Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls

The article, “Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls” by Katha Pollitt shows that even all those years of woman’s rights and trying to change how women are perceived in society, boys and girls still play with the same type of toys they used to play with years ago. Pollitt states that the feminist revolution is still unfinished and will take a longer time to complete. Boys grow up playing with action figures and sports and girls spend their time playing house or dress up.

As we grow up, we are subject to many ideas and notions from television, friends, and family. Pollitt states that kids essentially crave certain toys or certain ideas which come from watching commercials all day specifically catered to a specific gender. For example if a child happens to watch a cartoon with fighting in it, there will be commercials geared toward boys about action figures perhaps connected to the cartoon. Often there would be other young boys in the commercials holding the action figure in various poses and exclaiming, “Cool!” and making exploding noises. The commercial reinforces the fact that action figures are for boys and that becoming strong men are considered to be perhaps a small dream for young boys.

Even though we try to free ourselves from stereotypes of young boys and girls, the fact is that it sometimes it is hard to avoid encouraging a specific stereotype, whether it would because of television or ourselves. As Pollitt states, “We don’t have a choice, really about whether we should give our children messages about what it means to be male and female, they’re bombarded with them from morning till night.”