3-Year-Old Girl Rails Against Gender-Specific Marketing in Toy Store (Video)

Posted by Kevin Farrell on Dec 26, 2011 in Inspirgaytion | 31 comments

"Some boys like princesses!"

Riley is wise beyond her three years, y’all. Listen in awe as she easily deconstructs the evils of the gender-specific marketing machine behind America’s chilling…toy industry.

Dun dun dunnnn!

“Some girls like superheroes, some girls like princesses! Some boys like superheroes, some boys like princesses! So why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff and all the boys have to buy different color stuff?”

Real talk, as someone who spent much of Christmas Day playing “Guess which X-Man” with my 4-year-old niece, I can very much attest to the fact that girls can appreciate a good superhero (or fifty) just as much as the boys do.

You tell em’, Riley!

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http://www.facebook.com/juliannasparkles Julianna Lopardo

Oh my God, that little girl is awesome! She’s three and already knows that companies brainwash kids into wanting “gender assigned” toys? I want her tiny autograph.
http://twitter.com/kpringologist Kindra Pring

Both my cousins got dress up stuff for Christmas – the little girl got princess dresses, the little boy got a prince, a musketeer and Peter Pan. And yet one of the first things out of his mouth was “I wanna wear Payton’s Sleeping Beauty dress!” He likes playing with girly stuff, and it’s way cute.

http://www.facebook.com/finmagik Alexandra Moore

When we had dress up dresses at my after school program I worked at… the boys were the ones who’d put on the dresses. Heck you might have lil’ Eddie Izzard on your hands.

Anonymous

My four year old son likes princess, nail polish, and anything pink. He also skateboards with the teenagers in the naighborhood skatepark, play sports and has superheros. The only problem is he always hides the pink stuff he has so no one outside home will see it because ONE person said something ONE time in a store. He saw this little grisl and his face lit up like “finally someone else is saying it!!!” HE took his princess barbie to the store with his grandma as the left the house about 5 minutes ago. Thanks Riley
http://www.facebook.com/people/Andrew-Lopez/632230510 Andrew Lopez

ugh it’s not like one day someone decided that boys should play with cars and girls should play with dolls. That is just what the majority of the kids end up wanting anyway so it’s marketed to the majority.

If boys want dolls or girls want cars let them, but don’t try to give me this brainwashing crap.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=577545115 Mary Mulholland

Andrew where have you been living to think that people are not brainwashed to buy gender specific toy’s because if you think you have been living on planet earth and think there is nothing wrong with brainwashing then you are in cloud coo coo land. I have just turned into my sixties yes I said sixties and this has been around since before I was born. Parent’s say little girls play with this little boy’s play with that and so from then it went to commercial being gender specific we need to get over ourselves and let kids be kids. and that little darling is adorable telling us grown up’s to quit it.
http://twitter.com/kpringologist Kindra Pring

There is nothing in our brain that makes us to decide what kinds of toys we play with. Gender association doesn’t work that way. It’s things we’ve decided to associate with our basic gender related instincts and often it doesn’t even make sense and since most of those basic instincts are no longer relevant, it shouldn’t be something that we continue. Color based gender association is the worse of it. I’ve never seen any proof that male and female brains are more wired to attract to certain colors by nature. Pink we now associate with “girly” things but really, it’s just a stupid color, no different from any other.
http://twitter.com/CasowascoBean Jillian Harvey

Gender is largely a sociological construct. Yes, there are physical differences between men and women, but as far as what they want to play with, girls and boys are very much influenced by nurture, NOT nature. It starts even before birth, when parents, family and friends who know the baby’s sex stary buying all kinds of pink and purple clothes, toys etc for a girlm and blue for a boy. God forbid a little boy be dressed in anything anyehere near pink, so if we don’t know the gender its all green, yellow, and brown. Girls get dolls for their first birthday. Boys get trains. Girls re expected to want the Dora backpack, boys the TMNT one. I have seen parents tell their children that they can’t have something because its for the other gender. Ive also seen a TV… and it is obviousl who every toy is marketed to. Do you think that doesn’t affect kids? Gender is somewhat based on physical things, sure, but it is much more a matter of conditioning, that happens to the parents before their child is even born, and to the child the very day they are born. Historically, it may be linked to the perceived need for each sex to carry out specific functions in society. My cousin is now five, and I often end up buying her thisngs on the more girly side of the coin because I want her to have the opportunity to play with both. That being said, she would pick legos, farm sets, race cars and dirt over dolls or kitchen sets any day. And as for clothes, take that kid anywhere, and she wants the first camo piece of clothing she sees, not pink.

http://twitter.com/kpringologist Kindra Pring

Ugh, I hate that. It’s one thing to get them toys you expect them to like, because as adults, we’re programmed that way too. It’s a different story entirely for your child to specifically ask for a toy and you tell them no because “little boys don’t play with that”. Who cares? I got my little boy cousin a wooden castle doll house for him to play with his sister and his Disney Fairies (he’s really into the Tinkerbell line). I put an effort in not to get pink, if for no other reason than to appease his dad, but I was getting him a dollhouse, that’s what he wanted. He plays with boyish stuff too – he loves his Woody vest, and he got a Bumblebee figurine for Christmas he was super excited about (and likewise, his sister plays with cars and likes to wrestle and thinks Snow White is a boxer). But y’know what? Kids having fun and naturally playing with what they enjoy most is more healthy, and in the end, is going to be far more cute to watch. Gender stereotypes are dead people. There is a reason the biggest demographic for My Little Pony is teenage boys – because it’s not about gender anymore. It’s about having the ability to enjoy what you enjoy without judgment. These are toys and movies and games. They’re the foundation that kids learn from. I personally love that a brother and sister will both play with the same toys regardless of how “girly” or “boyish” they are – because sharing and teamwork and being a family are 1000 times more important than the misguided attempt to raise children to only like toys that are the “appropriate gender”.

