You’re totally right. The reason it happened was because video game systems were considered “toys” back in the day, and the marketing for toys was generally extremely polarized back then, all part of the social conditioning for patriarchy. Girls got to play with baby dolls, tea sets and toys inspired by domestic labor such as cooking and cleaning, and boys got to play with toys themed around heavy machinery, sports, combat/war and so on, all to prepare, socialize and condition them for the gender roles they were/are expected to perform in society.
Early video games were often sports or combat/war themed, so they became toys for boys, and ended up in a positive feedback loop. I would guess that the reason that sports and war themed video games were developed was because the people in charge of developing the games were also mainly men.
Women were significantly sidelined from computers and technology in most of the world around the time video games were being developed despite being extremely significant in the early history of computers. Whole workforces of women extremely competent with programming were fired and replaced with men who had no idea what they were doing in places, setting technological advancement back significantly.
Honestly looking at kids adverts now vs my childhood in the 80s-90s I think toys are more gendered now. More of them and poorer quality. Lego being the prime example, used to be entirely ungendered.
Honestly, I think you’re misremembering, which is totally fair tbh, it’s been a while and you were a kid!
Since I’m a loser with nothing better to do on a Saturday, I did a little research by watching LEGO commercials from the 80s and 90s, and there are dozens of depictions of boys playing with LEGO, and the relatively rare depictions of girls playing with them are for sets clearly designed for girls, such as Belville and Paradisa.
If you check out this video from around 2:36 onwards, you can really clearly see the differences in how LEGO was marketed to girls, and to boys.
There’s a whole jingle that went across the decades with the phrase “he’s a lego maniac”, and most LEGO sets fall into traditional “boys toys” categories (trains, police, knights, etc.). Even ads for the generic core sets with just the simple colored blocks depicted boys playing with them.
Interestingly, though, almost all of the Duplo commercials depict both boys and girls playing with the toys together, but even those sets are quite gendered - doll houses for girls, for example.
I don’t think I’ve seen a toy advert for a good 15 years or so, except for the infamous a man has fallen into the river in LEGO city commercial, I honestly have no real idea what they’re like now, but they were very gendered back in the day for sure!
You’re totally right. The reason it happened was because video game systems were considered “toys” back in the day, and the marketing for toys was generally extremely polarized back then, all part of the social conditioning for patriarchy. Girls got to play with baby dolls, tea sets and toys inspired by domestic labor such as cooking and cleaning, and boys got to play with toys themed around heavy machinery, sports, combat/war and so on, all to prepare, socialize and condition them for the gender roles they were/are expected to perform in society.
Early video games were often sports or combat/war themed, so they became toys for boys, and ended up in a positive feedback loop. I would guess that the reason that sports and war themed video games were developed was because the people in charge of developing the games were also mainly men.
Women were significantly sidelined from computers and technology in most of the world around the time video games were being developed despite being extremely significant in the early history of computers. Whole workforces of women extremely competent with programming were fired and replaced with men who had no idea what they were doing in places, setting technological advancement back significantly.
Honestly looking at kids adverts now vs my childhood in the 80s-90s I think toys are more gendered now. More of them and poorer quality. Lego being the prime example, used to be entirely ungendered.
Edit: uk if that makes a difference
Honestly, I think you’re misremembering, which is totally fair tbh, it’s been a while and you were a kid!
Since I’m a loser with nothing better to do on a Saturday, I did a little research by watching LEGO commercials from the 80s and 90s, and there are dozens of depictions of boys playing with LEGO, and the relatively rare depictions of girls playing with them are for sets clearly designed for girls, such as Belville and Paradisa.
If you check out this video from around 2:36 onwards, you can really clearly see the differences in how LEGO was marketed to girls, and to boys.
There’s a whole jingle that went across the decades with the phrase “he’s a lego maniac”, and most LEGO sets fall into traditional “boys toys” categories (trains, police, knights, etc.). Even ads for the generic core sets with just the simple colored blocks depicted boys playing with them.
Interestingly, though, almost all of the Duplo commercials depict both boys and girls playing with the toys together, but even those sets are quite gendered - doll houses for girls, for example.
I don’t think I’ve seen a toy advert for a good 15 years or so, except for the infamous a man has fallen into the river in LEGO city commercial, I honestly have no real idea what they’re like now, but they were very gendered back in the day for sure!