Gender Stereotype Key Word Clouds for Toy Ads

RedTracker| Crystal Smith is a social media and marketing writer who has spent many years working with non-profit agencies seeking gender equality and an end to discrimination against women. After being regularly disappointed by the film and television offerings available to her two young sons, she decided to write about the impact of kids’ popular culture on young boys. See Crystal’s book The Achilles Effect.

On her blog ‘The Achilles Effect’ Crystal recently created word clouds based on the words used in toy advertising aimed at girls and boys. Her purpose is to evaluate how ad copy reinforces gender stereotypes. Literally, the visuals are eye-openers.

via Brand Channel

Update on Tue, April 12, 2011 by Anne

Message from Cyranos DeMet.

‘This is a good thing to publicize, and for several reasons.  Being as how I’ll always speak to motives first, the thought I’d like to share is this:  those word clouds are not nearly so much intended to produce gender biases (an accidental consequence) as to produce other biases in the thought processes of those effected/infected.  Toys are made by corporations, corporations are now functioning as independent operators on the global political scene, they have a vested interest not in gender stereotype but in maintaining a status quo of separation between lands and peoples, that’s where they harvest their power.  Little boys raised to think “warrior” serve them well in that intent, it is a foundation thought for later propaganda.  Little girls raised to think domestic only serves to simplify the propaganda needed later, girls feud and fight for different reasons than boys, and far harder to control when they do. The villains behind such things think in terms of generations Anne, never forget that.’