Barbies or GI Joe, does it matter?

It is very interesting to really think about the toys that children play with in our society and how gender specific they are. Most toys are very gender specific, girls usually play with barbies and dolls, and boys play with toy guns and cars. Girls toys are marketed using lots of compassion and affection, like showing other girls taking care of a baby doll. Animals are also used a lot, like in My Little Pony commercials, or stuffed animals are also used. Little girls are also shown doing lots of house work, for example, little girls are the ones targeted in commercials for play kitchens. On the other hand, little boys commercials use more action, getting dirty, playing outside, and they are louder. Little boys are targeted in commercials for toys like water guns, cars, swords, and action figures. I do think that toys influence the way that children play to an extent. Children learn how to play from their parents and friends and from what they see on tv, and they use the toys that they are given. If we give a girl a barbie she can't realy pretend it is a gun or a car if she wants to, or if we give a boy a toy gun it would be hard to pretend it was a baby doll. On the other hand, when I was a child I loved barbies and dolls so those are the toys I had, but I would also play with my brother's cap guns, GI Joe, and the violent video games he had. I think that shows that kids really know how to find the toys they want to play with and will use their imaginations to play the way they want to. I was sitting here trying to make sense of why our society likes to force girls to play with "girly toys" and boys to play with "boy's toys". I feel like it started along time ago when our society wasn't as advanced and men were the physiologically stronger ones so they went out to do the manual labor, and women stayed at the home because someone had to do house work. Also, women had to be the pregnant ones and breast feed, and there were no daycares to watch children and someone needed to do it. So back then it was almost imperative to the running of a house hold for men and women to have these seperated roles. I think this is where gendered toys came from, because they almost had to take on those roles and the toys would prepare them for those roles. Today we are more advanced and all of work is not just manual work, and women can get out and earn a living because there is daycare so they can get away from their children. I don't think we need to force gendered toys on children anymore, but I do think it is just what we are ussed to now