Gendered Toy Preferences

Not this old chestnut again. It's been proven that even when you remove everything that might influence a child towards a gender specific toy, boys still favour cars and guns, and girls still favour dolls. I've even spoken to feminist friends who were adamant they had shielded their children from gender stereotypes, yet saw the same results. What is so dangerous about the idea that male and female may want different things as a consequence of biology? Shouldn't our differences be

Because we don't completely know whether preferences differ, or whether cultural biases cause those preferences to differ.I have a young boy and a girl. They are pushed into so many gendered roles from such a young age I have a really hard time trying to figure out what they actually like, versus what society tells them they should like.My son recently picked up a pink toy in a store and said "I can't have this one because it's for girls, daddy." He u

To this point there seems to be strong and widespread anecdotal evidence that many boys don't want to seem to much like girls by playing with "girly" toys and many girls feel the same way towards "boys" toys. There is perhaps (or perhaps not) a problem with this phenomenon that, over time, needs to be addressed. In the meantime things like this seem to be a great way to spread interest in science and engineering among both genders.

I wonder if maternal instincts might factor in here too. There was a hacker news article not too long ago about "Despite social pressure, boys and girls still prefer gender-typical toys"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27240988

Totally agree. Men and women's brains work differently, and therefore have vastly different interests.No matter how much I tried to get my daughter into "boy stuff", she would just want the pink pretty things, even from a very young age.Growing up she spent most of her time with her male cousins, so it's not like she wasn't exposed to lots of boy's toys.Not that I mind get being into girly things... In fact it is pretty awesome :)

Its still amazing how much we sort boys and girls based on gender and not interests.

There's evidence that toy preferences of girls and boys are in part hardwired (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18452921). It's analogous to career choices. It's what we all know intuitively, but political correctness pressures us to invent alternate explanations. Even esr succumbed: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2118#more-2118.

If you view "Brainwash: The Gender Equality Paradox" on YouTube, you will find interesting answers. https://youtu.be/tiJVJ5QRRUEIn a scientific experiment, from the age of nine months, boys choose masculine toys, while girls choose femmine toys. Boys are more attract from inanimate systems, while girls from social interactions.Obviously culture has an effect, every person is unique, etc., etc.

The differences could be due to environmental influence or a number of other factors. You are reaching to establish a wider gender narrative. Children have different interests for a wide variety of reasons not the least of which is role modeling and social pressure. Anecdotal evidence is not a reliable basis for conclusion-drawing, especially when the anecdotes occur within a similar cultural context. You are trying to find ground for an assumption based on little to no information. Let people b

Remember, it's OK to force a child to take an interest in something not generally associated with their gender. But it's not OK to encourage an interest in something that is generally associated with their gender.