How gender bias in toys hurts girls’ creativity and future careers

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 15/10/2021

Girls are held back by deep-rooted societal gender stereotypes when it comes to recreation and their future careers, even though they feel more confident than boys to engage in all types of creative activities and are less restrained by typical gender biases, new research has shown. 

Danish toymaker Lego and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media conducted the “Ready for Girls Creativity Study” to better understand whether and how creativity is gendered; how children and parents perceive creativity and whether it takes on different meanings depending on whether their child is a boy or girl.

Researchers found significant differences in how girls and boys see gender roles when it comes to creativity. Girls are becoming more confident and keen to engage in a wide range of activities – including traditionally “boy” activities – while the same does not apply for boys. 

Boys are more likely to agree with traditional gender roles than girls. 74% of boys believe that “some activities are just meant for girls to do, while others are meant for boys to do,” while 62% of girls share that view.

FOOTBALL AND BALLET

Also, 82% of girls believe it’s OK for girls to play football and boys to practice ballet, compared to 71% of boys, who fear that they would be made fun of if they played with what they described as “girls’ toys” – an opinion shared by parents too.

At the same time, though, 78% of boys and 73% of girls believe that “it’s ok to teach boys to be boys and girls to be girls.” The fact that the majority of both boys and girls agree with this statement reflects the power of gender norms in society, researchers note.

What is even more worrying is that most parents share the same views with the boys and “are more worried that their sons will be teased than their daughters for playing with toys associated with the other gender,” Madeline Di Nonno, chief executive of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, says.

Furthermore, they encourage their sons to engage in sports or STEM activities, while they encourage their daughters to engage in more “girly” activities like dancing, dressing up or baking.

CODING AND COOKING

More specifically, the research showed that parents are:

• 4x more likely to encourage girls to engage in dance and dress-up than boys
• 2x as likely to encourage boys to engage in coding than girls
• 3x more likely to encourage girls to cook or bake than boys
• 3x as likely to encourage boys over girls to engage in programming games, sports and Lego play

These biases impact not only children’s creative development but also their future career paths. Parents are six times as likely to think of scientists and athletes as men than women (85% vs. 15%), and over eight times as likely to think of engineers as men that women (89% vs. 11%).

“These insights emphasize just how ingrained gender biases are across the globe,” said Geena Davis, the Oscar-winning actor and activist who set up the institute in 2004 to combat negative gender stereotyping and foster inclusion.

“The research findings show that girls are ready for the world but society isn’t quite ready to support their growth through play,” Lego said.

HARMFUL STEREOTYPES 

The survey included nearly 7,000 parents and children aged 6-14 years old from China, Czech Republic, Japan, Poland, Russia, U.K. and the United States. In light of the study, Lego announced that it will make playing more inclusive for kids by ensuring its marketing and products are “free of gender bias and harmful stereotypes.”