I PINK, therefore I am... A GIRL?

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This undated handout file photo provided by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), shows an earlier model of the Hasbro Inc. Easy Bake Oven, an iconic toy with a four-decade history. The toy has been given a top-to-bottom redesign, at the heart of which is a new heating element more like that of a traditional oven. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A 13-year-old girl's campaign to get Hasbro to make an Easy-Bake Oven that isn't purple or pink so it would appeal to her little brother is a fresh sign of movement in an old debate. Parents who hope to expose their children to different kinds of play -- science sets for girls and dolls for boys, for example -- can find themselves stymied by a toy industry that can seem stuck in the past when it comes to gender roles.

Hasbro wasn't the only target of criticism this year.

One of the year's hottest toys, the LEGO Friends Butterfly Beauty Shop, specifically aimed it's coloured blocks at girls, but turned to tired gender stereotypes with its focus on a beauty shop and inclusion of characters with curves and eyelashes. While some praised it, others criticized it for being too pink.

Toy experts say the industry reflects cultural norms, and toy companies are giving people what sells.

Plenty of parents find nothing wrong with buying pink frou-frou toys for their girls and avoiding stereotypically "girl" toys for their boys in favour of guns and trucks. But other parents are sent into knots by an unapologetically gender-specific toy industry.

"There's a lot of pressure to conform to those gender stereotypes from the time you're pregnant," said Teresa Graham Brett, a higher-education consultant from Tucson, Ariz., and mother to two boys, ages 6 and 11.

Children naturally begin to identify themselves as boys and girls around the age of 3, said Dr. Susan Linn, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, who cofounded the advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

"When a child's environment is filled with rigid messages about, 'This is what boys do, this is what girls do,' it limits their ability to reach their full capacity," Linn said. "It's not like girls are born with the predilection to pink, but they're trained to it, so it becomes what they want and need. There are neurological differences between boys and girls at birth. But our goal should be to provide them with a range of experiences so they can develop all of their tendencies."

In recent years, Toys R Us was criticized for an ad selling three microscopes, silver, red and pink.

The pink one was the least powerful.

"Toy companies are businesses, so they are responding to and making their products based on consumer demands. They're meeting with moms, focus groups. They're doing what makes sense," said Adrienne Appell, a spokeswoman for the Toy Industry Association.

Chris Byrne, content director for timetoplaymag.com, said the market ultimately decides what makes it onto store shelves and into people's homes.

"The toy industry is always going to reflect the culture at large, and it's going to reflect the market," he said.

That's even true for a soon-to-be-released toy that has gotten a lot of attention for seeking to subvert gender stereotypes. GoldieBlox, a construction toy, was invented by Debbie Sterling, who holds a degree from Stanford in product design engineering and who aimed to make a toy to spark an interest in girls in science and engineering. She was turned off by what she saw in a visit to a toy store.

"I felt like I was in the 1950s," she said. "The girls section was pink. It was teaching a girl how to be a housewife, and a princess and pop star."

Meanwhile, she described the boys section as dynamic, with kits to make interesting things like roller coasters and "smarter more complex, engineering math and science toys."

The toy's main character is Goldie, a female engineer, and it is scheduled to be on store shelves in April. In a concession to commercial realities, the toy's colour scheme includes a dose of pink.

"There's a lot of parents out there, they're conditioned by this. They won't even pick up something if it doesn't cue that it's a girl," she said. "I don't want girls to miss out on GoldieBlox because it wasn't overtly messaged for them, at least in the early stages."

Some things are changing in the industry. This year, the London department store Harrods reorganized its toy department by theme rather than by gender. Swedish toy firm Top-Toy published a gender-neutral catalogue in which boys were shown playing with a kitchen set and hair dryer and a girl was shown shooting a toy gun.

Hasbro this week announced it has spent the past 18 months developing an Easy-Bake Oven in the gender-neutral colours of black and silver. It made the announcement after meeting with McKenna Pope, the Garfield, N.J., 13-year-old whose online petition asking the company to make one attractive to all kids gathered tens of thousands of signatures.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 30, 2012 A2