Blog Post 9

In the article Pinked! Orenstein talks about the history of pink toys "It was not until the mid-1980s, when amplifying age and differences became a dominant children's marketing strategy, that pink fully came into its own, when it began to seem innately attractive to girls, part of what defined them as female, at least for the first few critical years." By making toys pink parents are then required to buy the same toy twice in order for it to be in different colors. Parents having to buy two of everything for their kids helps the toy companies make money, "One of the easiest ways to segment a market is to magnify gender differences-- or invent them where they did not previously exist." Using gender as a way to categorize people isn't the only way these companies are making a profit either, people are also categorized by their age. "Splitting kids, adults or for that matter penguins, into ever-tinier categories has proved a surefire way to boost profits." Unfortunately with everything being pushed to kids at a younger and younger age they are being exposed to things they shouldn't be. Toys are being over sexualized and giving girls as well as boys a false sense of what they should desire to look like, like the evolution of Barbie.