Toys+with+Messages

[|Gender stereotyping] Gender stereotyping
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[|Development and play]

media type="custom" key="516123"media type="custom" key="3627353" What could happen if kids have toy guns

One of the main concerns that has constantly been raised against video games is that most of the games feature aggressive elements. This has led many people to assert that this may have a detrimental effect on individuals who play such games. Despite continuing controversy for over 15 years, there has been little in the way of systematic research. This article reviews the empirical studies in this area, including research methodologies such as the observation of free play, self-report methods, and experimental studies. The article argues that all the published studies on video game violence have methodological problems and that they only include possible short-term measures of aggressive consequences. The one consistent finding is that the majority of the studies on very young children—as opposed to those in their teens upwards—tend to show that children do become more aggressive after either playing or watching a violent video game. However, all of these come from the use of one particular research methodology (i.e., observation of children’s free play). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH7-3V8C7YH-6&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5

[|Stereotyping]  YOU SEE them everywhere now, little girls clutching plastic Bratz dolls that look like strippers or pole dancers. In department stores, shelves stacked with bibs and bottles sit alongside racks of minuscule high-cut string bikinis, midriff tops and hipster jeans. Toddler wear, from clothing to sandals, is sprinkled liberally with sequins, tops trimmed with see-through lace and cut with peek-a-boo necklines. In the US, says visiting author Dr Jean Kilbourne, tiny bras and G-string underwear featuring cherries and the words "eye candy" and "wink wink" have now made an appearance in the children's wear sections of Target. Meanwhile, Barbie has moved from the ballroom to the bedroom: the Lingerie Barbie series includes black silk teddies, garter belts, stockings and bras. Kilbourne is a Boston-based lecturer, media critic and film maker. She is on a private holiday but has paused briefly in Sydney to talk about her latest project, a book tentatively titled //So Sexy, So Soon: The Sexualisation of Childhood.// Her co-author, Diane Levin, an early childhood expert and professor of education at Wheelock College in Boston, has lectured extensively in Australia and together they are immersed in exploring and documenting a global advertising phenomenon that is worrying academics, doctors and parents throughout the Western world. Just as there is now clear research to demonstrate the toxic impact of fashion, alcohol and tobacco advertising on young women's body images, eating habits and mental health, Kilbourne warns of the potential for similar pyschological side-effects from the use of sex to sell clothes, toys and food to young children. Today's children, she says, are bombarded with enormous doses of graphic sexual content but are simply not mature enough to process or understand the images or messages. Worse still, very young children are routinely exposed to images of sexual behaviour which appear devoid of emotions, attachment, or consequences and can be frightened by what they see. "Sex often appears as the defining activity in relationships, to the exclusion of love and friendship and is often linked to violence," Kilbourne says. "Children also learn to associate physical appearance and buying the right products not only with being sexy but also with being successful as a person. These lessons will shape their gender identity, sexual attitudes, values, and their capacity for love and connection." As the mother of a 19-year-old daughter, Kilbourne's lifetime interest in mass media and young people has been personal as well as professional. Her first-hand observations of school friends' obsession with thinness, with appealing to boys, with self esteem drops, were fascinating but heartbreaking. She remembers an 11-year-old refusing to wear swimmers because her thighs "were too heavy", rampant food obsessions, self harm. In the US, she said, teen clothing manufacturers have now introduced a zero size.