Children’s Toys (Gender–specific Marketing)

Jenny Willott Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jenny Willott)]

I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) for securing a debate on this major issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff) said earlier, the matter is important and of fundamental significance to our future economy; it is not just a side issue, which is how it can sometimes be portrayed.

As the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central said, those of us with young children cannot help but be aware of how highly gendered children’s toys are. I should declare an interest in that I have two small boys, so my house is full of blue things—very little pink comes through my front door.

One can see at a glance when entering a shop what is intended for girls and what is intended for boys. As the hon. Lady said, that may be blatant—the shelf may say “girls” or “boys” on it—or otherwise girls’ and boys’ toys may be colour-coded or displayed in separate aisles. What message does that send out? What are we telling our children? We are telling them that girls and boys are different, that they like different things and that they have different interests and skills. We are telling them that their gender defines their roles in society and their dreams about the future.

“Pink is for girls and blue is for boys”—such associations are often discussed as though they were fixed, natural and unchanging. As the hon. Lady said, however, it is a recent phenomenon. A couple of years ago, I read an article that referred to advice for new parents from the beginning of the last century—some 100 years ago—that urged parents to dress their boys in pink, because it was such a definite colour, and to leave wishy-washy blue for little girls. That shows quite how much such things can change over time.

The hon. Lady mentioned that if we google images of children’s toys from the 1970s, we find images of a totally different array of toys from those of today. Some toys were certainly intended for girls and some for boys, but plenty were intended for both. We see far less pink and blue and far more bright primary colours, such as orange, yellow, green and red—I appreciate that those are not all technically primary colours—as opposed to pale, pastel colours.

I have with me some images of toys from the ’70s, including an orange toolbox, a blue kitchen and a blue and grey ice cream parlour with girls and boys playing in it. They are from only a couple of decades ago—during my own childhood—but they show a very different image of childhood. If the space hopper were invented today, it would not be iconic orange; there would be a pink version that looked like a cupcake and another version in camouflage khaki. That shows how much things have changed over the years.

Why does the gendering of toys matter? The subject can appear to be something of a fringe interest, but it matters to individuals because it is not fair. Children are actively learning all the time how they are supposed to feel and behave and what will make them acceptable to their social group, family and so on. It is not fair to make little girls feel that they should not be kicking footballs or building with Lego, and it is equally unfair to make little boys feel ashamed of playing netball or of pushing a doll along in a pushchair.

Children should not be made to feel guilty or ashamed about experimenting with different toys and different kinds of play, but that is what we are effectively doing by implicitly labelling toys “not for you”. That process starts at a young age. Children learn through play, and if we want them to explore their skills and interests and to develop to the limits of their potential, we must not restrict that at the age of two, five or 10 by restricting their choices of play.

A boy who has never had a sewing kit may never discover his talent for design. A girl who has never had a Meccano set may never discover that she has real potential as an engineer. Clearly, not every girl who plays with Lego is going to be an architect. I was excellent at designing Lego houses, but my future was obviously not in architecture. Nevertheless, why should we limit girls’ aspirations at so early an age by making things so rigidly defined?

As the hon. Lady said, the issue also matters to society and our economy more broadly. Today, women make an enormous contribution to the UK and there are more women in work than ever before, but they still do not have an equal chance to succeed. Women continue to earn less than men. We are under-represented in senior roles and over-represented in low-paying sectors. More women than men work part time or not at all. Some of that is down to the practical barriers that women face that can stop them getting on in work, and the Government are working with business to remove those barriers wherever we can find them, but some of it comes down to the simple fact that we do not encourage girls to believe in their own potential and explore the full range of their skills.

The way we play as children informs the skills we develop and how we perceive ourselves. Girls and boys take into the classroom assumptions that they develop as part of playing. That has a significant impact on how they then develop, and on their future career aspirations. It is therefore unsurprising that boys who have routinely experienced the sense of accomplishment associated with designing and building something, which can often can come from playing with what would be seen as a boy’s toy, feel more at home with subjects such as maths and science, which utilise such skills more.

If they do not have such experiences when they are younger, girls feel less confident, and it is just a small leap from that to assuming that they are not good at those subjects. That really affects how they progress at school. Assumptions and stereotypes about girls’ abilities and interests—the perception that certain subjects, just like certain toys, just “aren’t for you”—go on to shape the choices girls make at school. Those choices have significant implications.

By the time they get to university level, boys and girls are strongly segregated in some areas with, on the whole, boys dominating in the subjects that can lead to the most financially lucrative careers. In 2013, only 6,600 girls took A-level physics, compared with just over 25,000 boys. That is a massive difference—girls made up just over 20% of the cohort. Of the 13,000 students who took further maths at A-level, only 3,700 were girls. That shows a clear differentiation. Of university places accepted, only 13% of engineering places, 18% of technology places and 22% of mathematics and computer science places are taken by women. Fewer than 9% of engineers in the UK are women, compared with around 20% in Italy and 26% in Sweden. There is no intrinsic reason why we should not be able to make a significant difference to that in the UK.

