Promoting Gender Equality and Merit-Based Leadership Through Play: an Action Figure Collection

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Promoting gender equality and merit-based leadership through play: An action figure collection

A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Design

In the department of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning

Mario Rodrigo Cruz Rosas B.S. Industrial Design Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México June 2002

Committee Chair: Steve Doehler Committee Advisor: Juan Antonio Islas Munoz ABSTRACT

Gender division of toys has been demonstrated to be more than a simple descriptive categorization of toys characteristics. When gender roles generated by societies are used to tell boys and girls what behaviors and actions are appropriate for them to have, gender division becomes prescriptive and restrictive.

In some contexts, the gender binary system prescribes different appropriate behaviors for men and women that are based on traditional stereotypes which view men as assertive and women as submissive, in other words: men as powerful and women as powerless.

In many scenarios power is given by society or taken by force by men simply because of their gender.

To help boys avoid these traditional stereotypes, the purpose of this project is to examine the many communication channels that action figures have to send messages to children about gender, age, race and nationality so that through play they can experience different ideas about diversity, gender equality, merit based leadership and teamwork, so that through semi-guided dramatic play they can question and flexibilize any preconceptions they might have about these societal labels.

The solution proposed by this project could not only be used already as an effective tool to begin challenging gender norms through play but also as a research tool for further inquiries into the matter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First I would like to thank my committee chair, Steve Doehler, for his guidance throughout this project, without which, this work might have digressed endlessly in the realm of design methodology. Thanks to his advice and practical understanding of design I was able to stay focused and on track, which for the time allotted to finish this project, was vitally important.

For my friend, colleague and mentor, Juan Antonio Islas, I have nothing but gratitude. Without his invaluable help and encouragement, none of this would have ever happened. I will always be in debt with him.

I also wish to thank all of my teachers at DAAP for their professionalism and dedication. Special thanks go to Craig Vogel, Michael Zender, Matt Wizinsky, Michael Roller, Samantha Krukowski and Tony Kawanari for their contagious passion for design and research. If I ever become half as good a teacher as any of them I would have accomplished much.

To all of my classmates, I could not have asked for a better group of people to share this experience with; especially to all of my fellow “Cincycans”, I have no way to thank them enough because they truly provided me with a family far away from home.

I also wish to thank my parents that have always given me the vital impulse to keep on going forward, and to my sister Monica for being there as a constant source of inspiration and guidance.

Finally, I wish to thank my wise and strong wife, Andrea, for her understanding patience and loving support. I could not have done any of this without her.

This project is dedicated to her.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... iv LIST OF FIGURES ...... vii LIST OF APENDICES ...... viii PREFACE ...... ix 1.- INTRODUCTION ...... 1 2.- BACKGROUND ...... 5 2.1 Historical background: Why pink for girls and blue for boys? ...... 5 2.2.- Identifying a problem: Gendered division of toys ...... 9 2.3 Understanding a problem: Children’s use of gender stereotypes ...... 13 2.4 Understanding a problem: Parents’ beliefs and practices regarding gender ...... 15 2.5.- The importance of play ...... 17 2.5.1 Pretend, Make-believe play ...... 18 2.5.2 Pretend play to challenge gender norms...... 19 2.5.3 Gender schemes...... 20 2.5.4 Deciding which playing option to use to challenge gender norms ...... 21 3.- INITIAL RESEARCH PHASE ...... 23 3.1 Understanding Context: Toys ...... 23 3.2 Analogous products ...... 24 3.3 Content analysis ...... 26 3.3.1 Male/Female ratio or MFR ...... 27 3.3.2 Level of active participation of female characters ...... 28 3.3.3 Relationship between male and female characters ...... 29 3.3.4 Theme ...... 30 3.4 Visual analysis ...... 31 3.4.1Character’s physical features ...... 31 3.4.2 Sculpting style ...... 31 3.4.4 Action figure outfits ...... 34 3.5 Content and Visual analysis findings ...... 35

4.- CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT ...... 39 4.1 First hypothesis ...... 39 4.2 Second hypothesis ...... 39 4.3 Finding a playing theme ...... 39 4.4 Visual analysis of Animal Planet and Playmobil wildlife toys...... 41 5.- IDEATION ...... 45 5.1 Character development ...... 45 5.2 The syntax of action figures ...... 45 5.3 Elements of design ...... 46 5.3.1 Gender ...... 46 5.3.2 Ethnicity ...... 46 5.3.3 Age ...... 46 5.3.4 Body type ...... 46 5.3.5 Profession or activity...... 48 5.3.4 Outfit Accessories ...... 49 5.3.5 Nationality ...... 49 5.3.6 Backstory ...... 49 5.4 Narrative ...... 50 5.5 The characters ...... 50 5.6 Play dynamic ...... 52 5.7 User journey map ...... 54 6.- COMPLEMENTARY RESEARCH PHASE ...... 56 6.1 Persona definition ...... 56 6.1.2 Cultivators ...... 58 6.1.3 Refiners ...... 58 6.1.4 Innovators ...... 58 6.1.5 Resisters ...... 58 6.2 Recruitment ...... 59 6.3 In-depth Interview ...... 60 6.4 .- Questionnaire design ...... 61 6.4.1 Solitary play ...... 62 6.4.2 Group play ...... 62

6.4.3 Family dynamic ...... 63 6.4.5 Neighborhood dynamic ...... 63 6.4.6 Popular culture ...... 64 6.4.7 Parent buying criteria...... 64 6.4.8 Parents views on gendered division of toys ...... 64 6.4.9 Gender rigidity phase ...... 64 7.- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...... 66 7.1 Forms of play ...... 66 7.2 Gender ...... 67 7.3 Evaluation of the project’s concept ...... 68 7.4 Further research ...... 68 8.- REFERENCES ...... 70 9. – APENDICES ...... 88

LIST OF FIGURES

Figurce 1 Jeong Mee Yoon. The Pink and Blue Project (2005) ...... 5

Figure 2 Gender neutral gowns worn by boys circa 1890 ...... 7

Figure 3 Sex differences in Infants’ visual interest in toys ...... 11

Figure 4 Phase of rigid gender stereotypes in children's development ...... 14

Figure 5 Examples of toys that encourage girls to play outside gender norms ...... 24

Figure 6 Boy playing with a Wonder crew doll ...... 26

Figure 7 Types of sculpting ...... 32

Figure 8 Exaggerated body proportions in action figures ...... 33

Figure 9 Avengers 3 Pack (Attire practicality) ...... 34

Figure 10 Teams in Tv shows ...... 40

Figure 11 Animal planet toys ...... 43

Figure 12 Playmobil toys Wild-life collection ...... 44

Figure 13 Woman and Man body proportions ...... 47

Figure 14 Veterinarans in action ...... 48

Figure 15 Action figure collection ...... 51

Figure 16 Boy playing with Animal rescue team collection ...... 53

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LIST OF APENDICES

Appendix 1 Body type exploration ...... 88

Appendix 2 Male body proportions ...... 88

Appendix 3 Character ideation ...... 89

Appendix 4 Dr. Gomes Ideation ...... 91

Appendix 5 Dr. McClain Ideation ...... 91

Appendix 6 Dr. Irwin Ideation ...... 92

Appendix 7 Dr. Matenga Ideation ...... 92

Appendix 8 Dr. Fossey Ideation ...... 93

Appendix 9 Dr. Wu Ideation ...... 93

Appendix 10 Dr. Ramos ...... 94

Appendix 11 Dr. Benoit Ideation ...... 94

Appendix 12 Figure orthogonal views ...... 95

Appendix 13 Persona Cards ...... 96

Appendix 14 Interview participants ...... 106

Appendix 15 Interview summary ...... 110

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PREFACE

Across countries cultures and generations, it is quite common to expect anyone turning 30 to start having children if not before. For example, if I had followed the footsteps of my older friends I should already have two kids at least. As a matter of fact, I do not know if I will ever become a father. I do not feel any intense desire to become one. Additionally, there are too many obstacles in my way, to become one. Health issues prevent me from taking such a decision. Therefore, the reason behind my interest in the topic of children's development is not a personal but a purely professional one.

As a designer, I have been trained to be watching others people’s behaviors in search for situations of discomfort, frustration or stress that could become areas of opportunity for design.

This kind of constant observation of other people’s actions and yearnings has also provided me with information about people’s interests and tastes and the rituals they perform to enjoy and communicate them. It was in this way that I first became interested in the interactions between children, their parents and toys.

