“Everyone loves buying dolls for baby girls and cars and trucks for baby boys — it’s simply what we do,”

This statement comes from Dr. Paola Escudero, lead author of a recent study from the University of Western Sydney MARCS Institute that actually ended up challenging the widely-held theory that infant boys have an innate preference for macho toys. Through an experiment that they conducted with 48 infants (24 boys and 24 girls ranging from 4-5 months old) and also 48 young adults (24 women and 24 men), they used state-of-the-art eye-tracking technology which revealed that gender-specific preferences were not present at five months in the group of infants. Although it is assumed that society plays a big role in influencing boys to play with trucks and girls to choose dolls, a separate study shows that hormones are also suspected to play an intricate role in this sex-related preference for toys. Campaign groups like Let Toys Be Toys have been urging UK retailers to remove gender labels and “organize toys by genre not gender.” While toy manufacturers, like Marks and Spencer, have also taken the initiative to make all of their toys gender-neutral.

Click here for the full article…