October 6, 2014 - 16:49
When I was in kindergarden I loved playing with legos. They had a station where you could build whatever you wanted and I loved to make large houses for lego families to live in. At one point, there were two boys who wanted to use the legos I was playing with. They came up to me and told me I shouldn't be playing with legos because they were "boy toys". They made me feel like I couldn't play a certain way because I was a girl. Nowadays, they have a new branch of lego sets called "lego friends" that are marketed towards girls. Although these products might get more girls to play with and buy legos, they also set a precedent that girls can't play with "normal" or "boy" lego sets. I also recall that after a certain age, it wasn't acceptable for boys to play pretend games at recess. They were expected to play football or soccer on the grass field. I remember a boy who liked to play with my friends and I who was made fun of for playing "girl games". This made him feel bad, but also made us feel like our games weren't as legitamate as theirs. By gendering different types of play, we limit the ability of children to play in the ways they want to.