A decade ago most of my closest friends started having children, which naturally exposed me to some of the rituals that modern society has to celebrate the coming of a new baby.

Baby showers, baptism celebrations and all sort of peculiar practices started to pop out of nowhere calling my attention.

One of these parties that intrigued me was one called gender reveal party. At first glance, I thought that it was just a new name for a baby shower party, but it turned out to be something different.

In a baby shower usually, the friends of the soon-to-be-mother are the ones responsible for organizing the party, which involves mainly female friends who give her all sorts of presents to help in her future chores as a mother. The gifts presented in this kind of party could be chosen according to the sex of the baby or not. On the other hand, the gender-reveal-party is held by

ix the expecting parents to reveal the sex of their future baby to their friends and family in a way as creative and amusing as possible. Gifts from their friends are expected to be chosen according to the baby’s sex.

The first thing that I found most intriguing, was to notice how parents were already ascribing, all by themselves, to a set of ideas regarding their baby, which arguably, are not worth ascribing to or that could be questioned if they are, in any way, beneficial for them or their baby. It is a set of rules, set by each different society, about what it means to be expecting a baby boy or a baby girl. Different rules for each case that are out there, part of the collective unconscious expected to be used unquestioned.

Are parents preparing to educate in a gender divisive way even before their babies are born?

What could the implications be, of starting dividing newborn into two different and separate categories?

These and other questions started forming in my mind, while I was also thinking about how they were using the word sex and gender interchangeably to talk about different concepts.

With my basic understanding of the current studies about gender, I already knew that sex and gender were two separate concepts, and that for some reason, some of the parents I observed tend to mix them into one, believing that biological sex differences are the only and direct cause of the differences between boys’ and girls’ behavior.

Throughout this project, I will explain why this is not the case and how a person’s gender identity even though it does have biological bases, is mostly built through social interaction.

Additionally, another important reason that accounts for my interest in childhood development is that every idea and personality trait that is assimilated during childhood will later on surface as an adult behavior. This is of the utmost importance because today, humanity is facing many critical challenges that are crucial for the survival of future generations. There are problems like

x climate change or water stress that have not been taken seriously enough by governments around the planet which could jeopardize our very existence in a not very distant future.

Therefore, one of the most relevant problems we face today as a global community is the matter of inequity in all its facets. People around the globe suffer one or many types of inequity that harm basic human dignity and hinder the inalienable right to the search of happiness.

It was one of these kinds of inequity that got my attention several years ago.

Back in the nineties newscasts in Mexico began to report a phenomenon that somehow didn’t seem relevant at the moment, because regretfully as a society Mexicans have become used to a certain amount of regular violence in their everyday lives. Women were being murdered in the border town of Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Year after year reports kept on coming until by 2013, 700 women had been killed with no suspects and no one held accountable.

Among the many factors that are involved in the explanation of this horrible situation, we find the cultural context of Mexico with its shameful machismo.

Machismo is an overemphasized form of masculinity that requires men to be nothing else but strong, brave, emotionally controlled and assertive. All of these characteristics are in fact healthy for any person to have but within machismo, they are the only valid ones to have as a man and they confer their bearer the right to subjugate less powerful men but mainly women.

Social scientists have tried to explain the origins and evolution of machismo from different perspectives and describe its different characteristics but what is essential for this project is to understand it as one of the various manifestations of what social scientist R.W. Connell calls hegemonic patriarchy.

Connell describes hegemonic patriarchy as the current configuration of practice that legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of women, and other marginalized ways of being a man.(Connell, 2005)

One of the many explanations that has been postulated to account for the assassination of all those women in Ciudad Juarez is that that they broke the rules of proper female behavior. When they started to work in the factories outside the city, they began to gain economic independence from their men which threatened their "Macho" masculinity.

As a Mexican man that has grown surrounded by independent, educated women, I have always found intriguing how the macho version of masculinity could become the sense of self of many of my fellow countrymen. I have always wondered what could be the processes behind the development of such a narrow vision of the world that brings so much misery not only to women but also to the men that hold this position.

My interest in the subject intensified when I married a psychologist whose specialty is working with people who have suffered gender violence. By seeing her work along with other psychologists, I began to understand that the best way to avoid a future 36 year old man from beating his wife is to talk to him now when he is only 6.

This reasoning led me to think that maybe I could merge my interest in the development of healthy gender identities with my passion for toy design.

Could I possibly find a way to design a toy or a game to teach small boys about gender equality and therefore contribute in the fostering of healthy relationships with girls?

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1.- INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the research process that enabled informed decision making during the design of an action figure collection which purpose is to allow boys to explore key concepts about gender equality, leadership, caring and empathy through semi-guided pretend play.

The need for such a product comes from a series of analyses and reflections about the necessity of creating new masculinities that enable men to construct more flexible schemas to evaluate the world.

The first step to understand the need of such a product lies in describing the process that links a boy’s stereotypical gendered childhood with violence against women.

Violence against women

The World Health Organization defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life." (“WHO | Violence against women,” n.d.)

The understanding of this definition requires the clarification of the term “gender-based violence”.

Population Services International (www.psi.org) defines gender-based violence as “an act violence directed at an individual based on his or her sex, gender identity or expression of socially defined norms of masculinity and femininity.

This means that women who suffer gender-based violence are being attacked simply for the mere fact that they are women.

It is crucial to note that most of this violence is intimate partner violence. According to WHO fact sheets, worldwide, almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime. ."

(“WHO | Violence against women,” n.d.)

In addition the U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics reported that in 2008 about 99% of the intimate partner violence against females was committed by male offenders.(“Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) - Female

Victims of Violence,” n.d.)

This is where the connection between early childhood development and violence against women begins to unfold. Humans begin to produce gender labels very early in life, (Zosuls et al., 2009). “[...] it is important to examine children’s understanding of gender as a social category because it is typically the first collective social identity that children learn and is associated with a range of stereotypes used by children and adults to make inferences about others (Ruble et al., 2004)

In 2016 the World Health Organization released its “Global plan of action to strengthen the role of the health system within a national multisectoral response to address interpersonal violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children.”

The actions proposed in this document have to do mainly with corrective measures to address the current urgent situation; however towards the end it does recognize the importance of preventive measures. Regarding prevention to stop the violence it mentions:

Violence against women and girls is rooted in gender-based discrimination and social norms and

gender stereotypes that perpetuate such violence. Given the devastating effect violence has on

women, efforts have mainly focused on responses and services for survivors. However, the best

way to end violence against women and girls is to prevent it from happening in the first place by

addressing its root and structural causes.

Prevention should start early in life, by educating and working with young boys and girls

promoting respectful relationships and gender equality. Working with youth is a “best bet” for

faster, sustained progress on preventing and eradicating gender-based violence. While public

policies and interventions often overlook this stage of life, it is a critical time when values and

norms around gender equality are forged.

(“WHO | Global plan of action to strengthen the role of the health system within a national multisectoral response to address interpersonal violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children,” n.d.)

It is evident that Violence against women is a complex, most serious problem that will require efforts form all levels of society and governments to overcome it. This project represents an effort in that regard and proposes that established gendered norms, which are generators of inequality, can be challenged at a very young age through play.

In the first chapter the process of understanding the current situation of the gendered division of toys is examined, a review of what research has to say about how children select their toys of preference and how the development of their gender identities will provide a gap of opportunity. Secondly, the importance of play will be examined to find which type of play will render a best possible way to challenge gendered norms. In the second chapter, an evaluation is done on the current offer of toys that allow children expand their playing possibilities beyond the established binary division that currently restrains their options. With all the information collected from the secondary research and this first primary research stage the final problem statement will be defined.

Chapter three explains the development of the first concept. It presents the criteria for developing the rules of the game, the physical attributes of the characters and the overall user sequence.

Chapter four explains the methods that were used to conduct primary research. First, it explains the criteria to develop personas to properly select interviewees. Secondly, it describes the process of designing the questions for the interview. Finally it describes the interviewee selection process.

Chapter five explains how the interviews were conducted and presents the results of the interviews.

Finally, in chapter six conclusions are drawn and ideas are proposed on how to apply these conclusions to the current concept and how to expand the topic with further research.

2.- BACKGROUND

2.1 Historical background: Why pink for girls and blue for boys? South Korean photographer Jeong Mee Yoon created a photography project in 2005 called ‘The Pink and Blue Project’ where she photographed children of different ages surrounded by all their belongings that had just one color: all blue or all pink. (“JeongMee Yoon’s official website,” n.d.)

