and men control marketing to women, if marketing men tried very hard to put empowering concepts into marketing to women and girls then undoubtedly there would be an exponential increase in womens underwear in the female marketing cloud. And who needs that. Personally I don’t think a woman in underwear has ever sold me anything. See I don’t think marketing men are trying to offend women consumers, I think that what you see is all they are capable of. They are trying their best and it is not only totally inadequate but offensive.
ToysRus just flat out labeled their aisles “Boy Toys” and “Girl Toys.” Girls toys are all pink and passive and have a lot to do with make up, dress up, and babies. Boy toys are all about action and conquest. I haven’t shopped there for a few years, but I wrote them several letter to complain.
Yes, it’s all about equal opportunity. How can a (straight) man and woman have equal opportunities when all of his potential life partners have been expected from a very early age to be supportive and nurturing, and none of hers have?
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