They want what they want. They have desires to be boys, girls, rough, quiet, loud, masculine, feminine, etc. all without (and often in spite of) being influenced to the contrary.
Advertising just showcases things that they already mostly want. It doesn't completely change their desires.
What children want is influenced by what their peers want, and what peer groups find desirable is influenced, among other things, by merchandising-related children's TV programming.
When I was young, there was far less difference between boys toys and girls toys than there is now.
Girls want to care for things, communicate, etc, and boys want to blow stuff up or build stuff. It's preprogrammed into our DNA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_children#Reality
http://planetark.org/wen/53118
> "When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks," the police said.
An extreme example I admit, but if it's preprogrammed into out DNA shouldn't she be "caring for things" instead?
Wait until you've had a son and daughter, then come back and report what massive differences in behaviour there was right from birth.
And they usually dress them differently (girls get girl clothes, boys get boy clothes).
http://www.newsweek.com/why-parents-may-cause-gender-differe...
In the hopes that you are not a conspiracy theorist you must assume marketers haven't done any research about what girls innately like and are purely marketing products based on what you might call 'traditional' views.
It's much easier to market sugar than it is to market broccoli so that's what most foods marketed today contain. I don't believe we like sugarry treats because of marketing. I believe marketers market flavours of sugar because sugar is what we're wired to like first and foremost.
"The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." - Earnshaw's Infants' Department
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-St... - extract from this:
'For example, a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”'
Do you have any articles about toy function being socially conditioned into genders? Girls toys mostly consist of 'nurturer' stereotypes. For example tea sets, doll houses or baby dolls with baby cribs.
This makes the assumption that there is indeed something innate about purchasing. Short of credible psychological research, most market research relies on past sales data, past products, as well as a survey of existing products. Marketing, then, forms a self-stabilising and self-perpetuated system that makes future decisions based on its own past decisions.
This is remarkably close to Adorno and Horkheimer's view of the cultural industry: The underlying thesis here is that the culture industry preselects cultural production. Within the constraints of that preselection, the customer is free to choose whatever he or she fancies. This in turn leads to a culture industry that can claim that every subsequent selection is indeed strictly based on past consumer behaviour. After a while, this claim can even be truthful, if this initial preselection is ignored. That is why the Dialectic of Enlightenment calls this a mass deception.
Perhaps the main desire being served is to be able to announce "I am a boy" or "I am a girl".
Also note that there aren't many pink first person shooters.
It's so stupid, because the arguments are always structured as, "society forces behaviour on girls and boys", when it seems pretty obvious it's more of a feedback loop. Tendencies trend in a gender, that "informs" society, which then reinforces them, and so on.
Children themselves are not immune to peer pressure, especially as they get older. They also want to meet the expectations of their parents and guardians. They too consume media, and like all of us make decisions based on both what they are told to want, and what they are told it is acceptable to want
Also "like pink" is different from owning the occasional pink thing. I suppose a boy who would dress exclusively in pink would stand out, and maybe the bullies would try to cut him down. Still, I suspect it is not a large scale problem - obviously I don't condone the actions of such bullies, I mean there are probably not that many boys who would prefer to dress all in pink. (I didn't research that, though - in any case everybody should be allowed to like/wear whatever they want).
Anyone who still believes in a simplistic rational actor desperately needs to read the work that's been done on behavioral economics. Dan Ariely's work is an approachable way to start. He hasn't tackled socialization yet, but it still gives you an idea of how human actors don't resemble the platonic ideal at all.
From a quick search i find this : http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mattel-net-falls-24-as-barb...
Barbie sales declining but American Girl is up 14%.
You'd think that half a century of counter-culture would almost drive to the ground gender specific toy manufacturers.
Second, it's ridiculous to think that "half a century of counter-culture" would do anything to impact a sociological phenomenon that has roots in human society dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. Girls are given dolls to play with because the historical role of women has been primary caregivers to children. That was true a thousand years ago, and it's less true but still very true today. In the 2000's, almost 25% of families with children under 15 had stay at home moms, and out of the families where both spouses worked, the mother was the primary caregiver in 70%+ of cases. This sociological fact is reflected in the market. Household products are still marketed to women, and unsurprisingly, so are dolls marketed to girls.
Nor does your theory account for insanity or stupidity (why do something stupid if you have full control of your actions?)
In fact your theory implies that children somehow are agents not affected by outside stimuli. Which would make them unique in nature.
Your theory in fact is by far more unbelievable then any theory of the powers of marketing.
If everybody was rational, then no advertising would perform signalling function if it wouldn't serve to maximize our utility.
That could be any beer, or a magic potion, you know nothing about it.
Or shower gel
Or cars
"You can have this car, and everything that goes with it."
"Now you can drive the story."
There's certainly an element of information there, at least when you start getting onto companies that have an advantage in a technical area. But often, you're being sold a role: Buy this and you'll get women, wealth, etc.
When I was a girl, and still to an extent now I'm older, I wanted the things I was told I was going to like, and which it was expected that I was going to. You look at something and you see someone like you, or with some aspect of life that you want to have. A lot of the pitch towards us isn't dolls, it's friendship, or fashion, or something like that - broadly speaking, group identity.
The problem is you don't see the comparisons. If there aren't people like you being forwarded as enjoying and having fun with something, you may never try it, and even if you do the chances are that few people like you will, so you lose a lot of the social enjoyment that goes along with a thing.
Of course you're right. If girls all really hated barbies, we probably wouldn't have played with them - though I've no doubt some of us would have out of a desire to fit in. But that's not really the point. The question is how closely that approaches optimal; the most enjoyment that we could have got from a range of options, only a narrow range of which are promoted to us and will allow us to still be accepted by our friends who have also had these identities sold to them.
Barbies are fun.
/Manly man