Figure 1 Jeong Mee Yoon. The Pink and Blue Project (2005)

She started this project when her five-year-old daughter couldn’t get enough pink possessions. This made her realize that this preference is the result of cultural influences and the power of pervasive marketing that says pink is for girls and blue is for boys.

Still, her project was just a way to make this phenomenon evident, however the causes and effects were yet to be explored. Many questions rise as to where this cultural imposition came from.

When did all this start? Was it always pink a color associated with girls and blue with boys?

Moreover, why specifically pink and blue? Why not orange for girls or green for boys?

Dr. Jo B. Paoletti at the University of Maryland explains in her book: Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America (2012) that the answers to this questions might be found in the advertising industry of the late 19th century and early 20th century and later reinforced by the side effects of technological advancements such as ultrasound.

The process that created gender-specific clothes was neither linear nor fast. Pink and blue were not special in any way; when they first appeared on baby’s clothing, they came along with other pastels, in the mid-19th century. These two colors began to be promoted as gender signifiers just after World War

I—and even then, it took time for popular culture to really adopt them.

For example, Dr. Paoletti says that in a June 1918 article from a commercial publication called Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies.

(“When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?,” n.d.)

On the other hand, there is evidence that men and women prefer different kinds of colors as indicated by research such as the one conducted by Hulbert, A. C., & Ling, Y. (2007) In their research they demonstrate that there are robust sex differences in color preference, (women preferring redder hues and men leaning towards blue) which are consistent with the evolution of sex-specific behavioral uses of trichromacy. Yet they warn that while these differences may be innate, they may also be modulated by cultural context or individual experience. It is important to note that this tension between nature and nurture will be the norm in all things concerning gender. Dr. Paoletti explains that there is really no reason behind the actual selection of pink and blue as the detonators of gender. Before any of these

6 two colors came into play, it is clear that babies around Europe and the US wore white clothes that were handed down from older generations and reused, not because gender neutrality was important, because back then it was not even an issue; they simply wore white because it was more practical, for example easier to wash using bleach, and it could be handed down to the next generation of babies.

Therefore children wore white gowns before the age of 6 that had been passed down to them by earlier generations. These white gowns definitely did not allow any kind of gender identification as we can see in figure 1.

Figure 2 Gender neutral gowns worn by boys circa 1890

By the late 19th century, however, and especially after Freud and other psychologists' postulated theories of childhood development, it was when parents began to differentiate their offspring's sex since early on. In doing so, some parents favored pink for girls and blue for boys, though Paoletti reports great variations for several more decades.

Journalist Anna Broadway interviewed Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute

Technology and author of several books on fashion. Steele explains that the French exerted an early, and quite modest, influence on pink's gendered meaning. Thus, as both she and Paoletti note, Louisa

May Alcott's 1880 classic Little Women credits the French when Amy distinguishes her sister's newborn twins by giving the baby girl a pink ribbon, the baby boy blue.(“Pink Wasn’t Always Girly - The Atlantic,” n.d.)

For several decades, however, pink defied consensus. Based on a review of museum collections and other sources, Paoletti found pink baby gifts and even the occasional garment for boys or "baby brother paper dolls" into the 1960s, though "[these examples are all clearly out of the mainstream. By the 1950s, pink was strongly associated with femininity."

The association of Pink with femininity and blue with masculinity began in the 20th century after WWI but during the 60’s and 70’s with women rights movements and sex liberation ideals, it lost momentum, although it did not disappeared. It was during the mid-1980’s when parents began to learn the sex of their baby previous to birth thanks to the advancement in ultrasound technology. This allowed companies to offer a vast array of products for parents to prepare the arrival of their new baby. In the end, the current use of pink and blue to differentiate between genders was a combination of consumer culture, -gender-identity formation in children, parental anxiety about the same, mass production vs. home sewing of clothes, and changing societal beliefs about masculinity and femininity, propriety, and gender roles. (“Pink Wasn’t Always Girly - The Atlantic,” n.d.) This historical evidence shows that the current division of toys using color coding for gender distinction has strong relations to social and commercial forces influencing culture, and as further exploration about the subject will show in the following chapters, it has little relationship with any cognitive developmental process or innate preference.

2.2.- Identifying a problem: Gendered division of toys The problems we face today as a global society sometimes appear pretty straight forward at first glance, but once we start trying to solve them, they begin to show their complexity.

We live our daily lives surrounded by all type of problems and phenomena but usually they go unnoticed. One of the ways in which these phenomena calls the attention of designers is when someone externalizes their discomfort about something, in other words, when someone complains about something. Yet, the complaint itself is not enough to justify any design endeavors to start unfolding.

Someone’s complaint about a situation is just the first motivator to start asking a lot of questions. One of the most crucial mistakes designers do is to take people’s complaints as valid right away, instead of considering the complaint as a starting point to begin a research phase that must evaluate the Social,

Economic and Technological factors surrounding it, to see if it qualifies as a true opportunity for design or POG (Product Opportunity Gap) that would still require deep examination and analysis until it can be translated into a design concept (Cagan & Vogel, 2002)

In the case of this project, the frustration externalized by a group of people was quite evident; a group of parents around the world were complaining about the gendered division of toys and the marketing strategies to sell them that also divide toys into two categories: Toys for boys and toys for girls.

(“Parents struggle to find gender-neutral toys,” n.d.) .

These parents’ arguments were presented through blogs, websites and even organizations formed by the parents themselves to call for gender neutral toys, like the campaign launched in the UK Let Toys Be

Toys to persuade retailers to stop categorizing toys by gender. (“Let Toys Be Toys,” n.d.)

At first glance, these parents’ demands may seem reasonable in the light of modern day gender equality ideals; after all, what they are saying makes sense: do not constrain kid’s choices by telling them what is suitable for them to play with, let kids decide what they find fun to play with.

Lisa Dinella, associate professor at Monmouth University and Principal Investigator of the Gender

Development Laboratory said in an Interview for The Guardian: “Both genders lose out if we put kids on one track and they can’t explore.(Oksman, 2016) However, toy companies argue that they are not imposing anything onto anyone and that they are just merely responding to what they have discovered their target market is demanding. Some toy companies argue that they have done their homework well and have discovered that there is a natural predisposition in boys and girls to play in distinct ways.(La

France, 2016) To create “Lego Friends,” the company “embarked on four years of global research with

4,500 girls and their moms,” said Michael McNally, a Lego spokesman. (La France, 2016)

So, who is correct? Toys companies that have invested millions of dollars in studies to understand how children play, and have discovered differences between boys’ and girls’ forms of play, or concerned parents who are asking for gender neutral toys to help their kids expand their horizons beyond established gendered norms?

The literature review performed for this project showed that there are in fact several studies that have found innate preferences in boys and girls towards different types of toys. If any results have been overwhelmingly consistent, those are the ones that indicate a clear difference in the selection of toys shown by boys and girls from a very young age before they could have any understanding of gender.(Alexander, Wilcox, & Woods, 2009) (Benenson, Tennyson, & Wrangham, 2011)

Figure 3 Sex differences in Infants’ visual interest in toys

The problem is that there is also research that shows that similarities between boys and girls are far significant than any of the differences that have been found. (Fine, 2010)

The current evidence shows that there are more similarities than differences in the overall behavior and learning patters of boys and girls, with a marked difference in toy preference which has both nature and nurture components. As Dr. Lips explains in her book: “ …most people who have studied [gender] claim an interactionist position: they do not argue about how much nature or nurture influences particular aspects of development, but try instead to figure out how the two sets of influences interact to produce certain results.” (2014)

Therefore the answer to the previous question of who could be holding the correct position in the matter of gendered division of toys is that both sides have enough evidence to claim that they are right.

The fact that manufacturers have found that boys and girls play differently is supported by numerous studies (Campbell, Shirley, Heywood, & Crook, 2000); (Cherney & London, 2006); (Freeman, 2007).

However there is also plenty of information provided by researchers to support the claim that labeling toys as suitable for one gender and not for the other limits the possibilities of exploration and learning for children.(Reich, Black, & Foliaki, 2017) One of these studies,(Martin & Ruble, 2004) explains that according to the self-socialization perspective, (that explains that children actively look for cues and information to shape explanations about the world around them) children who understand that their social worlds are divided into boys and girls and that they belong to one of these groups will become motivated to acquire knowledge about the two groups, and their own group in particular, and shape their own behavior to fit these stereotypes.

