What's Wrong with the Girl's Toy Section?

Have you walked by the girl’s toy section lately?  It looks like Valentines Day threw up on everything.  Earlier today I made a quick trip to Target with Lisa my wife, and Hattie our 3-year-old daughter.  To burn a little time while Lisa was busy doing something in the women’s section, Hattie and I went to go check out the toys.  Now, for the record, as a parent I never insist that Hattie play with gender specific toys, and on any given day you’ll see her playing with Legos or putting her doll to sleep.  Other days she’s putting her legos to sleep and tag-team wrestling with her doll and stuffed cat.

Nothing says feminine like clashing pinks and reds.

What I don’t understand is why retailers insist on stylizing every girl toy in pink, purple, and robin egg’s blue.  Is this supposed to make it more appealing?  Is there some study out there that shows that girls are more likely to buy things when they look like they’ve been dipped-in-Easter?  Or is this supposed help clear up what each gender should like to do, because I’m pretty sure Hattie would have no problem rocking a GI Joe to sleep…heck she’d rock a bag onions to sleep if she wanted to (actually I think she’s done this).

Luckily, with Hattie’s good sense, she walked right past all the pinks and purples and wandered down to the volleyballs.

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