‘Pambabae’

On the terrace, alone, my six-year-old son was playing with his multicolored kitchen toy set and pretend cash register. From the next room, I could hear the soft clatter of plastic utensils and the erratic beeps of the barcode scanner ringing up imaginary purchases. Then I overheard two familiar voices greet him, one of whom commented on his toy selection. “Why are you only playing with girl toys?”

What the other person said somehow added insult to injury: “Come on, maybe he just wants to be a chef!”

But true enough, these playsets my boy was seen playing are toys typically associated with—and are marketed to—girls. Boys are supposed to be adventurous and rough-and-tumble. Boys race toy cars and imitate crashing sounds, or yell, “Kobe!” right before throwing a ball into the laundry basket. Boys climb trees, jump off of high surfaces, and cosplay as combatants wielding sticks as their makeshift weapons.

Conversely, girls are very mindful and very demure. Girls sit in a corner cooking make-believe supper or cradling a baby doll to slumber. Girls host fancy tea parties, wear glittery makeup, sing Taylor Swift songs, and twirl around gracefully in ballerina tutus.

It didn’t take a long discussion for my partner and me to assert that this “rule” of gendering toys is outdated, exclusionary, and heteronormative. We believe toys are just that—toys that fellow parents, when shopping, ideally should assess based on quality, safety, creativity, and developmental appropriateness, as well as a child’s preferences.

Factoring gender into the decision-making—that certain toys are exclusive for one gender and off-limits to the other—only restricts a child’s potential, jeopardizes their self-esteem, and perpetuates gender inequalities (building blocks being marketed, or at least interpreted, as “for boys” may explain why STEM fields remain male-dominated).

This, among other things, is why my son’s vast collection includes stereotypically feminine toys that we didn’t feel the need to label as such: a purple Hello Kitty scooter; a pink-haired, Spanish-speaking unicorn princess; a cooking set; a rainbow lyre; and sparkly storybooks that his mom reads to him before bedtime.

To be fair, our son still has more toys that are traditionally “for boys”—basketball, action figures, construction tools, monster trucks, and toy guns. Besides engaging in playful aggression with his papa, he also likes to join me in my little workout corner, where we pose and pretend to be the Marvel superhero of our choosing.

But when did toys start becoming gendered anyway, with blue signifying masculinity and pink femininity?

History tells us that toys having unwritten gender labels date back to ancient civilizations. Little boys were given miniature tools and wooden weapons, as though in preparation for their future as blue-collar laborers or duty-bound men in the armed forces. Meanwhile, little girls received household items and terracotta dolls, as though an early rehearsal for their quintessential role in childrearing and domesticity.

Why can’t kids’ toys simply be marketed “for children”?

It’s worth addressing what I think is the biggest elephant in the room: our society at large believes that by allowing boys to play with pink toys and girls with blue ones, or failing to lecture them about what is socially acceptable behavior for young males and females, we’re somehow steering them in the direction of homosexuality; as if a child being gay, or later coming out as one, is a parent’s worst nightmare and mistake.

But what gender policing instead leads to is someone’s child making a mockery out of other children who behave a certain way and happen to enjoy activities that don’t conform to the gender binary expectations. One time, my son’s playmate called him “gay!” when he screamed in a high-pitched voice. In the US, it was reported that a boy was thrown homophobic insults just for wearing rainbow glasses. The bully even went as far as telling the poor boy to kill himself.

That the color of a child’s toy or the pitch of his voice can still make him a target for homophobic hostilities, it’s reason enough for us to take action. Having more of these uncomfortable but necessary conversations about how psychosocially harmful gendering toys are, either over dinner or when a relative comes over and makes a snide remark about your niece’s blue cars or your nephew’s pink doll, would be a great start.

We owe our children the basic freedom to pick the playsets they like without making them feel that their choice is weird or immoral. Let this be our rallying cry: toys are just toys! Let children be children!

—————–

Jejomar Contawe, 26, works remotely as the lead of content for a US-based digital marketing company.