Here is where the complexity of the problem starts to become evident, boys and girls do play differently but they do so based on the information that is available to them in their environment, but it is even more complex than that because children use stereotypes to create simple and clear definitions to label everything around them to facilitate its understanding.(Trautner et al., 2005)

Therefore it resulted crucial to understand how children use these stereotypes that seem to be the detonators of a chain of events that end up creating inequality, prejudice and discrimination.(Schneider,

2004)

2.3 Understanding a problem: Children’s use of gender stereotypes If any effort was to be attempted to challenge the gendered division of toys, it was crucial first to understand the development of different processes that take place during childhood regarding gender.

Maccoby & D’Andrade (1966) explain that Kohlberg ,building on Piaget’s work, showed that children develop cognitively in three stages: gender identity (two years), children realize they are either a boy or a girl; gender-stability (three to four years), they recognize this identity does not change over time; and gender-constancy (five to seven years), they understand that this identity is not affected by changes in gender-typed appearances, activities or society’s roles. One theory suggests that the relative strength or rigidity of gender-related knowledge and behavior waxes and wanes across children’s development, with a specific path (Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002; Halim et al., 2014). Between two and four years, toddlers begin to be aware of gender stereotypes; then from five to seven years, they embrace strong gender norms and become rigid (Trautner, 1992) This pattern of a strong rigidity between five and seven is consistent with the attainment of gender-constancy: children are highly motivated by gender norms when they acquire gender-constancy (Martin et al., 2002). Finally, by eight years, they enter a phase of gender-flexibility, recognizing that a wider range of behaviors or objects is acceptable for both genders

(Trautner, 1992) More recent work has confirmed that children’s rigidity about gender norms peaks around ages five and six, and then becomes more flexible (C. F. Miller, Trautner, & Ruble, 2006; Trautner et al., 2005). In addition, gender-flexibility varies among adults and among children after they reach gender constancy (Liben & Bigler, 2002) with some being lower in gender-flexibility and others being higher. Instruments to evaluate gender-flexibility of children and adults have then been developed

(Liben & Bigler, 2002) and proved successful (Ulrich & Tissier-Desbordes, 2013). For example, Bakir and

Palan (2010) ) recently showed that children aged eight to nine with high gender-flexibility have more positive attitudes towards gendered advertisements than children with low gender-flexibility.

Figure 4 Phase of rigid gender stereotypes in children's development

For this project it was important to understand that until these three stages are complete, children actively look for, all the information they can get from their surroundings that allow them to understand what their own identity is and to what group they belong. This is a very intense and dynamic stage where children use very rigid gender stereotypes to make explanations of the world around them.(Martin & Ruble, 2004) It was important then to clearly identify the time frame in which this process occurs to avoid it all together. If children use stereotypes as part of their development, to make sense of the world around them, it would be useless to try to challenge them during this stage.

On the other hand, if researchers have found that these stereotypes become more flexible over time, it appeared logical to predict that there was more chance for success in challenging gendered norms after this moment in their development.

Therefore the age frame that was chosen for further research was between 6 and 10 years of age when children are still playing with toys on a daily basis unlike older children that start to switch interests more akin with adolescence, but are old enough to have gone through the gender stereotype rigidity phase already.

After narrowing down the exploration of opportunities to children between the ages of 6 and 10, the next step was to determine what aspects of play could be used to effectively challenge gendered norms, but before that another aspect had to be examined, which had to do with a very common problem designers face when their final user and the customer are not the same person. In this case, parents need to be studied.

2.4 Understanding a problem: Parents’ beliefs and practices regarding gender Before any toy with all its many attributes might exert its beneficial influence on children, first it must pass the scrutiny of parents. It is true that children have a strong influence over their parents and it has been documented that parent buy toys mainly because of offspring pressure.(Bakir & Palan, 2010)

However this dialogue between parents and children is not a simple one, especially when it comes to buying toys targeted to the other gender .

Caldera, Huston, & O’Brien (1989) argue that gender differences in the toy play of children are the result of both the parents' beliefs about play and the physical qualities of the toys. The social pressure from society to select toys that will produce appropriate behaviors in their children and the characteristics of the toy that may appeal to one gender more than the other may have a combined effect on the toy selection of the child. O’Brian and Huston (1985) add that parents expect children to prefer gender- typed toys and so they provide them more often. However (Kane, 2012) classified parents according to their gender beliefs practices and their reactions to social pressure and discovered that there are many different combinations of traits that render different results. This classification is very important for this project as it will be used as a guide to find parents of certain profile that are more susceptible to understanding the benefits of the concept being developed to be interviewed.

It is of special concern the role fathers play in allowing their sons to explore play beyond gendered norms, because research puts them as a strong deterring factor for their sons to do this. (Freeman,

2007)

Summary

From this general analysis of the problem of gendered division of toys we can extract three main points that will direct the trajectory of this project.

First, to recognize that there are in fact differences in the way boys and girls play and that although research has been unable to determine their origin they do exert an important influence on both children and parents in toy selection. Secondly, understand that children undergo a stage of gender stereotype rigidity between the ages of 3 and 6 where they use stereotypes to reaffirm their own identity. Once they achieve gender stability after they are 6 years of age their use of gender stereotypes begins to become more flexible. It is after this stage is over that we detect an area of opportunity to begin challenging gender stereotypes. Finally, acknowledge the complicated dynamic that is present between parents and children in the selection of toys and the role mothers and fathers play in allowing their son to explore beyond gender limits.

2.5.- The importance of play Play should never be underestimated, because there is more to it than meets the eye. Play sometimes is seen as something that children do because they are immature, and as something they will grow out of as they become adults.(Whitebread, 2012) However, play is considered by a large consensus of experts, to be one of the most effective providers of learning opportunities for children.(Ginsburg, 2007)

“The value of play is increasingly recognized, by researchers and within the policy arena, for adults as well as children, as the evidence mounts of its relationship with intellectual achievement and emotional well-being.”(Whitebread, 2012). Nevertheless, it could be argued that paly is still not comprehended entirely by many parents and teachers who still think that play is a trifle activity, merely aimed to entertain children. Much work still needs to be done to inform, all society, about of the importance of play in children’s healthy development.

What is relevant for this project I to understand that play is an important part of children’s learning. Not only does it provide opportunities for physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development, but play also enables children to experiment with social roles and cultural practices in the world around them(Eleanor E. Maccoby, 1998) .

A general definition of play according to various authors(Huizinga, 1955);(Hughes, 2010) must include the following characteristics:

It has to be voluntary, which means than it has to be an activity children choose to do and other children are invited to join in. It has to be pleasurable; the activity must produce a deep sense of enjoyment, which may vary from child to child. It has to be intrinsically motivated, which means that children don’t do it looking for a particular outcome or benefit, they enjoy the play itself. Play also has to be symbolic, which means that it usually includes some type of make-believe or pretend objects that assume new meanings or purposes for the players. Play has to be meaningful to the players although

17 the meaning may not be clear to an outsider. It has to be active therefore it requires active mental, verbal or physical engagement. And last but not least it has to be process oriented, which means that players do not give importance to the outcome of the activity but to the process of doing the activity.

It is important to have in mind all this characteristics to contrast them with Vygotsky’s approach to play,

(Bodrova, 2008) which will be used as the basic definition of play for this project. Vygotsky’s approach to play is adequate to solve the question raised in the previous chapter about how to use play to challenge gender stereotypes because Vygotsky narrows the use of the term and reduces it to the dramatic or make-believe play typical for preschoolers and children of primary school age. Thus, Vygotsky’s definition of play does not include many kinds of other activities, such as movement activities, object manipulations and explorations that are referred to as ‘play’ by most educators as well as non- educators. ‘Real’ play, according to Vygotsky, has three components:

● Children create an imaginary situation,

● take on and act out roles, and

● follow a set of rules determined by specific roles.

Now let’s examine why these three characteristics will be useful as tools to challenge gender stereotype through play.

