Childhood and gender: How to be a girl in dolls’ advertising

Abstract

Intersection between childhood’s and gender’s fields allows known about practices and discourses in several social areas that generates inequality for boys, girls, and women. Female childhood have specific circumstances that discourse, as advertising, contributes with conditions to be a girl: has a role in female subjectivity. In this essay intersection between childhood and gender allows analyze in toy’s advertising for girls, some gender’s bias that passed ways of being, be and play. Since childhood, girls are socialize into traditional and historical imposed roles. These are stereotyped female images build by spots. For that purpose, spots selection was made following three criteria: audiovisual spots intended for girls as protagonist, publishing toys known as “for girls” and, at last, that represents a stereotyped gender image. Paper composes as follow: on one side, address connection between childhood and advertising and, on the other side, it found theoretical contact points between childhood and gender, to analyze how gender mandates are passed.