How childhood toys impact a women's choice to pursue a STEM occupation

One specific aspect of a young girl’s growth of her educational and scientific self-confidence is in regard to toys that are typically marketed towards young girls. There have been many studies which show the disparities between the types of toys marketed towards specific genders, mainly including pink dolls and cooking/house replica toys as well as more artistic sticker/jewelry creation toys being marketed towards girls, and blue toys including building blocks, trucks, toys that involve more complex assembly like Legos, etc. being marketed towards boys.16

It is regularly accepted that access to specific toys as children can influence a developing child’s bias of their role in society. As young girls are often provided the care-taking modeled toys, they are being taught that their role is related to taking care of houses and children. While the young boys are being told to build and create, they are utilizing the spatial and proprioceptive areas of their brains, which are imperative in the physical sciences. Spatial abilities are developed though the act of playing, which hardwires developing brains to utilize these areas more, and are correlated with the type of toy given to the child.16 According to Birk et al., gender differences in spatial ability are “small among young children and tend to increase with age, with males out-performing females on spatial tasks.”16

The common role models provided to young girls included Barbies, Bratz, Disney Princesses etc., all of whom were wildly disproportionate in bodily measurements, had a strong emphasis on personal appearance, makeup, clothing, and social roles with friends, families and relationships. Young boys were not given as strict of role models, with the most common toys not including human figures but were related to the blocks and trucks as stated earlier. When given role model type figures, they were much more open to interpretation and included figures such as Ninjas, Spies, Superheroes of all forms, and are more focused on completing a task or challenge or building a complex object.

When these apparent gender biases are broken, they often incorporate underlying biases that continue to hinder specific kids from the beneficial aspects of the toys that the other kids will be receiving. For example, Legos received a pushback that they did not make any toys “for girls”, and then proceeded to come out with pink and purple house-building Lego sets marketed towards girls. While the availability of these toys begins to bridge this gap, it continues to emphasize that toys need to be gendered, and that in order to be marketable to girls it has to be based around the stereotypical house-play roles. This plays into the very current battle against “pinkification”, which is an ongoing movement who’s stance is that the toy industry “increasingly makes products for girls that center on being pretty, passive and obsessed with shopping, fashion and makeup.”17 By teaching these young and vulnerable young girls to conform to this stereotype, we are teaching them that we value their appearance over everything else, which is both devaluing and dehumanizing.

Research from the Institution for Engineering and Technology found that toys with a STEM focus were three times as likely to be targeted at boy rather than girls.18 Their research summarized that the “societal stereotypes driving these gendered listings could be having a knock-on effect for the next generation of engineers, especially girls, impacting their future career choices”. Their research also shows that a search using the terms “boy’s toys” and “girls toys” found that “89% of toys listed for girls were pink, compared with 1% for boys.”18 This reinforcement of stereotypes continues to show young children that they are meant to choose their toys based on their sex, and in order to avoid teasing most children will fall into these categories passively. While this phenomenon is very convoluted, including the child's interests, the parent's biases, the access to various toys, the marketing by companies, the opinions of other children, etc., the access to certain toys should not be hindered based on the child being a young girl.

Many companies are slowly realizing that their toys can in fact be marketable to all genders despite the inherent biases, with one example being the manufacturers of Goldie™, a doll designed for young girls that incorporates STEM based activities like building and designing.19 Another example is a commercial presented by Barbie shows the possible implications of young girls dreaming to be science professors, veterinarians, soccer coaches, business women, etc., and how role playing these professions as young girls with dolls can impact their development.20 This is an incredible leap in the right direction, as it pushes the movement away from the very stereotypical care-taking role presented with most dolls and allows these children to imaging lives more similar to those of their male peers.

Considering we know the link between playing with building toys and the development of the spatial abilities, as well as the dependency on success in STEM fields on spacial abilities, it should be clear that the impact of a young girl's childhood may have on her initial ability to succeed in a STEM program. When analyzing gender gaps in STEM programs, with the intent to encourage more women into these fields, it should be recognized the power we have to open doors to very young girls by simply providing the opportunities to play with building toys. This also may have a snowball effect on their view of stereotypes that accompany girl's success in math and science when entering into formal schooling.

References can be found here.

To read more about the Dichotomy of Realities - an Analysis of Gender in STEM at the University of Wyoming, click here.