2.5.1 Pretend, Make-believe play When children engage in pretend play, they make up stories and scenarios. Children act out real events and they also take part in fantasy play about things that are not real, such as fairies or super heroes. But most importantly for this project, children try out roles, occupations and experiences in their pretend play.(Lillard et al., 2013) Through this recreation of reality, children get general information about the scene and characters provided that it is given by a previous narrative, written material or narration from an adult. This reenacting is what makes pretend play so useful to explore ideas and feelings. Through

18 make-believe roles, children must follow certain predetermined rules, which would allow them to learn adult expectations for behaviors, and master social norms. Through sociodramatic play, children come to understand the meaning of the particular role they play, act out that role, and learn to maintain the associated script. When children use action figures or dolls to act out situations it can be even more enriching because one child can play the part of several characters at a time, while in dress up pretend play she can only act the one she is dressed up as. (Lillard et al., 2013) And because action figures cannot talk for themselves, children must give them a voice. Therefore if the child is playing with several different characters by herself, she must switch between the different personalities of the characters to make them interact accordingly. Similarly, they must learn the skills to develop the drama out of role, in order to shape the storyline. (Sutherland & Friedman, 2013)

However the most important factor in terms of design is the original messages given by the action figures and the narrative associated to them. From these messages, children will obtain the basic information from which they can derive their storylines. The same would happen with the different characters, it is the accurate and precise description of the character’s personalities and abilities on to which children will base their own dialogues and interactions.

2.5.2 Pretend play to challenge gender norms. As we will see when we talk about parents and their different approaches towards gender, there are many of them that are ok with the idea of buying toys that make a clear distinction between what is suitable for a boy and what is suitable for a girl. (Kane, 2012). Regretfully, this project is not for them, because whom we want to help here are those parent who are already aware of the limitations that a gendered playtime could impose on their children’s development, which are many, and cannot find the right toys to help their children expand their horizons. Children's play with toys and their toy choices have been shown to have long term consequences for later social and cognitive development.(Cherney,

Kelly-Vance, Glover, Ruane, & Ryalls, 2003) . For example, there are plenty of studies that show that play

19 with feminine toys seems to elicit nurturing, proximity, and role play whereas play with masculine toys tends to foster higher mobility, activity, and manipulative play (Blakemore & Centers, 2005; Martin &

Ruble, 2004). Play with only one category would limit the experience of children to only those characteristics, never exploring the other ones that are also relevant to a healthy development. (Brown,

2014). . In addition, gender stereotyped toys contribute to the formation of gender schemata (Martin &

Halverson, 1981) which have been shown to contribute to stereotyped activities, roles, and to influence recall(Cherney & Ryalls, 1999).

Before we continue it would be wise to talk about schemes or schemata because it will be a central concept in the justification and definition of this project.

2.5.3 Gender schemes. Gender schemas refer to cognitive structures of organized prior knowledge regarding the role expectations of individuals based on biological sex (Schneider, 2004, p. 120)

Gender schemas are mental models that determine the gender role expectations of individuals based on their biological sex. What is important to understand is that ‘‘the schema concept refers to cognitive structures of organized prior knowledge, abstracted from experience with specific instances; schemas guide the processing of new information and the retrieval of stored information’’(Fiske & Linville, 1980, p. 543) While schemas result from repeated observations of similar events(Perry, Davis-Blake, & Kulik,

1994), they also guide the processing of new information(Fiske & Linville, 1980). To summarize,

“schemas” can be loosely defined as theories we have about categories, and they function as frameworks for understanding what we see and what we hear. (Schneider, 2004)

With all the information gathered so far, it is possible at this point to formulate an incipient hypothesis, to help guide further research. Play with a research based designed toy can contribute to the formation of healthy schemes in boy’s minds that will enable them to engage in healthier relationships with

20 women. Naturally to be able to evaluate this hypothesis we would be talking about a quite expense longitudinal study, however it would seem that the first half of the assertion, that is, the formation of healthy schemes could be evaluated with an experiment to assess the effects of play on the ideas of boys about gender.

2.5.4 Deciding which playing option to use to challenge gender norms After formulating that first hypothesis, the next step was to find the correct play category that could efficiently help boys challenge gender norms. The first “playing” option that was considered for the purpose of challenging gender norms and that could still be worth exploring in another study, is the use of a video game. Video games are simply the most straight forward way to convey a message because of its narrative structure. In video games you have characters interacting with one another and through those interactions, lessons can be taught.(Squire, 2005) The reason this project did not follow that line of thought is because of the scope and time to develop a concept that could be tested ,but more importantly because video games promote a reactive form of learning versus action figures that promote a creative imaginative one, so for those reasons, the latter option was selected.

Boys can use action figures to portray equalitarian relationships between male and female characters which can contribute as one of the numerous sources of new information for the construction of healthier gender schemas.

Summary

Boys and girls do play differently but their preferences are shaped by both biological and social components. It is the social component the one that can be challenged in terms of gender but only after a stage of gender stereotype rigidity is over around the age of six. A useful tool to perform this challenge is the use of action figures because they allow children to engage in imaginative pretend play

21 which provides the opportunity to prompt concepts and ideas to guide their creative play which can derive in new ways of categorizing and understanding reality.

3.- INITIAL RESEARCH PHASE

3.1 Understanding Context: Toys Secondary research has shown so far that there is the possibility of boys playing with action figures endowed with certain characteristics could construct healthier gender schemas about women that could carry on into adulthood.(Aina & Cameron, 2011)

It is important to remember that even though parents might have an open mind when buying toys, children reliably prefer toys deemed appropriate to their gender and that is why children’s toys continue to be differentiated with respect to gender (Campenni, 1999; C. L. Miller, 1987) . This is important to consider because designers must never forget the Maya principle: Most advanced yet acceptable.(Loewy, 1951)

In this case applying such a principle would mean that an entirely new concept, openly challenging gender norms, cannot be presented neither to children nor their parents because it will have high risk of being rejected. To elaborate a first hypothesis, a careful study of the different communication channels that action figures have must be done to understand how to send the right messages in the right measure to both children and parents, looking to lower the risk of rejection.

The main concern of the project has been evolving from its inception and reached a level of consistency and precision after the literature review. The question right now is: What kind of stories could boys be creating with their action figures in terms of gender equality? Given that Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory focus on how the world around the child is embedded with messages that influence children’s interests, social roles, and sense of efficacy, (Bodrova, 2008) it is worthwhile to consider the messages that action figures send in terms of male/female relationships. To do this, first, the current offer of toys had to be examined in search of those toys that could already be giving children the chance to explore

23 male/female relationships beyond gender norms, in other words, similar solutions that could be addressing the problem already.

3.2 Analogous products The petition made by some parents to toy manufacturers to develop toys that do not constrain children to gender norms was heard by the big toy companies such as Hasbro or Mattel that started to react, but not in a significant way. The most recent study conducted by “Let toys be toys” organization, showed that the Christmas 2017 toy catalogues still presented a high percentage of stereotyped messages.

(“Majority of Christmas catalogues play to gender stereotypes, finds study,” 2017) In fact, it has been the smaller companies or some start-ups the ones that have developed various options to play outside the blue and pink boxes. It has to be emphasized that much of the effort of these companies has been focused on providing girls the much needed chance to empower themselves by exploring more active and assertive forms of play that so far had been neglected and underestimated by traditional girl toys.

Special emphasis has been put to the development of toys and games that could encourage girls’ interest in STEM subjects. (“Gendered toys could deter girls from career in engineering, report says |

Life and style | The Guardian,” n.d.)

Figure 5 Examples of toys that encourage girls to play outside gender norms

Figure 1 shows some examples of toys available (circa 2018) that allow girls to build things, discover science concepts, play with different professions as well as action figures that allow female characters work as a team. These products marketing strategy is interesting because they are using a traditionally gendered form of marketing with a stereotypically feminine color palette to sell a traditionally non- feminine topic. This aligns with the idea of the Maya concept where toy designers are deciding to sell these traditionally non feminine topics to girls by using a color palette that is familiar to them because of their actual cultural context. Pink is now so embedded in the collective unconscious mind of society that toy manufacturers that wish to give girls an opportunity to explore new play possibilities have to market everything in pink to avoid dismissal by girls and their parents (Weisgram, Fulcher, & Dinella, 2014).

On the other hand, boys face a quite different situation. Very few companies have thought of ways of allowing boys explore outside gendered norms. So far, seldom are the toys that allow boys to explore their emotional and empathic side of their personalities. Before November 2017 only one example was found that could fit the description of a toy that was allowing boys to play using their nurturing, caring and empathetic traits of their personalities and that was the Wonder crew by Play monster (Figure 6).

Psychotherapist Laurel Wider, creator of The Wonder Crew, said that she had combined the adventure factors of an action figure with the emotional connection of a stuffed animal to design this new concept.

This led to the thought that maybe it was in the combination of concepts that hid the clue to solve this kind of complex problem. The solition had to be atoy that could let boys practice caring and empathy while at the same time have adventures and action.

