Gendered Marketing of Children's Toys and Clothing
A look into ethical arguments in Gendered Toy Marketing (GTM) debates and efforts to address and resist GTM.
Undoing gender in gendered toy marketing
The marketing of children's clothing and toys has become increasingly gendered as stereotyped gender roles and narratives are promoted by brands. ‘Boy toys’ encourage action, physicality and competition; ‘girl toys’ encourage socialising, domesticity and concern with appearance.
Consumer-led campaigns and media debates challenge and scrutinise the practice. But while business has ethical responsibilities to ensure that gender equality is valued, gendered toy and clothes marketing (GTM) continues.
This research project will examine ethical arguments in GTM debates and in the 'invisible' work which consumers, including parents, report that they carry out to address and resist GTM. It will analyse how gender is conceptualised in these debates and accounts, extending our knowledge of how ethics are experienced, enacted and constructed by organizations and consumers, as part of organizations' responsibility for gender equality.
Most research on GTM has focused on the gender stereotyping of toys and how these affect children's performance, interest and behaviours. However, the ethical responsibilities of manufacturers, marketers and retailers of children's toys and clothing have not been explored, nor has the wider societal impact of GTM.
What we’re researching:
Gendered marketing of children's toys and clothes involves explicitly labelling items as intended for girls or boys. This is done either by implicit labelling through advertising, using models of one gender to promote the item, or by packaging - using gender-associated colours such as pink for girls – and physical segregation, organising retail layout by gender.
The project will provide empirical-based knowledge of the underlying moral and ethical arguments drawn on by organizations and consumers within the GTM debate.
Using original social media data collected online, interviews and focus groups, the research will look at accounts of consumers' responses to GTM and how gender is constructed in arguments and accounts of GTM.
“(The findings will be) relevant not just to consumers and organizations but also for policymakers and regulatory bodies such as the Advertising Standards Authority, which has been involved in developing new guidance on gender stereotypes in advertising.”
What will the impact be?
The project will develop insights into the wider societal impact of GTM and the findings will be widely shared via articles, blogs and conferences, and online. These will be relevant not just to consumers and organizations but also for policymakers and regulatory bodies such as the Advertising Standards Authority, which has been involved in developing new guidance on gender stereotypes in advertising."
Project Fact-file
- Full project title: 'We have to buy my space shirts in the boy’s section! A business ethics approach to undoing gender in gendered toy marketing’.
- Project funding: £9,060 [ID SRG 1819\190342]
- Funder: The British Academy
- Length of award: 1 August 2019 to 31 July 2021
- Supported by: Department of Organizational Psychology (School of Business, Economics and Informatics)
- People: Dr Rebecca Whiting, Department of Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London