Play Kitchen Sets Implementing Gender Roles

Gender roles would be the greatest obstacles to tackle on the path of female empowerment. Females are not just physical beings to be used for sex. We’re not slave labor used for household tasks. With the progress that’s been made on the way to female empowerment in the past few centuries, why then will we still demand that boys must play with action figures, toy automobiles and building blocks while young girls are forced to groom their dolls and employ their imagination in play kitchen sets?

One major reason female empowerment is going to be held back is really because many women have yet to wake up from these gender rolesimprinted on them from an earlier age. Whilst girls are brought into the world, they are given dolls and told to learn how to make them appear pretty. This is just the first step on creating fragile, uneducated sex objects to be used by our male oppressors. From that point onwards they are instilled with the ideal of superficiality, content with nothing more than dolling themselves to get the appreciation of some young Romeo. Little girls are taught that every women should have a particular set of traits including blonde hair, a skinny waste and huge breasts, and if they do not have these they are advised that they’re inadequate.

These gender roles do not just lie in superficial beauty, but additionally influence the actions of girls. Girls are expected to play the role of stay at home mom as children. They are put in pretend kitchens and pretend houses. Can it be no real surprise then that countless women nowadays still want to play the role of the 50s housewife? A young lady is rarely given anything that truly inspires creativeness outside of the kitchen.

When young women are coached roles that make them weak and subservient, teenage boys are taught gender roles that encourage them. Young men get toys like cars, blocks and action figures. The usage of blocks motivate imagination and a need to build. Cars teach them to seek material things and excel in existence. The role models their action figures are based off of make them learn facets of heroism and power. Where are all the female superheroes? Wonder woman seems a little outnumbered within this field.

Even though feminism has gotten women this far, so many young girls nevertheless fall into these gender roles that deprive power from them. The problem is not in our nature, but what we train our kids. As long as all of us continue to give our girls dolls and playhouses, they will continue to fulfill the gender roles which may have plagued women for so very long. Next time you enter the toy store, try buying your little girl building blocks, or even a Hillary Clinton action figure as opposed to that blonde dolly.

Helen Beltore is a new wave feminist from Schodack New York. Growing up, she refused to play in her toy kitchen, and would rather venture outside the house to climb a tree in her yard. She was born to a single mother who taught her to rise higher than the roles of society. Now she’s providing her daughter with opportunity to choose between play wooden kitchen or building blocks.