Figure 6 Boy playing with a Wonder crew doll

3.3 Content analysis The search for toys continued and categories started to become evident following an inductive approach, letting categories and patterns appear out of raw data.(Marsh & White, 2006) First, we began our categorization simply by searching for all of the female characters that were part of collections targeted to boys around our selected age group.

.Once the collections were selected, the first aspect that was evaluated was simply the female/ male ratio among the characters of each particular package. The Female/Male ratio or FMR would determine the chances a boy has to play with a female character per collection. The next thing to determine was the role those female characters held within that particular universe. To do this, the level of active participation of female characters was considered. The range went from Very passive role to Leadership role. This would determine the level of importance of that character within its narrative universe and therefore the likelihood of being selected by boys to join in their play. Next, the overall level of dynamism of the entire collection was examined, looking all for the possible activities children could

26 recreate with those particular figures going from very stationary activities like cooking or solving problems to very dynamic ones like exploring the wild or chasing criminals.

From this first selection we examined 5 brands: Justice League from Mattel, Marvel Legends from

Disney/Hasbro, Star Wars from Disney/Hasbro, WWE, and Playmobil. (Error! Reference source not found.) We examined a total of 141 products that included a total of 241 characters where only 41 out of the 241 were female. This throws a female/male ratio of approximately 1:5, which means that for every 5 male characters available for boys to play they will have the opportunity to play with only 1 female character.

We continued the examination by selecting those packages where male and female characters were being sold together. Now, the main focus here was to examine the relationship of the characters as transmitted by all the channels available, like text on the packaging, known stories in other media, their outfits and their physical attributes.

After this two examinations categories started to show up. We began to look for other attributes and we ended up using a chart that examined the following features.

3.3.1 Male/Female ratio or MFR This is the number of male characters versus number of female characters within a collection marketed for boys. This ratio describes the number of opportunities a boy has to play with a female character versus the number of opportunities to play with a male character within a certain action figure collection. As we can see the possibilities of a boy to play with a female character are very low, less than

5%.

Table 1 Male/Female Ratio of 5 Action figure Brands

Total number of Total number of Female Male Female/Male packages characters per characters characters Ratio examined brand

11 26 4 22 0.15

35 80 16 64 0.2

25 33 5 28 0.15

25 50 7 43 0.14

45 52 9 43 0.17

Total 141 241 41 200 0.17

3.3.2 Level of active participation of female characters This factor is important to define it clearly and concisely, because it would be irrelevant to include female characters into a collection if they do not have an active role in the narration. All the

28 communication channels available have to be used effectively to send the message that these character can participate in the same activities as male characters.

Table 2 Level of participation of female characters within 5 different brands

Level of Very Slightly Slightly Very Passive Active activity passive passive active Active

Type of Damsel in Second in Companion Helper Sidekick Leader role distress command

3.3.3 Relationship between male and female characters With the information provided by the different media associated with each brand, we had to determine if the relationship between male and female characters was a professional, neutral, friendly or a romantic one. Determining the nature of female/male relationships is important because female characters are traditionally portrayed in other media as secondary characters with very little influence in the progress of events within the plot and this commonly translated into action figures.

3.3.4 Theme Determine the overall theme of the collection was very important because it is within this context in which the interactions will take place. Special care was put into identifying any signs of violence.

Table 3 Brands playing themes

Brand Theme Conflict

Everyday problems: Everyday events policing, firefighting, sporting

Superheroes adventures Conflict between good and evil

Professional Wrestlers Wrestling rivalries

Space adventures Conflict between good and evil

3.4 Visual analysis

3.4.1Character’s physical features This category was divided into subcategories to examine on one side the physical characteristics of the figure such as bodily proportions, race, hair color, approximate age and on the other its clothing, accessories and use of color. These categories were used as a framework for a visual analysis (Leeuwen

& Jewitt, 2001) of different toy brands in search of design parameters for the new concept.

A visual examination was performed to determine crucial aspects that directly affect the design of action figures: sculpting style, body proportion, their outfits and their accessories.

3.4.2 Sculpting style This category was divided into three different values for coders to describe the overall appearance of the action figures in terms of the artistic manipulation of the shapes forming the figure. The first value was, realistic, when the appearance of the action figure is a direct representation of reality. The second was abstract when the appearance of the action figure has been reduced by the designer to its simplest geometric form while still conveying the idea of being a human body, and the third called semi-realistic when it has a mix of the two former values.

Figure 7 Types of sculpting

3.4.3 Action figure body proportions

This category was also divided into three values for coders to determine if the body of the action figure has been manipulated in such a way that certain parts of its anatomy have been exaggerated or diminished for some reason. Depending on whether the figure is male or female the first value would be hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine when the bodies have been sculpted in a way that they exaggerate certain proportions to emphasize feminine or masculine physical characteristics. The second value would be balanced, when the proportions correspond to those of a healthy human body, and the third would be caricatured, when the proportions have been deformed with other intentions in mind different from expressing masculine or feminine qualities. (Worobey & Worobey, 2014)

Research has provided evidence that the interaction of children with action figures with exaggerated anatomical configurations tend to generate problems with body image self-acceptance. Any anatomical modification or design decision regarding the body proportions of the action heroes must be justified

32 mainly to the type of activity that the characters would be performing. (Barlett, Harris, Smith, & Bonds-

Raacke, 2005)

Figure 8 Exaggerated body proportions in action figures

It is important to mention that sometimes it is the case that such justifications are not evident to the consumer, such as is the case of Barbie. Jill Barad former Mattel CEO explains in the documentary “The

Toys that made us” (“The Toys That Made Us (TV Series 2017– ) - IMDb,” n.d.) that the very controversial and criticized body proportions that Barbie has always had, actually have a practical purpose that is difficult to perceive with a naked eye. She explains that because the fabrics used to make

Barbie’s garments have certain thickness, a regular proportioned doll would look larger once dressed, that is why Barbie was sculpted with thinner proportions to compensate for the fabric’s thickness so that she would look more evenly proportioned once dressed. This is a clear example of how to justify every design decision made, however an effort should be made to make all of the justifications evident to the consumer.

3.4.4 Action figure outfits The type of attire that the action figures wear is an essential channel of communication that has to be studied carefully to make it convey the correct ideas about the character. This category was divided into two categories: practical and unpractical. The attire of an action figure would be considered practical when there is a logical connection between the activities the character performs and the clothes she is wearing to perform such an activity. On the contrary if the attire does not correspond to the type of activities the character performs it would be considered un-practical. When designing the concept, every fashion design decision has to be justified, providing evidence that support that certain garment is required to adequately perform certain activity.(M. K. Miller & Summers, 2007).

Figure 9 Avengers 3 Pack (Attire practicality)

As we can see in

Figure 9 there are three characters two male and a female. The character to the left is an extremely powerful superhero that requires no protection from its attire, in the middle there is a less powerful character that has a uniform composed of different padding and protection elements that send a visual message of the type of dangerous activity this character engages. However the last character, the

34 female one is wearing a tight jumpsuit that sends no clear messages as to what kind of activity she engages in. Usually female character’s attires are designed with the only purpose of enhancing the sexiness of the character and only that. When ideating, special care has to be put to this aspect of design in order to end up with attractive figures both male and female, that truly reflect their professions.

3.5 Content and Visual analysis findings This is a summary of the findings of the content and visual analyses that the researcher performed. It is important to mention that the reliability of the finding requires peer revision of the units of study and coding from different coders.

Marvel Legends is the collection that has a higher FMR of 25%. The conclusion could be that Marvel offers the best chance for Male/Female interaction; however the other factors that were also considered do not help bolster a gender equality message. For example, wherever two characters come in the same package, we noticed that the relationship between these characters is often a romantic one.

We want to avoid this so that boys can think of women beyond a romantic interest. In regards to the type of body of the characters, we detected that for men, designers are avoiding hyper-masculinized bodies, for women they still use hyper-feminine shapes specially accentuating the bust and waist hip ratio. We have to be careful when designing female characters to find the right proportions to communicate health and fitness without hyper-sexualizing them. This hyper-feminization is perhaps employed by the designers of this collection because it seems that this collection is targeted more to the adult collector market than children. In regards of the attire of the action figures we noticed that they are quite practical, especially those figures that are based on the film portrayal of the character.