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Life Lessons

Your niece rocks hardocre. She is great. She is awesome. I support her and say “Testify Riley!” You are also a good uncle. Keep up the good work.
http://www.facebook.com/mtunis Meghan Tunis

What an awesome little girl. You tell ‘em Riley. When I was her age I carried around a 2 foot tall classic Godzilla doll with me wherever I went. Screw Barbies and Trolls, King of Monsters for the win!
http://www.facebook.com/finmagik Alexandra Moore

I loved superheroes and ‘boy’s toys’ and Cartoons as a kid. LOVED the x-men cartoon (the 90′s one) they showed and Batman the animated series. It’s gotten worse IMHO. One the girls I used to work with in after school, loved Princess Leia she’d seen Star Wars. I really wished she and the Star Wars boys would play together… it never happened. However she did pwn a boy who said he wanted to be Anakin when he grew up (because she knew who Anakin becomes).
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kerry-Nelson/100000482891678 Kerry Nelson

It’s interresting. I had a family come through my checkout at Wal-mart with their two sons. One was loaded up with a Transformer and a couple of Hot Wheels. The other had a bunch of Disney Princess toys. I asked about it and the mother said they had no problem with either of their sons and were very supportive about allowing them each to do their own thing. Totally. Awesome!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=577545115 Mary Mulholland

Riley is a smart child and I hope she grows up to be who she is and is never afraid to say what she thinks with dignity and manners as she did in this video
http://www.facebook.com/people/Erica-Cook/100000628613592 Erica Cook

I like this girl.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chreiya-Sonia-Zaari/100001967165977 Chreiya Sonia Zaari

As someone, who, even if I had barbie toys played “save the world,” and not “house.”

I say, I like this girl; agreed she’s smart for her age.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=887180542 Michael Blank

That is one very aware little girl. Good for her parents and good for her! Shes one of the few I’ve seen that understand things like that.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000451850693 Ashley Valencia

That girl is Awe-some. Go kid go. Grow up to be powerful so you can change all that crap.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=762326806 Kristy McPhillips Cgc

What an awesome kid, and what awesome parents!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Gillianne-Rountree/100000210206782 Gillianne Rountree

I asked myself that multiple times growing up. I thought the Barbie toys during the Barbie/Hot Wheels promotions in the Happy Meals were dumb. ”Who wants to brush hair!?” I said. ”I want to race cars!!!” Way to go, Honey. You’re on the right track.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robyn-Venessa-Mazy/1303224949 Robyn Venessa Mazy

HAHAHAHAHA i got 5 kids in my home the gender switch toys all the time- “toys are toys and boys and girls can play with toys, doesn’t matter what they are”
http://www.facebook.com/gothicharajuku Angela Botticelli

I just wanted whatever my brother got. I’m still a one of the boys today
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shanelle-Robinson/543770604 Shanelle Robinson

i hated the toys i got when i was a kid….i wanted k’nex and the little mad scientist machine that made the creepy crawly candy…but instead i got what my sister wanted cabbage patch kids and an easy bake oven…as a fat kid i didnt really complain much about the oven cause hey it made cakes but did it have to be pink?…….but there was this one time when i was 10 and my grandmother bought my sister and i these backpacks for school that came with pencils and notebooks…. my sister got that god awful pink lisa frank….and to my surprise and utmost delight i got the power rangers…as i was a member of the official power rangers fan club lol….i loved the yellow ranger mainly because i thought she was cute….but i wanted to be the red ranger…..
Anonymous

I’ve noticed something. It’s normally socially acceptable for little girls to want superheroes, toy guns, race cars, whatever. That makes them a tomboy, and therefore cool. But if a little boy wants a doll or a toy kitchen, its like the end of the world. How does THAT work? I hate double standards.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Luinne-DLlard/100001583873176 Luinne D’Llard

Go kid go! 8D!
Anonymous

wasn’t it the men who designed high heels in France waaaayyyyy back? I seem to recall reading that. And the French men all wore lace and frills as well as the women.. I think it was the puritans that changed the clothing standards in colonial america… could be wrong, but it’s a fear of being different that keeps people locked in their head.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ariel-Reyes/584822197 Ariel Reyes

Bwahahaha reminds me of christmas last year, my sister got my other little sister (5 yrs old) a princess belle barbie with a horse, she also got her a ken doll to be a prince. My older sisters son (1 yr, i think) totally went fo the belle doll, and my little sis went for ken. Lol, we thought it was weird for a second but was like oh screw it they like what they like. =D
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http://www.facebook.com/vallin.sfas Vallin Sfas

Buy that child a bass guitar and some sexy boots. She is ready to ROCK!
Michael Cooke

In victorian times pink was a masculine color.
http://twitter.com/dizzyraybabe Desiré MacArthur

This video never gets old(:
http://twitter.com/wolfeatheart Nikki Arnold

She is so cute and clearly very smart.

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