Tackling gendered LEGOs with two ads--spaced 33 years apart

Hey iGirl campers! With Camp iGirl about a week away I wanted to make a post directed towards the Project Redesigners among you, as well as anyone else interested in advertising. Depending on the circles you're in online you may have seen this image pop up on your dashboard or newsfeed in the past couple months:

These are two photos of the same person--her name is Rachel Giordano and in the photo on the left Giordano was a four-year-old little girl who posed smiling proudly with the creation she made in a LEGO ad in 1981. Over the course of the past few decades LEGO has gone from largely gender-neutral sets, kits, and colors to making some toys that specifically target girls and others that specifically target boys. In the photo to the right, Giordano sits with a LEGO Friends kit that's targeted to appeal to girls. The vehicle is a news van kit with a beauty parlor on the inside--something that Giordano took issue with, stating that, "it seems that a lot more toys already have messages built into them before a child even opens the pink or blue package." She also spoke about her love of LEGOs as the little girl on the left, and how whatever she built created a message and that, "in 2014, it’s the reverse: the toy delivers a message to the child, and this message is weirdly about gender.” You can read the rest of the interview over at Women You Should Know.

A quick trip down the toy aisles at a local Walmart, Target or Toys R Us will show how toys are separated by which ones advertisers think boys will want to play with and which ones girls will want to play with. This is called gendered advertising--separating products by the gender they're supposed to appeal to. Do the advertisers always get it right? Absolutely not! Is it okay to still like and want to play with pink princesses and stereotypically "girly" things? Absolutely yes!

The message that Giordano and others not in favor of gendered toys and advertising want to get across is that this is not the only way to play and that it's okay and encouraged to play with toys that aren't the "correct" colors or characters. It's play--you can't go wrong!

Have you ever experienced someone telling you that you can't play with something because it's "for boys" or "not for girls?" Let us know in the comments!

Til next time...
Ashley

Girls and Media: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

 



Media in its many forms--television, internet, magazines, and on and on--have an effect on how girls view themselves and those around them. This is a statement that sounds pretty obvious but I'm sure a question you may have is, "Yeah, but how?" How does the media we consume get into our heads and alter the way we see ourselves and others? What do they do? What do we do?

The Girl Scout Research Institute conducted a number of studies to look at this very issue of how various forms of media influence the ways in which girls see and treat their own bodies, their own minds, and the bodies and minds of those around them--particularly other girls.

This research is broken down into four areas: Real to Me, how girls relate to reality TV in their own lives; Who's That Girl?, a survey focused on what girls show on social media sites; Beauty Redefined, that talks about fashion and body image; and The Net Effect, which asks girls how they're spending their time online. Each area has useful tips for both parents and girls to talk about these topics, address important questions that come up and use the media for good, rather than not-so-good.

So the next time you flip on the television and watch an episode of reality TV or catch a commercial, or go online to look at a music video, or even plug into your favorite playlist think about what you're listening to or seeing and how it affects you--do you judge other girls for not looking a certain way? Do you feel left out because you don't see girls or women who look like you? Do you sometimes leave out parts of your personality in what you show your online friends? Always keep asking those questions and open up a dialogue with adults you trust when you feel the need to.


Til next time...
Ashley