My parents have always told me that I can do anything I put my mind to. I’ve felt that I can pursue any major I want and work any job I desire. I had never realized how toys can cement the way people feel about the accessibility of a career path. Sherman analyzes how early gender stereotypes are installed within children’s dolls and trains children to think a certain way about their future. When girls play with Barbies and all they’re doing is playing dress up and caring about materialistic options, it trains them to think that’s all they’re good for. On the other hand, boys get to build things and engage in more hands-on toys, which leads them to dominate the manual labor industry. Her study explores how the girls who played with Mr. Potato Head instead of Barbie had been reported that they felt there were more career options for them. By playing with a more gender-neutral toy, they felt there was more things they could accomplish in life. It demonstrates the monumental impact that toys can have in shaping future careers for children. Furthermore, toys can also shape the way children perceive their own body image and the gender stereotypes in society. Through Murren’s study we are able to analyze how certain aspects of toys can shape the future the way a child perceives themself in the future. For example, a Barbie is a tall, skinny, beautiful blond hair and blue-eyed girl. She is seen as an ideal standard of beauty and many young girls want to look like her. However, this creates unrealistic standards and can cause many girls to feel pressured to look a certain way, creating body issues.
Looking back on my childhood, I didn’t comprehend the significant importance that toys played in shaping who I was today. I was lucky enough to grow up in an environment with the brothers where I was exposed to a variety of toys and never felt such a great divide between the gender stereotypes. However, I know that most people, such as people who are only children, played with toys that were strictly for their gender and this led to many problems for them down the line. I think the toy industry can do a better job of creating more gender-neutral toys so that both genders can have a shared experience of playing with a toy. I hope that one day we can eliminate the stigma around cross over playing between genders where a boy can play with a pink girly toy and not feel that his masculinity is in question.