what can a toy tell me about masculinity?

One of my first experiences of the new year was attending a Healthy Masculinity Training Institute by an organization called Men Can Stop Rape. To quote their mission statement, they want “To mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men's violence against women.” Part of that training consisted of thinking more deeply about masculinity and what it means to be a man.

Toward the beginning, we had a discussion around two “word clouds,” which are below. They were formed by recording the words in toy commercials, tallying the number of times certain words were said, and adjusting the size of the word based on the tally. So, the larger the word, the more times, relatively, it showed up in commercials. You can read more about it here if you like.

Take a minute and look at each one before reading on. What do you observe?

I’ve had a few good conversations and email exchanges over these two very interesting images. As a man, the violence of the boy’s word cloud is what immediately caught my eye. Boys learn all about battle, power, weapons, and similar things from a young age. While I get a certain sense of nostalgia upon reading these words, thinking back on Ninja Turtles, Nerf guns, and the like, I have to also think more about the violence I was exposed to when I was young, and how much it guided or informed my view of the world. These words could be harmful if a boy finds his identity or worth in them.

On the other hand, typical girls’ toys are described by "softer" words. To me, a lot of these divide up into two categories. One category is of words focused on appearance – pretty, hair, nails, style, etc. These may be harmful if a girl finds her identity and worth in them. The second category is of words which I would call valuable, like love, fun, and friendship. To me, these are some of the things that life is all about.  When mixed in with the first group of words, though, they could become problematic, implying that things like love and friendship are on par with, or worse, come from things like pretty and style. In this sense, I can see how some people would come to the conclusion that all of these words promote a softness, weakness, or passivity.

Additionally, it's interesting to note that that words like these are pretty much absent from the boys’ word cloud. To be fair, I do see words like buddy, friends, and skill, but they are overwhelmed by other words.

Just a quick caveat before we continue: I’m not saying toy advertising defines masculinity or femininity, nor does it completely determine how kids turn out, but to me, the images reflect a certain truth about the cultural environment we all grow up in as Americans.

To see marketing presented this way is a bit startling. Do we value violence as a people? Do we value weakness or passivity? I don’t think anyone would say they truly value these things.

I think they are marketed this way because of a certain status quo. “Boys like battles because they have always liked battles; girls like tea parties because they have always liked tea parties. Why change?” Changing takes energy, introspection, and conversation, and if people can't see a good reason to invest the time and energy, they won't do it. I don't think there is some conspiracy of men who consciously decides training boys to be violent and girls to be passive is a good idea. I think it’s more of a neglect to see that we could do things a different and better way.

I’m also not coming from the place where I think all aspects of gender should be up-ended. Just the harmful parts. Changing a few things could yield profound results, like men who use their strengths and gifts for creation and healing rather than violence and destruction, and, likewise, women who realize and use their strengths and gifts to make the world a better place.

In short, my hope is that we create environments where we can discover and live into the call of God rather than the call of society.