Why
gender-neutral
holiday presents
matter
for your children
为什么中性的节日礼物
对孩子很重要
Irina Gonzalez 为她20个月大的儿子买了一辆有着薰衣草色轮子和粉色篮子的大货车。
她说：“我真的想把彩虹的所有颜色都融入我儿子的玩具中，甚至是他的衣柜里。我想让儿子明白，衣服就是衣服，玩具就是玩具，这些东西没有性别。”
她希望他能认识到，没有什么是他被禁止的，喜欢“为女孩生产”的玩具或衣服也没什么错。
不久前，这似乎是一种激进的育儿方式，更不用说节日购物了。但反对儿童物质世界的超性别营销越来越普遍，而不仅仅是来自家长或宣传团体。玩具业和商界的一些人也加入了进来。
玩具市场的中性化
In 2015, Target stopped labeling some toys and other products as girls' and boys' items, moving away from gendered signage. In 2017, the Toy Association replaced "boy" and "girl" categories with new ones, like action figure of the year or doll of the year.
2015年，Target（美国第二大零售百货集团）停止将一些玩具和其他产品贴上女孩或男孩的标签，不再使用性别标识。2017年，美国玩具协会用新的类别取代了“男孩”和“女孩”，如年度动作人物或年度玩偶。
"Toy companies have moved away from classifying their toys by gender, and even online retailers and brick-and-mortar retailers are not organizing their toys by gender as much," said Kristin Morency Goldman, a Toy Association spokeswoman. "A lot of the gender-based limits that were imposed on children in previous generations are thankfully not there anymore.”
玩具协会发言人克里斯汀·莫伦西·戈德曼（Kristin Morency Goldman）说：“玩具公司已经不再按性别对玩具进行分类，甚至零售商也是如此。谢天谢地，前几代强加给儿童的许多基于性别的限制已不复存在。”
Disney, for instance, has found a way to accommodate parents who believe that toys should be marketed using gender and those who do not. On the Disney website, shoppers can still select a gender, but there is almost no difference in what comes up. There are 304 toys marked as for boys and 307 for girls. The Minnie Mouse Garden Play Set, the Aurora Classic Doll and the Disney Princess Enchanting Messages Musical Vanity are in the boys' section as well as the girls' section. So is the Mickey Mouse-Ka-Golf Set. The three girls-only toys were the Elsa the Snow Queen Plush Doll, the Queen Anna Plush Doll and the Elsa Classic Doll Accessory Pack, all from "Frozen II.”
例如，迪斯尼已经找到了一种方法，让那些认为玩具应该使用性别来销售的家长和反对的家长都能接受。在迪斯尼官网，购物者仍然可以选择性别，但结果几乎没有差别。有304件玩具标为男孩的，307件标为女孩的。米妮老鼠花园游戏集、极光经典玩偶和迪斯尼公主电子琴都既在男孩区又在女孩区。米老鼠高尔夫套装也是如此。这三个女孩唯一的玩具是艾尔莎雪皇后毛绒娃娃、安娜皇后毛绒娃娃和艾尔莎经典娃娃配件包，全部来自《冰雪奇缘II》。
刻板印象犹存
这在短时间内是一个巨大的转变，但对儿童玩具进行性别化的区分其实是最近的一个现象。
"Toys at the turn of the 20th century weren't a major consumer good and many families were making their own toys," said Elizabeth Sweet, assistant professor of sociology at San Jose State University. "Gender wasn't such a primary categorizing factor." Dolls, she said, were a popular baby gift for both boys and girls.
圣何塞州立大学社会学助理教授伊丽莎白·斯威特（Elizabeth Sweet）说：“20世纪之交的玩具并不是主要的消费品，许多家庭都在自己制造玩具。性别不是主要的分类因素。”她说，娃娃是男孩和女孩都喜欢的礼物。
Gendering of kids' clothes and toys began in earnest a little over 100 years ago, in an effort to teach children early how to perform their proper gender roles. Toys went from marketed by age to explicitly trying to shape kids' preferences and futures: mop and broom sets for girls and erector sets for boys.
儿童服装和玩具的性别化始于100多年前，旨在教会儿童如何扮演正确的性别角色。玩具从按年龄销售到明确地试图塑造儿童的喜好和未来：为女孩准备玩具拖把和扫帚、为男孩准备拼装玩具。
"There is a sort of pendulum swing that happens constantly in our culture," said Hains，professor of media and communications at Salem State University in Massachusetts.
“在我们的文化中，有一个钟摆在不断摆动，”马萨诸塞州塞勒姆州立大学媒体与传播学教授丽贝卡·海恩斯（Rebecca Hains）说。
By the end of the 20th century, toys had stopped preparing kids for traditional gender roles and instead focused onfantasy roles: princesses for girls and superheroes for boys.
到了20世纪末，玩具不再让孩子们为传统的性别角色做准备，而是专注于幻想角色：女孩扮演公主，男孩扮演超级英雄。
Toy makers took the stereotypes and repackaged them in glittery paper, but they're the same ideas about gender: Women are passive and nurturing and caring, and men are active and agentic and capable.
玩具制造商将这些刻板印象重新包装在闪闪发光的纸上，但它们对性别的看法是相同的：女性是被动的、有教养的、有爱心的，而男性是主动的、能动的、有能力的。
Princess dolls and characters are very slender, Hains noted. "They don't look like they could possibly be physically strong because they're so slight." Superhero toys, on the other hand, have fake muscles.
海恩斯指出，公主玩偶和角色都非常苗条。“它们看起来不可能变强壮，因为它们太瘦小了。”同时，超级英雄玩具都有假肌肉。
Sweet found that toys are often more gendered today than at almost any other time in history — but clearly the pendulum has begun to swing back.
斯威特发现，今天的玩具比历史上任何时候都更具性别化，但显然钟摆已经开始回荡。
打破成见
LEGO's gender research found that girls were six times as likely as boys to imagine that scientists and athletes were men than women. Parents of either gender were four times as likely to encourage boys to play with computer games or sports, and five times as likely to encourage girls to dance and dress-up.
乐高的性别研究发现，女孩认为科学家和运动员是男性的可能性是男孩的六倍。父母鼓励男孩玩电脑游戏或运动的可能性是鼓励女孩的四倍，鼓励女孩跳舞和打扮的可能性是鼓励男孩的五倍。
"Children are experimenting with ideas about their own interests and aptitudes and maybe even future roles," Hains said. "It is problematic when you're circumscribing options and saying this whole range of things is only for girls and this range of things is only for boys.”
海恩斯说：“孩子们正在发掘自己的兴趣和能力，甚至是未来的角色。当你限制选择，说某一系列的东西只适合女孩，而某一系列的东西只适合男孩时，是有问题的。”
Changes in how toys are marketed can help change consumer behavior, but cultural norms are hard to overcome.Indeed, LEGO found that "71% of boys vs. 42% of girls say they worry about being made fun of if they play with a toy typically associated for the other gender.”
玩具营销方式的改变有助于改变消费者行为，但文化准则难以克服。事实上，乐高发现“71%的男孩和42%的女孩说，他们玩通常与其他性别相关的玩具时，会担心被嘲笑。”
Apfel's move has been to buy boys dolls for holiday gifts and birthday presents to encourage a kind of "gender-openness" and present the message—that all toys are for everyone.
阿普费尔给男孩们买洋娃娃作为节日礼物和生日礼物的举动，旨在鼓励“性别开放”，并向大家传达：所有玩具都是给所有人准备的！
原文链接：https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/20/health/gender-neutral-presents-wellness/index.html
编译 | 李乾
排版 | 李乾
