来源：Sparkle Unicorns And Fart Ninjas: What Parents Can Do About Gendered Toys
NPR
Anya Kamenetz
Cory Turner
With Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty on one side and bulbous-headed Fart Ninjas on the other, the gender divide was impossible to avoid at the North American International Toy Fair in New York City back in February.
一边是彩虹独角猫，一边是圆头放屁忍者，在2月纽约城的北美国际玩具展览会上，几乎不可能对性别的鸿沟视而不见。
The light-up Barbie mermaids vying for space with Gatling-style foam-dart blasters in Manhattan's Javits Center raised a question: Have toys really progressed since our grandparents' days? And how do the toys we play with shape the people we grow up to be?
那些在曼哈顿贾维斯会展中心争奇斗艳的芭比美人鱼与加特林机枪式的飞镖发射器为我们举出了一个问题：玩具从我们祖父母的时代以来进步了吗？玩具如何塑造我们长大后的做为？
We set out to answer these and related questions in our latest episode of Life Kit's podcast Parenting: Difficult Conversations, with help from Sesame Workshop.
Toys are getting more gendered
玩具变得愈发性别化
Researcher Elizabeth Sweet studied toy catalogs and ads over time and found that toys are actually more gender divided than they were half a century ago.
研究者伊丽莎白斯威特研究随时间推移的玩具目录与广告，发现玩具确实地比半个世纪前更加性别分化。
Rebecca Hains, a professor at Salem State University in Massachusetts, has written a book about it: The Princess Problem: Guiding Our Girls Through The Princess-Obsessed Years.
瑞贝卡海因斯，一位马萨诸塞州萨勒姆州立大学的教授，写了一本关于此的书：公主难题：引导我们的女孩渡过痴迷公主的年纪。
Disney characters, she points out, used to be more diverse: There was Cinderella, sure, but also Pinocchio and Bambi. When 1989's The Little Mermaid made a splash, Hains says, "Disney realized profitability in girls." Enter the juggernaut Disney Princess brand. Plus, marketers now cloak even gender-neutral toys like blocks in both primary and pastel shades in the hope of selling more sets.
她指出，迪士尼的角色曾经更加多样：灰姑娘，当然了，但也有匹诺曹和小鹿斑比。当1989年时小美人鱼引起了轰动，海因斯说，“迪士尼意识了到女孩的盈利能力。”进入了碾压众生的迪士尼公主系列品牌。此外，销售人员现在甚至隐藏中性的玩具比如基础色柔和色的积木，以期能卖出更多套装玩具。
Even with several women vying to be the United States' next president, and even with a greater awareness of the spectrum of gender identity than we've ever had in our culture, Hains says, "it's almost like kids are subject to stereotypes that we've evolved out of elsewhere."
甚至在有好几个女性竞选下任美国总统时，在我们的文化中性别认同的光谱前所未有地觉醒时，海因斯说：“这几乎就像是孩子们受到了从别的什么地方演化出来的刻板印象。”
And these stereotypes can stick.
而且这些刻板印象可以坚持下去。
In a 2013 study of undergraduate women, one-third identified themselves as "princesses." They placed a higher value on the physical attractiveness of a mate, were less likely to want to join the workforce after college and were more likely to say they wanted to marry a breadwinner. And when all the women were given puzzles to solve, the "princesses" quit faster.
在一个2013年对女大学生的研究中，1/3的人认为自己是“公主”。她们更重视对伴侣的外表吸引力，更少想要在毕业后加入工作，更像是在说她们就想嫁一个养家糊口型的人。当所有女性被给出问题让她们解决时，“公主”会更快地放弃。
(This study, a conference paper, is described and cited in this paper, co-authored by Sarah Coyne, which similarly showed that girls who preferred playing princesses showed more gender-stereotyped behavior a full year later.)
Researchers haven't proved that all little girls who like tutus will grow up to be entitled quitters. But play does prepare children for life, so boys and girls both need broad options, says Rosemarie Truglio, a developmental psychologist and vice president of education and research for Sesame Workshop.
研究者们并没有证明所有喜欢芭蕾舞裙的小女孩都会成长为习惯放弃的人。但是游玩确实是为人生做热身，所以男孩和女孩都需要广泛的选择，发展心理学家和芝麻工作室教育和研究副总裁罗丝玛丽楚格利欧说。
"It's OK for me to like pink things and pretty things and frilly things, but it shouldn't define who I am and shouldn't define what I will be in the future," Truglio says. "Anyone who is singly defined doesn't make a really interesting person."
“对我来说粉色的东西，秀丽的东西，褶边的东西都是OK的。但它不能定义我是谁，也不能定义我在未来会做什么。”楚格利欧说：“任何人被单一定义都不会让他成为有趣的人。”
Here are our takeaways for how to handle toy problems.
