Connect With Us on Twitter
For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.
Re "Guys and Dolls No More?," by Elizabeth Sweet (Sunday Review, Dec. 23): Although there is a glut of gender-specific toys, we don't agree that Lego is going backward with construction sets for girls. To be fair, it avoided the shopping mall and beauty themes used by other toy makers. Lego's sets include a veterinarian, invention workshop, stables, dog show and home.
Our first response was apprehensive. But what our testing families told us made us think anew about our long-held view that primary-colored blocks work for all. Who needs lavender blocks? Apparently, some girls do. Parents reported that daughters who avoided blocks were now avid builders.
Why is that important? Blocks develop children's abilities with spatial and mathematical thinking. Traditionally, boys had such toys, and girls have not. To develop engineers, architects, scientists and mathematicians, we need to give girls and boys equal play.
Of greater concern are themes in the boys' aisles, reinforcing aggressive play before they get to electronic killing games.
JOANNE OPPENHEIM
New York, Dec. 23, 2012
The writer is the president of Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, a consumer organization that reviews children's toys and media.
To the Editor:
Like Elizabeth Sweet, I once thought that biological gender preferences were "ridiculous" until I raised a girl and a boy born in 1983 and 1990, respectively. I raised my children — to the best of my feminist knowledge — without stereotypes and with a minimum of television.
But as a toddler, my daughter would mostly ignore the cars and trucks and spend hours with the dolls, while my son, seven years later, would discard within minutes his sister's leftover dolls and find the cars and trucks — and most disconcertingly, form a gun with his pointer and thumb and shoot at things. His drive for toy guns, swords and light sabers knew no bounds, yet he has always been sweet and gentle.
The fact that toy marketers tap into biological preferences does not necessarily mean that we are being pushed back into an "unequal past" or homophobia or "gender conformity."
SHIRLEY COPPERMAN
Tarpon Springs, Fla., Dec. 25, 2012
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Letters: The Marketing of Toys Based on Gender
Dengan url
http://opinimasyarakota.blogspot.com/2012/12/letters-marketing-of-toys-based-on.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Letters: The Marketing of Toys Based on Gender
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Letters: The Marketing of Toys Based on Gender
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar