While some toy companies are giving up on long-held preconceptions about gender-specific products, LEGO has gone the other way. Shedding its gender-neutral past, the company now makes toys specifically targeted at either girls or boys. These products have no shortage of critics, but LEGO says it has good reasons for the separate product lines. [More]
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Toy Companies Slowly Letting Go Of Strict Gender Categories
By 10.27.15
A few months ago, Target got a lot of publicity when they decided to remove gender labels from their toys, bedding, and electronics sections. In practical terms, this didn’t change very much: toy marketing didn’t instantly change, so you can tell who each display was “for” even without a sign. However, the rest of the toy industry is slowly changing, realizing that kids don’t like being stuffed in boxes and told what to play with. [More]
Target Promises To Stop Sorting Kids’ Merchandise By Gender
By 8.7.15
While every kid has preferences, there’s no reason why little boys can’t play with dollhouses or why little girls can’t play with plastic dinosaurs. Some parents, kids, and other activists have started to ask retailers why store sections for anything marketed to kids is always separated into strict “girls” and “boys” sections with signage to match. One retailer announced today that they’ll be changing that. [More]
Most Popular Toys Of 2007
By 11.16.07
Are you buying gifts for kids this year? Let us save you the trouble of asking them what they want: for the 5th year in a row, Barbie has emerged at the top of the list of toys most desired by little girls. For boys, the top item was Transformers. (Hey! Why not a Barbie Transformer? That would be awesome.) In a development that we imagine caught toy executives totally off guard, neither group of kids placed “toys made with lead, GHB, or intestine magnets” anywhere on their lists.