以下是我们如何应对玩具问题的“划重点”。
1. Bans will backfire — no pun intended.
1. 禁止会适得其反 - 并没有双关语
You can certainly outlaw a toy that makes you uncomfortable, but consider this:
你当然可以取缔一种让你感到不安的玩具，但考虑下这些：
"I don't think banning anything is the answer," Truglio says. She found this out the hard way as a mom herself. At first "we had the rule: No [toy] guns in our home," she says. But she realized that all her young son's friends were playing with them, typically in the hallway of their apartment building.
“我不认为禁止任何事会是答案。”楚格利欧说。作为一个母亲，她发现这很难。起初，我们规定：我们家里禁（玩具）枪。但她发现她小儿子的所有朋友都玩这个，一般是在他们公寓的门厅。
Group play and the friendship that comes with it are so important for kids, Truglio believes, that she decided to allow the toy gun, with conditions. Besides, if you say no, the odds are that the toy will become even more coveted, she says.
与之相伴的集体玩耍和友谊对孩子是如此重要，楚格利欧相信，所以她决定允许玩具枪，有条件地。此外，如果你不允许，这件玩具将有可能变得更加让人垂涎，她说。
2. How they play is more important than what they play with.
2. 怎么玩比玩什么重要
No toy is inherently good or wicked, says Lisa Dinella, a gender studies professor at Monmouth University and co-author of the aforementioned 2013 princess study. With a gun, "you can be really, really aggressive, or you can just be shooting targets." Equally, a princess game could be all about being pretty, or it could have a sophisticated plot.
没有玩具本质上是好的或歹的，蒙茅斯大学性别研究教授和上述公主研究的合著者莉萨蒂内拉说。对于枪，可以非常非常有进攻性，或者仅仅是射击靶子。同等的，对于公主游戏，可以是美丽的，也可以有深度复杂的剧情。
One red flag, Truglio says, is when there's no variety to a child's play. For example, if your child wants to play with only toy guns, and the play is always aggressive, then that could be a sign for you, as a parent, to step in and find out what's really troubling the child.
一个危险信号就是，孩子玩得缺乏多样化，楚格利欧说。比如，如果你的孩子只想玩玩具枪，而且重视玩得*气十足，这就是一个信号，作为父母，就应当介入并找出是真正困扰孩子的是什么。
3. Parents can counter sexist messages.
3. 父母可以反对性别歧视的信息
Dinella says kids start learning gender stereotypes before they're out of diapers. "Between 18 months and 2 years is the first time we're starting to see their awareness."
蒂内拉说儿童在脱离纸尿裤以前就开始学习性别的模式。在18个月到2岁我们会首次看到他们意识到。
They learn by watching us. Studies show that parents perceive newborn girls as more delicate and newborn boys as being stronger. On the playground, mothers intervene with girls, seeing physical risks, more often.
他们通过观察我们来学习。研究显示父母会潜意识觉得新生女孩更加纤巧而新生男孩更加健壮。在游乐场，母亲会更加经常地干预女孩，盯着身体受伤的风险。
"So it's really hard to separate out toy preference from gender socialization that is so insidious," Hains says.
“所以很难分清如此隐秘的玩具的社会化性别偏好。”海因斯说。
Dinella has done several experiments on how heavy gender branding influences kids' toy choices. In one, she and her team painted a bunch of toys white. Without color cues, both boys and girls gravitated toward neutral playthings like Play-Doh and the Etch A Sketch.
蒂内拉已完成了数个实验关于性别烙印对儿童选择玩具的影响有多重。在其中一个，她和她的团队上色了一堆纯白玩具。没有颜色的诱导，男孩和女孩都同样被吸引到中性的玩具比如 Play-Doh彩泥和Etch A Sketch磁力画板。
In another experiment, titled "Pink Gives Girls Permission," Dinella and her co-authors flipped the traditional color patterns: pink trucks and camouflage-clad baby dolls. She found that "there's a bigger barrier to boys playing with girl things and acting like girls than for girls to be able to venture into some of these cross-gender plays."
在另一个实验里，叫做“粉色赋予女孩权限”，蒂内拉和她的合著者反转了传统的色彩模式：粉色卡车和穿迷彩服装的娃娃。她发现男孩像女孩那样玩女孩的东西有更大的阻碍，比起女孩尝试一些跨性别的玩法。
Dinella says you can see this inequity in how hard our culture still comes down on the little boys who love princesses and sparkly things.
蒂内拉说你可以看到我们的文化在阻止小男孩喜爱公主和闪闪的东西上有多么不公平。
This is too bad, she says, because toys can teach important and sometimes unexpected skills. Dolls prepare boys for future roles as fathers and help them practice empathy. Acting out a tea party can help children learn "cognitive sequencing of events: the beginning, the middle and the end of a task." In other words, a tea set can introduce one of the foundations of computer coding.