On the other hand, women made up 89% of students studying nursing and 85% studying education—areas of work that are often poorer paid than those that follow from a science degree. That not only results in women being poorer than men—as the hon. Lady said, 22% of the gender pay gap can be explained by the industries and occupations in which women work—but it also costs our economy significant amounts. There are skills shortages across the science, technology, engineering and maths sector, but as long as girls continue to feel that that world is not for them, our businesses will continue to miss out on vital talent that they need for future development. Put simply, we cannot afford not to allow girls the opportunity to enjoy and pursue the whole range of subjects, starting right at the beginning with their learning through play.

The hon. Lady asked what the Government were doing. They are playing their part. Public pressure on companies helps a lot on this issue, and a number of the organisations she mentioned have been extremely effective. The Government support the Women’s Business Council, which has done excellent work to raise girls’ aspirations. Alongside the council, we are taking action in schools on career advice, apprenticeships, technical colleges, STEM careers, enterprise, child care, equal pay and flexible working, all of which will help girls to reach their full potential in the workplace. In response to the WBC’s recommendation, we are currently developing an online resource for parents of teenage girls that will help them to guide their daughters to make confident and informed career choices independent of gender stereotypes and representations. Hopefully, that will lead girls to make different decisions in future.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) held two round-table discussions towards the end of last year to look specifically at raising girls’ aspirations. Officials have met retailers, manufacturers and others to discuss the issues we are talking about today.

[Chi Onwurah]

I was not aware that the Government had been meeting retailers and others. Can the Minister share some of their responses?

[Jenny Willott]

I can get back to the hon. Lady with more information on that. There has clearly been some progress on the issue—she cited some examples of the moves made by retailers in response to the pressure on them. Some of them are beginning to recognise that there are wider implications to gender-specific marketing. The issue is not just about selling twice as many bikes because pink and blue cannot be used interchangeably; there are broader implications for the economy as well.

There have been some really positive moves from retailers, some of which the hon. Lady talked about. For example, she mentioned Boots, but Debenhams and The Entertainer have also stopped gender-specific labelling of toys, and M&S has committed to making its own-brand toys gender neutral. I find it enormously encouraging that there is starting to be a recognition that things have gone too far and something must be done. I hope that those companies lead the way so that we see such changes emulated more widely.

I recognise that there are some arguments in favour of the gender marketing of toys. For example, science and engineering kits are aimed at girls by using pink and purple to attract them to play with them more, and there are also pink Lego sets, pink globes and so on. It is argued that such products sell well and show girls that science and other potential careers are for them. That might be true, but it raises the issue of whether, in the longer term, that just reinforces the notion that if it is not pink and pretty, it is not for girls. That concerns me. As someone who never wears pink, I feel that we should be able to broaden out. Girls should have wider aspirations, rather than just assuming that they have to play with it if it is pink.

It is often suggested that those of us who oppose gender-specific toys are somehow going against nature and attempting social engineering against children’s perfectly natural and hard-wired preferences, but nothing could be further from the truth. I am not trying to stop boys from playing football or girls from playing with dolls. Nature undoubtedly has a role in how children play and interact with toys. My three-year-old son is completely obsessed with cars, trains and diggers, and he always has been, but he also makes a mean cup of pretend tea and is very good at making pretend cakes. Nature has a role to play, but it is not the be-all and end-all.

[Chi Onwurah]

The Minister is making an excellent point. Does she agree that the issue is not about saying that boys should be playing with cookery sets or that girls should or must be playing with engineering sets, but about letting them and their parents have the choice, free from external pressures?

[Jenny Willott]

I could not agree more. There will be boys who grow up to be fantastic chefs and designers, and there will be girls who will be professional footballers or engineers or scientists. The issue is about ensuring that children have the choice and are able to play with a wide range of toys to develop their skills across the board and decide what is best for them and where their interests and skills lie. That will be different for every child.

The issue is also about ensuring that parents are able to help their children have that choice without feeling completely bound by the marketing that suggests they are supposed to buy only certain types of toys for their child because of the child’s gender. We should free people to make choices based on the interests, skills and desires of the children, rather than on the associated marketing. Surely it makes sense that when children first start to explore the world and discover their interests and skills, they should be completely free to let their imaginations roam and to identify what they want to do with their lives.

I sense that most reasonable people would agree that it is wrong to limit our children’s horizons, particularly at such an early age; wrong to restrict their creative play and, as a result, their occupational opportunities; and wrong to shame them for wanting to explore a wide range of toys. Perhaps where people differ is on how important they think the issue is and how much impact it has. We could do with some rigorous, high-quality research to help guide parents, teachers, manufacturers, retailers and advertisers on the right and responsible way forward. I have looked, and there seems to be little, if any, research in that area. It would be good to see some research on what impact the issue has; that might persuade people to change how they retail or advertise toys and help parents shape the choices that they make on behalf of their children.

Toys are a hugely important part of our children’s learning and development. It is of course for children and their parents to choose the toys they play with, as we were just discussing. They should be able to make those choices freely from a full range of toys. How our children play helps to shape their aspirations for the future, and I want those aspirations to be based on their abilities and interests, not on stereotypes. I value the right of every single child to be treated as a unique individual and to be given the opportunity to explore their own interests and develop their own potential and talents, wherever they may lie. That is important not only for children now playing, but for the future of the economy.

Question put and agreed to.