The WWE collection provides some female action figures based on the real female wrestlers with realistic representations of their real physiques and their wardrobe. However the FMR is still low with only16%. Still it would not help much because Male and female interaction does not happen very often in this play narrative because Wrestlers usually compete within their own gender. When a two pack was found made up of male and female characters it was based upon their romantic relationship.

Justice League was a collection that could have a higher FMR because there are many female characters both in comics and in film to be included in this collection; however it presents a FMR or 17%. Another problem is that whenever a female character appears it is usually the same character all the time

(Wonder woman) The positive aspect is that Wonder woman has weight within that narrative and could be put in the same leadership plane as the Justice league two main male characters: Superman and

Batman .

Star wars presented a most unusual phenomenon; although it’s two last movies(Abrams, 2015; Edwards,

2016) depict strong independent women as their leading characters it has a FMR of 1:5, which should be higher. There is also something wrong going on in Hasbro/Disney because they had the opportunity to market their toys for both boys and girls but decided to group all of the female characters from different movies and TV shows under one brand called “Forces of Destiny” to target only girls using pink and purple hues in their packages and marketing material. Hasbro was also in the middle of controversy when in 2014 with the release of “The force awakens” movie, didn’t release any Rey figure (the main protagonist) into the market to the discontent of fans, mothers and girls. Curiously enough boys did not complaint about it. (“‘Star Wars’ Monopoly game criticized for leaving out Rey,” n.d.) Why did they do that?

Finally, we examined the Playmobil brand and found out that its greatest advantage is the wide variety of themes they offer, related to real life activities but still it has a low FMR of 7:1.The main problem we

36 detected had to do with the appearance of Playmobil’s character design, because the physical traits to distinguish male from female are reduced to a bare minimum, where sometimes only the long eyelashes allow the observer to identify a character as female.

An interesting collection was found within the Playmobil offer that gave us the idea of using the theme of wild life adventure as the main theme for the development of the new concept. The discovery of this collection prompted the search for more toys with this theme, and that is how the Animal Planet brand was discovered.

Using He-man and the Masters of the Universe as an example of a successful toy line that gave boys exactly what they wanted.(“The Toys That Made Us (TV Series 2017– ) - IMDb,” n.d.) Its creators explain its commercial success to multiple factors among which we find research. Their research told them that

5 year old boys want to reinforce their sense of self and feel control over their decisions, just as they are developing gender consistency (Martin & Ruble, 2004)

The lack of women in this collection could be justified by explaining the process of self-reaffirmation the boy is going through, where he wants to belong to the male group and have the power to accomplish great things. However, for this project we will be dealing with older children that had already undergone that developmental stage and that have a better capacity for understanding the world around them. It is important not to under-represent women in their play options.

The problem with selling female characters to boys is that they could easily be mistaken as dolls. Let’s remember that the only reason why we call them action figures is because Hasbro didn’t want parents to be reluctant to buy GI Joes for their boys for being considered dolls. (Barlett et al., 2005)

Therefore, one of the aspects that had to be studied in detail in the next research stage was that of the reluctance of parents specially fathers to let their sons play with dolls , which in the case of this project we have been calling them female character action figures.

After all this information has been obtained and analyzed, a new question has arisen:

What kind of stories could boys be reenacting if all of the characters they have at their disposal for play are male?

4.- CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

After concluding a literature review that covered a wide range of topics regarding gender development, cognitive development theories, parenting styles, children’s toy preferences, stereotyping and perception, and a n initial research stage made of content and visual analysis of analogous products, there was enough information to formulate two hypotheses.

4.1 First hypothesis Action figures have the intrinsic characteristics to be an effective tool to teach children concepts about gender equality, merit-based leadership and multidisciplinary cooperation.

4.2 Second hypothesis Mothers and fathers will accept the new play concept where male and female characters interact on the same level of expertise and capacity if it is duly justified and clearly communicated through all the communication channels provided by action figures.

4.3 Finding a playing theme To test these two hypotheses, a first concept had to be developed based on the information provided by secondary research, so that it could be presented before a group of parents that would then evaluate it. The first aspect that started to define the new concept was the use of a 1:1 ratio between female and male characters. Now, the immediate task was to find a theme where men and women could interact and work together as a team in a credible and exciting way. Following the findings of the analogous products analysis, the physical appearance of this action figure collection would have to look like a strike team very much in the old tradition of strike teams from old TV shows like Team A, Mission Impossible and Charlie’s Angels and more recently Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.

Figure 10 Teams in Tv shows

It is in fact the latter the one that has a more acceptable male/female ratio, where men and women interact in the same level of proficiency and leadership. However, in sake of expanding children’s emotional exploration, it was important to find a theme that was different from the very common fight between good and evil which all of the above mentioned shows had. Therefore, another search was conducted to find other possible sources of inspiration and another show from the 60s was discovered that seemed to have the right amount of action and adventure without the violent confrontations against bad guys. Daktari is a 1966 series that tells the story of a veterinarian doctor in Africa, where his primary mission is taking care of hurt animals. This prompted the idea of a rescue team that would encounter different difficult animal rescue scenarios that would have to be solved by the team members’ different areas of expertise.

After deciding that this was the theme of the collection another benchmarking and content analysis were conducted by narrowing down the scope to include only those action figure collections that had the same thematic. This new study helped to determine the physical characteristics of the characters so that they clearly transmit the idea that they are animal experts.

We found two brands that offer action figure play related to animals (circa 2018). Such brands were

Playmobil with their Wilde Life collection and Animal Planet.

4.4 Visual analysis of Animal Planet and Playmobil wildlife toys.

We examined a total of 12 products, 5 from Animal Planet(Figure 11) and 7 from Playmobil (Figure 12).

In Table 4 we can see the FMR of these two collections is pretty much the same as seen in the other ones we examined. In the Animal Planet collection men outnumber women in a ratio of 3:1, while in the

Playmobil wildlife collection they were outnumbered 9:4. Specially in this type of playing theme there is no reason why the FMR could not be 1:1.for full equity between male and female characters.

Both collections have pros and cons in terms of the other design factors.

For example where Animal Planet has better physical differentiators to clearly distinguish male from female characters, Playmobil is not as clear using only long eyelashes to make a character female.

However, Playmobil shows interest in making its groups of characters ethnically diverse, where Animal planet has no ethnic diversity.

Both brands ignore de age diversity factor and all of the characters look about the same age. (Young adults.) In terms of body proportions it is Animal Plante because of its more realistic sculpting style the one that has more realistic proportions although slightly exaggerated specially in men who have broader shoulder than the Shoulder/waist ratio of 1.6

Table 4 Visual analysis of Animal planet and Playmobil Wildlife brands

Elements of design/ Brands with

animal topic.

Female/Male Ratio 1:4 4:13

Age diversity No diversity No diversity

Visual elements for Clear differentiators (hair, Unclear differentiators gender differentiation face, body shape

Ethnic diversity No Yes

Body shape diversity No No

Body proportions Slightly exaggerated Neutral

Sculpting style Realistic Abstract

Practical attire for Practical attire for Attire animal/human interaction animal/human interaction

Tools and gadgets Tools and gadgets appropriate appropriate for Accessories for animal/human interaction animal/human interaction Vehicles Vehicles

Figure 11 Animal planet toys

Figure 12 Playmobil toys Wild-life collection

5.- IDEATION

5.1 Character development Although this part of the project would have benefited of the collaboration of a screenwriter or playwright, the design of the different characters was carried out using the wide array of design tools for ideation. The main goal of this ideation was to avoid gender stereotypes or any type of negative stereotypes, knowing that sometimes stereotypes are not always harmful, when used as quick generalizations that help communicate complex ideas. (Schneider, 2004)

It was important then to isolate each communication channel to be aware of the single messages they are sending to avoid contradictions that could hinder the clarity of the final overall message. In other words, all the communication channels had to be aligned and working together to help send a clear and concise message. The final message should be: A group of highly skilled professionals capable of solving veterinarian emergencies.

5.2 The syntax of action figures According to Dr. Puhalla (2011) the way in which the elements of a design are arranged constitutes its syntax. This arrangement will allow individuals to use their previous knowledge to give meaning to that syntax which will initially produce a visceral reaction that could be pleasant or unpleasant. The syntax or arrangement of the different elements of the design is crucial for the meaning or semantics to appear; otherwise the communication simply does not take place. That is why each and every element that conform the action figures has to be placed in its proper place at the adequate amount to try to elicit a pleasant reaction in our audience. The following are the elements that have to be arranged so that our potential customers can understand what the intention of this project is about.