这太坏了，她说，因为玩具可以教会重要的和有时意想不到的技能。玩偶让男孩为未来父亲的角色准备，让他们学会共情。举办过家家茶会可以帮助孩子学会认知事件的顺序：任务的开始，中间和结束。换句话说，一套茶具摆设可以介绍计算机编程的基础之一。
So Dinella suggests that, when toy shopping, strive for gender balanced as well as gender neutral. Try saying something like, "You have four dolls already, so how about ... also getting a truck?"
所以蒂内拉建议，当购买玩具时，努力实现性别平衡就像自然中性的那样。试着说些比如，“你有四个玩偶了，所以来个卡车怎么样？”
Or, "Can we get it in the white version so that all of the kids, when they come to our house, can play with it, instead of just the pink version?"
或者，“要不要来个白色版的而不只是粉色，这样有小孩来我们家时可以一起玩？”
4. Talk to your kids directly, and share your values around toys.
4. 直接对你的孩子说，分享你关于玩具的价值观。
Dinella is also a mother, and she didn't ban toy guns either. But she does let her children know that she's not wild about them. "I'm never going to say, 'Hey, we haven't played with the Nerf guns a lot lately! Let's get those out!' "
蒂内拉也是一位母亲，她同样没有禁止玩具枪。但是她确实让她的孩子们知道她并不对此发狂。“我从来不会说，嘿，我们以后不能玩太多Nerf海绵枪了！让我们弄走这些玩意。”
In other cases, she says, you can be more direct. "You can say, 'This dress-up toy that was given to you, although it's really sparkly ... it does really talk to you about being pretty. And I would rather you spend time trying to get smart."
在其他情况下，她说，你可以更直接：“你可以说，这些换装玩具不是给你的，尽管它闪闪的，但它不是告诉你要变得漂亮。我更希望你花时间变得聪明。”
5: Join in your child's play to further expand the possibilities.
5. 和你的孩子一起玩耍为了拓展为了的可能性
If a foam-dart shootout is getting out of hand, ordering the combatants to timeout isn't all that effective, says Truglio. Instead, "maybe you take on a character role ... who is going to stop this type of aggression."
Hains tells the story of a father who played princesses with his daughter — but would get out the firetruck and send the princesses out on rescue missions.
如果一场泡沫镖射靶游戏变得失控，结束战斗并不是那么有效，楚格利欧说。取而代之的是你可以做一个角色扮演... “谁会阻止这场侵略呢？”
海因斯讲了一个父亲和女儿扮演公主的故事 -- 但派出了救火车并派公主参加了救援任务。
The good news is that we may be getting a little more help these days from pop culture. Characters like the powerful Elsa, the adventurous Moana, Wonder Woman and the new Captain Marvel, played by Brie Larson, are pushing the envelope for female heroines.
好消息是我们也许从当今流行文化得到了更多一点帮助。像冰雪奇缘强大的Elsa，海洋奇缘爱冒险的Moana，神奇女侠和新的由布里拉尔森饰演的惊奇队长，正在推进女性英雄的内涵。
Another of Dinella's studies suggests that they are having an impact. She asked preschoolers — both boys and girls — to describe themselves and also to describe what they knew about princesses. Not surprisingly, they described princesses as the typical girly girl who needs to be rescued.
蒂内拉的另一个研究表明它们正在产生影响。她问学龄前儿童 -- 包括男孩和女孩 -- 描述他们自己也同样描述他们所知道的公主。并不让人惊讶的是，他们描述的公主是典型的需要援救的女孩中的女孩。
Researchers then showed the children video clips of more recent princesses, like Merida from Brave, taking action and being powerful. Then they asked the same questions again.
研究者然后给儿童展示更现代的公主视频，比如勇敢传说的Merida，采取行动并变大强大。然后再问同样的问题。
Watching those images changed the children's perceptions of princesses, and, Dinella says, it changed kids' own self-descriptions too.
看过这些图像的孩子改变了对公主的感觉，蒂内拉说，它也改变了孩子对自己的描述。
After seeing princesses being powerful, both the girls and the boys described themselves as more multidimensional: "They [would] say: 'I am strong. I am powerful. I am a leader.' But also, 'I am caring, and I share.' "
In other words, when kids anywhere on the gender spectrum spend time with characters who are more complex, it can change the way they see themselves.
在看到公主变得强大后，男孩和女孩同时将自己描述得更加多维：“他们说：我很强壮。我很有力。我是个领导者。”但同时，“我关心别人，我会分享”。换句话说，当性别光谱上任何位置得孩子花时间在更加复杂的角色上时，也会改变他们对自己的看法。
Truglio sums it up this way. "Kids play what they see. If you can see it, you can play it — then one day you can be it.
楚格利欧用这种方式总结道：“孩子玩的是他们看到的。如果你可以视之，你就可以玩之，然后有一天你就能为之。”
