IHSS Blog - Miniature Trains

 I would like to imagine that we are all familiar with the sets of magnetic trains that you would drag around the wooden tracks when you where children and although in this case if I gave you a brand name or anything along those lines it would be based on pure speculation so I won't and all of this will be based on my memory of the product. I chose to handle it like this is because when you are a kid you are less affected by gender stereotypes so my memory of the trains will reflect only the aspects of the toy that mattered to a toddler.

Firstly as for if the product was specifically gendered, I would say no, although colors like green, blue, brown, or red are not typically associated with young girls I think that saying that making a model train red is advertising to boys is a bit of a stretch but one thing is clear and that is that they were clearly not trying to make an appeal to girls specifically and form the looks of it not boys either.  Although to be fair I can't see how you could make it more "boyish" from the perspective of gender stereotypes. As for social pressures to purchase it besides the traditional pretty gender-neutral advertising in toy magazines I doubt my parent's choice to purchase it had anything to do with gender.