In elementary school, one of the first things you’ll learn about your classmates is their favorite color. Everyone will go around the room taking turns saying what their favorite color is. The boys will normally say they like blue or green. The girls will normally say they like pink or purple. Things are going pretty well, until a boy admits pink is his favorite color and a girl admits that blue is her favorite color. This is when the boys start yelling at the girls and the girls start yelling at the boys and the teacher has to flick the lights on and off until the kids stop. Then the teacher would have a talk on how anyone can like any color they want.
However, our society doesn’t make it any better. A lot of companies are releasing products that are gender targeted. Meaning products that are strictly for guys and others that are strictly for girls. So without further adieu, here are some products in the market today that are gender targeted.
1. Bookmarks
Yeah I know, this is weird. A bookmark is used to simply hold your place in a book. So why make his and hers bookmarks? Is it frowned upon for a girl to buy the guy one and the guy to buy the girl one?
2. Pens
A few years ago, I actually received a pack of two pens. One was purple and the other was pink. Not only on the packaging, but on the pen itself it said, “for her.” Is this saying that girls shouldn’t use the other colors of pens? Is this also saying that guys can’t buy these? And if you do, you’ll get weird looks when you cash out. Are girls taught to like certain colors? How about boys? What would the reactions be if someone came out with black and blue pens and they were just for girls?
3. Dr.Pepper
Now you may think this is a weird product to target gender. But Dr.Pepper released a new kind of soda called “Dr.Pepper ten.” In numerous ads, however, it strictly says that this product is for men only. This is probably the weirdest thing on the list. Who knew that even Dr.Pepper could release something like this.
4. Medicine for Children
When children are young and need to take medicine for whatever reason, usually a fun character on the box will convince them to take it. However, when you go to the store, you will normally see Gummies with disney princesses or superheroes on the bottle. Well what happens if a girl wants the superhero gummies? And a boy wants the princess gummies? In order to avoid this problem, companies should have gender neutral characters on their products for children. For example, both the superhero gummies and the princess gummies are the same thing. So what’s wrong with making one bottle and having a character like Elmo or one of the minions from Despicable Me on the bottle? I know both boys and girls that like Elmo as well as Despicable Me.
5. Soap
The company Dove is a big culprit in this. Dove has special kinds of shampoo for men and for women. The women’s bottle has pink designs on it, while the men’s bottle is a little boring and it is just a plain color.
