GENDER REINFORCEMENT IN COMMERCIALIZED PRODUCTS

In today’s society, companies are unconsciously or perhaps consciously re emphasizing gender differences through separating their products to specifically indicate what products are manufactured for women. Interestingly though, men’s items are seen as default and what is viewed as normal with no need to clearly state that products specifically targeted for the male population are labelled as male. For example in many stores even with little kids’ items, so many times you will find toys such as “Girls T ball set” and “T ball set” as indicated in the image below. You ask yourself what the difference in the toy is as though they don’t do the same thing.Some people may view this as a marketing strategy in order to capture certain groups of consumers but not considering the reinforcement of gender disparity. We then wonder why these gender differences continue to be emphasized. I hope this one illustration gets you to start being more aware of commercialized products that reinforce the gender divide.