Toys and Tipping Points

     When I was a little girl I thought blue was for boys and pink was for girls. It felt like it was just a fact of life like it was just natural. The same concept applied to toys as well. There were boy toys, like Hotwheels and Legos, which were usually packaged in blues and reds, and there were girl toys, like Barbies and Rainbow Loom, which were generally packaged in pinks and purples. When I was little you would have never caught me looking down the boy's isles in Target. For one, I thought that would just be embarrassing if someone caught me looking at boy toys. And another reason is I don't think I even ever considered the idea that I might like playing with any of those toys. I feel like that's because for as long as I can remember I've been taught and shown that girls and boys like and do separate things. I was taught these things by my parents, my peers, TV shows, and commercials. I don't think I was taught these lessons by my parents purposefully. They never told me outright anything like "Girls play with dolls and boys play with cars" but they did, however, maybe subconsciously, show me what gender roles were. For example, my mom would always paint my room pink, dress me in pink clothes, and put pink bows in my hair. My parents would also only buy me dolls and Barbies. The same goes for my peers who were probably being taught and shown the same things. In my opinion, I was taught these lessons most by TV commercials. The commercials would always either show a group of girls with some type of doll or bracelet making kit with sparkles and the color pink always thrown in there somehow or a group of boys with some type of toy car and a red and blue background. It seems to me that gender stereotypes have always been part of my life. Thankfully, now that I'm older I can see through those old gender norms I used to follow so strictly.