Some people argue that sex determined toy choice, like saying that XX children innately choose mostly dolls and XY children innately choose mostly trucks and NOT dolls in any case. I strongly disagree.

Studies show parental influence determines toy choice and play style consists of a lot of papers, more than just this sampling. However, I know quite well from newsgroups I post in like soc.men, that I need to make an important point first. All people have innate tendencies, real innate variations they are born with. These just don't segregate by sex in any significant manner. A boy is just as likely to be quiet and emotional and grab for a doll at the age of 8 months, as is a girl. Same with active kids, aggressive kids. What happens to those innate tendencies is marked by parental, peer and mass media socialization. The examples I have here are parental and peer based.

Bradbard and Endsley (1983), "The effects of sex-typed labelling on preschool children's information seeking and retention", Sex Roles, 9, 247-272 showed:

Preschool kids ask more questions about and spend more time playing with *novel* (emphasis added) toys that are labelled approprite for their gender than novel objects labelled appropriate for the other gender.

Another important study about gender socialization is regarding balloons and xylophones was done by Masters, Ford et al. (1979) "Modeling and labelling as integrated determinants of children's sex-typed preferences and gender stereotypes" Child Development, 61, 1427-1439. The toys were presented as appropriate for boys or girls, and then the children watched a video of a boy or a girl playing with the toys. When observed playing with the toys and asked which they preferred, these were found to be influenced by the gender-typed labels given at the beginning and less so by the same age models. And when the same age models played with the same gendered toy, the effect was the strongest in what toy the kids said they 'preferred' and what they in fact chose -- as fitting the label orginally given.

The boys choose toys they are told they ought to choose. Barring that, they might well have chosen, for example, the xylophone if the adult hadn't told them it was for girls.

These studies are discussed in both Gender: Stereotypes and Roles by Susan A. Bascow and in Gender Development (the most fairhanded of the two, IMO) by Susan Golombok and Robin Fivush.

You might want also to know about Budd, Clance and Simerly (1985) "Spatial Configurations: Erikson reexamined" Sex Roles, 12, 247-257. and Karpoe and Olney (1983) "The effect of boys' or girls' toys on sex-typed play in preadolescents", Sex Roles, 9, 507-518 who both showed that the _kind of toy_ determines play type. Not the sex of the child playing with it. And choice of kind of toy is impacted by socialization as from the last study.

So both sexes made feminine-typed constructions when given girl-typed toys such as dolls. Both sexes made masculine typed construction when given boy-typed toys. Books like Brain Sex only include Erikson's work in 1964 showing that girls built enclosures and boys built towers when asked to construct a scene out of a selection of toys. Since then a lot of other work has been done to show this is related to the toy type and steroetyped notions the kids have of what they ought to do with the toys.

Oh, another good book discussing gender role socialization and arguments against biological determinism are The Mismeasure of Woman by Carol Tavris.

And, for parents, Growing a Girl (Barbara Mackoff) talks in length the potential harm in denying a child support and exposure to non-gender stereotyped toys. Aside from being simply limiting, humans learn a lot of useful stuff in play with toys for both genders. How to build towers *and* enclosures, for one.

I don't doubt both sides have papers. I do find that gender socialization is generally well documented. And that this is built upon innate variations in the children themselves that just happen not to segregate by sex.

This is at a young age, but shown how parents model and define what a sex ought to play with. What is implied is that people do this to the two sexes from birth and soon boys think they ought not to play with dolls because no one had, after all, even offered him one, while he keeps getting the footballs handed to him. What I talk about is letting the boy have NOT ONLY the football but the doll as well.

The point is, this merely *starts* in infancy -- it continues along the same sexist gender steroetyped way for most kids. Until boys run from girl-typed things because they were conditioned to react that way. That is not a conditioning that respects the other sex, btw.

Other claims regarding toy choice are like those in the book Brain Sex, that boys don't play with girl-typed toys as much as with boy-typed toys (as we have seen, this is not innate choice, but heavily socialized). When boys play with a doll, the claim is that this is often to turn the doll into an action hero (Brain Sex, pg. 60) or take it apart to see how it works. However, this isn't quite the whole story (a common flaw in nature-only type arguments).

"It's often to turn it into an action hero" because, as the studies I cited showed, that is 1)modeled to them as what they ought to do, and 2)the only sort of play with them which is supported by parents.

For point 2, the references are:

Langlois and Downs (1980) "Mothers, fathers and peers as socialization agents of sex-typed play behaviors in young children" Child Development, 51, 1237-1247 showing that when 3 to 5 year olds were presented with masculine and feminine toys and asked to play with them in a sex appropriate manner, parents punished the opposite gender play. In other words, parents would reward the girls playing with dolls postively and take away or verbally discourage play with the masculine toys. A boy who had played a nurturing game with an action figure would get from peers, mothers and fathers, only disapproval for their *choice* of play type. Enough negative pressure, and you stomp this out of the boy. But the lack is not natural, it is socialized.

Now, a valid criticism here is the the researchers asked the kids to play with the toys, but I was seeking to support point 2. As far as choice in the first place, there are the earlier cites. And, the fact that researchers who support sex-based gender differences such as Beverly Fagot also showed that parents, in the home, would punish boys for choosing feminine typed toys for play and punish girls for running, jumping, climbing and manipulating objects (such as pulling the head off a doll). In order to be punishable, the behaviors had to occur.

From as early as 12 months, children are encouraged to play with sex-typed toys and to avoid play activities labelled for the other sex -- even though the children spontaneously choose them in the first place! (Snow, Jacklin and Maccoby (1983), "Sex-of-child differences in father-child interactions at one year of age", Child Development, 49, 227-232.)

Boys will and do play with girl-labelled toys, even if what was labelled as a girl-toy was all of a balloon. But parents will discourage this expansion of play into the other sex-labelled toys, punish this, direct it to the only toys labelled for that child's sex and gender role. The only reason parents need to do all this work is because kids will otherwise choose toys and play that are outside the narrow gender role of boys-and-masculine and girls-and-feminine.

Some think there are different preferences evident from early ages.

Different preferences, sure. People differ, but these are not linked to sex until parents put on this socializing pressure to kids of both sexes, offering only certain toys, discouraging play with other- sex-typed toys that the child chooses and so on. This is shown in the studies I cite. There is no way any disapproval would be recorded unless the kids chose toys the parents view as for the other sex and not to be played with.