Since the conception of children's toys the existence of gender roles has been prominent. Boys should get trucks and cars and girls should get dolls and tea-sets, however, one is forced to look at this belief with a little more criticism in the more modern times of today. What is the major issue with a boy who likes to play with dolls or the girl who likes to play with cars? Perhaps not so much for the girl who plays with cars but for the boy who likes to play with dolls he is pigeonholed as being a homosexual child...but who makes these rules? Who decides that boys should not be allowed to play with dolls? The truth of the matter is that we, as a society do.
There are no repercussions that come with a boy who plays with dolls, other than the social isolation that is forced upon him by society. A boy that plays with dolls and a girl that plays with cars and trucks are nothing more than children exploring toys; they are not yet old enough to understand the cubbyholes and labels we like to force on to each other as a society. For some unexplained reason it is believed that the mere action of playing with a set of toys one will become more or less masculine or feminine when this is simply untrue.
Toy Cubby
There was a time in our history as a race that being increasingly masculine or feminine was the norm, little girls were expected to wear only frilly dresses and stay at home in the kitchen (a la "barefoot and pregnant" stereotype), and little boys were expected to wear suits and go off to work each day to bring home the bacon for the family. As times have changed these are no longer the "norms" of society however, we still push on to our children the repercussions of not sticking to those norms. Are we really afraid of our children becoming less than the gender roles we were expected to be?
The unfortunate aspect of the fact that we push such expectations on our children is that we are not allowing them the freedom to be who they want to and perhaps were destined be. We are pushing on to them the expectation that they should at least be A and not B which in essence shapes them to pursue certain paths in life instead of allowing them the tabula rasa that all children really should be permitted. It is not the fault of the toys nor the children; however, it is the fault of society as a whole for shaping us to be such a judgmental race when faced with people and ideas that do not fit the "norm" of hundreds of years ago.
So how do we rid ourselves of this self imposed cubby-holing that is stunting the emotional growth and general accepting nature of our world's future generation? Give your son a Barbie or two and let your daughter play with a monster truck or wrestling figure once in a while, it's not going to kill them and nor is it going to make them something less than what they already are: innocent children with a brand new slate ready for writing.