Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Do certain children's toys create social or emotional or other problems?

I think that certain children's toys do have negative emotional, social, and psychological effects on children.  Take Barbie for example, Barbie is promoted towards young girls, of which have interest, and acts like a role model to all women. Barbie is an extremely skinny, tall, large chested woman, than can impact a child in the wrong ways. If Barbie were to represent an actual human being, she would be 9 feet tall, with a waist of somewhere around 7-10 inches.

This can have quite harmful effects on young girls that do not fit the "Barbie" image. Another example would be that of GI Joe, who has progressed in size (muscles) quite drastically in the last 10-15 years. First of all, these toys portray to a child how they should look and act, which is on a large scale, VERY unrealistic.

This can lead to children becoming self conscious of their bodies, which can lead to self disgust or shame. These toys can also bring harm to children as it leads them to believe that must fit the gender stereotypes displayed through advertising, toys, and especially TV. This can lead to complicated thoughts for individuals who do not fit the gender norms, and do not relate to the sexuality norms. Now this may not be until later in life, but this all plays off on the preconditioning by the media, through toys, and expectations of parents.

No comments:

Post a Comment