Even though, this collection might benefit from the use of a written or multimedia narration, the action figures by themselves should send a clear message of what this is all about.

5.3 Elements of design

5.3.1 Gender The first things that our customers must notice when meeting with this new product for the very first time, on the shelf of a toy store or online, has to be the 1:1 FMR of the team. For that we must decide how to use the different physical features that allow the distinction between man and woman without exaggerations or caricaturization. Such as hair, eyelashes, lips and, body shape.

5.3.2 Ethnicity In the same token than gender, it is important to try and make this team as ethnically diverse as possible because it wouldn’t make much sense to try to talk about gender equality through play while not paying attention to other equally important social meanings. For that we must play during ideation with skin color and hair color.to create a visually diverse group.

5.3.3 Age Age was another element that had to be taken into consideration, although it was not clear if it would have been beneficial to add another component to the equality and diversity mix. In other words it could be pushing the envelope too far if older people were included. , it could be an idea worth exploring later on, in a possible expansion of the collection. The elements to convey the ages of the characters are hair color and facial wrinkles.

5.3.4 Body type As we have seen, body proportions have been a quite controversial within the action figure arena.

Barbie and He-man are just two extreme examples of Hyper-femininity and Hyper masculinity that have been studied by researchers concluding that these exaggerated depictions of the human body have

46 negative effects on children’s body self-perception and body self-acceptance.(Barlett et al., 2005;

Worobey & Worobey, 2014)

Taking in consideration all of the different messages that must be sent by this action figures, it was deemed necessary not too add yet another one to the list that could overflow the overall communication. That is why the body of each different character will sustain little changes from one another, a factor that also affects production, because of the number of molds required for the fabrication of the components. The shape of the bodies must clearly send the message of health and fitness that would be considered necessary for a professional that constantly faces physical trials. The proportions that we chose to be able to send this message of health and fitness were for men a

Shoulder /waist ratio of and a Waist hip ratio of and for women a Shoulder/waist ratio of and a waist/hip ratio of. These proportions would guarantee a harmonious shape for all of the bodies that will reliably transmit the idea that these characters are capable of facing physical challenges successfully.

Figure 13 Woman and Man body proportions

5.3.5 Profession or activity

One of the most useful aspects of action figures in shaping children’s understanding of the world is that they are tangible symbols that can accompany children everywhere. They are portable symbols sort of speak. Children choose to buy action figures because the characters represent something valuable, a role model or aspiration. In this respect it is important to understand how to communicate clearly the fact that these new characters are professional animal experts. For this purpose an extensive image search was conducted to study how real veterinarians and zoologists dress in the field.

The final outcome of this search was a mood board as shown in Figure 14.

True that to make each character more exciting, elements of their attire could be modified or exaggerated to create a more impactful impression, but had to be grounded in reality.

Figure 14 Veterinarians in action

5.3.4 Outfit Accessories

The attire and accessories are directly linked to the previous point about professional activity.

More than any other factor, professional activity will be communicated mainly by the characters attire and the tools of trade that each character must possess.

5.3.5 Nationality

According to Cherisse Scott(2015) representation in media is a very serious matter that can influence positively the life of children if done right.

Therefore, along with the other factors that are relevant to the main objective of this project we have to add the factor of nationality to have a truly diverse group of characters. Here is where the term intersectionality shows its value. It is possible to come up with a solution that is congruent with all the relevant topics about gender, but if somehow the rest of the factor are not well balanced, in this case for example if we make all of the characters of only one nationality we run the risk of creating rejection on behalf of buying parents. It is important to notice that rejection might come from any of the factors being unbalanced not just only nationality.

On the other hand it is only logical that if we are going to present a group of experts in different types of animals that they would come from different parts of the world. This would not only help us have representation but also believability.

5.3.6 Backstory

This is another important element that would benefit from having a collaboration with a professional writer to give life to these characters. Backstories are important because they help children understand the motivations behind the character’s actions. They also serve as a starting point for kids to develop

49 their own stories. At least some hints as to where they come from and their motivations to help animals should be developed. Maybe even design a favorite quote for each character.

5.4 Narrative So far it has been established that the action figure collection will be composed of animal experts that will take care of hurt animals. This concept alone already allows boys to practice their empathy and care towards other living beings. It could be argued that any toy company that wanted kids to play with animals would probably see this concept as already complete, a set of veterinarians with their proper accessories and their animals to take care of. Actually this is very much the concept that both Palymobil and Animal Planet currently offer. Therefore, to offer a more exciting and interactive experience it was decided that this team would not only cure animals when they arrive to them at their facilities but that would behave more proactively going on rescue missions that would make them face all sorts of perils.

Let’s not forget that the intention is to target young boys and that certain levels of motion and urgency must be part of the narrative to make it more appealing to them. (Reich et al., 2017)

The pitch would be: a team of 8 wild animal experts made up of veterinarians and zoologists from all over the world monitor the planet in search of animals in peril. Whenever they find an emergency they assemble a reaction squad specially selected to solve the specifics of the mission. This team of experts has the physical and intellectual training to face all types of dangers in order to save their animal friends.

5.5 The characters Finally it all came to start designing the actual characters. All of the before mentioned factors were taken into consideration to design each character individually and as part of the group.

In terms of representativeness we had to consider making this group diverse in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, nationality and body type. The factor of facial attractiveness is one that should be studied as a

50 whole new project because it would encompass the application of surveys and interviews to extract quantitative data to establish what kind of faces are considered attractive by our target market.

The scope of this project did not allow for such an investigation so we simply looked for faces that have been used in previous research as attractive and used their proportions to design the new characters’ faces. After a phase of ideation which can be seen in Anex 1 we developed 8 characters 4 men and 4 women separated into two groups: Veterinarians and Zoologists from 7 different countries

Figure 15 Action figure collection

With the design of this group of characters we are guarantying having a diverse group with representation of different ethical backgrounds, 7 different nationalities, and of course an even number of male and female characters. Each character has its own personality and area of expertise

Vet. Dante Malenga from Malawi specializes in primates. He is an expert tracker and knows the the

Mahale national park in Tanzania like the back of his hand.

Veterinarian Jorge Romero from México is an expert in marine species. He is an accomplished scuba diver and handles the glider like the best in that field.

Vet. Zeline Benoit from USA is from Louisiana and is an expert in reptiles

Vet. Bruce McClane from USA

Dr. Lina Holtzman from Germany

Dr. Elena “Elly” Gomes from Brazil specializes in birds. She is an expert photographer. She knows the

Amazonian jungle like no one else.

Dr. Lim Wu from China is an expert in reptiles. He comes from

Dr. Sarah Irwin from Australia

5.6 Play dynamic Now that we have a group of characters made up of the same number of men as of women that are all professionaly competent and have prowess, we still have a potential problem, boys might still decide to play only with male characters and leave females sitting down without engaging with them in any way.

Therefore we had to give an extra incentive to boys to select female characters, but most importantly we had to come up with a way of making that decision making justified and sound without using gender as a decision factor. It was never the intention of this project to become merely another attempt to include women into any activityjust as a tariff for sake of gender equality statistics.On the contrary we want boys to recognize our female characters as complelety physiscally different frommale characters and still be recognied as capable of performing physical feats and face difficult problems.

That is why we decided to include an digital interactive element in the form of a website that would sefve as a comand center where the team would get their missions from.As in many TV series and cartoons, where the heroes communicate with an intelligence center that sets forward what the heroes

52 must acomplish, our users would have to log in the web site through any device of their choice and receive a rescue mission to perform.

The website would give kids useful and exciting information about an animal in danger that has to be rescued. It would stablish the scenario in a small video where the dangerous situation would be explained. Then the site would ask the children to select among the 8 team members who would be the

3 more adecuate t go on that mission. Each mission would have specific situations that would match one of the particular characteristics of the characters. With help of each characters info cards the child must make an assesment of the different abilities each character has and which of those mathc the charactieristics of the mission. After deciding who the three must suitable team memebers are our user must mark her choices online for the sistem to evaluate his decisions. If the sistem agrees that he has made the right choices then it would tell the child to carry on and go play the mission, if it disagrees then it would made a sugestion of who would be a more suitable member for the mission. After this interactive stage the child would take his action figures and go and play however he pleases.

Figure 16 Boy playing with Animal rescue team collection

5.7 User journey map The use of a storyboard helped identify the sequence of events and the elements necessary fot the concept to work as intended.

Figure 17 Storyboard 01

The story of this new set of action figures would start as that of many other toys, at the toy store if there are any left after 2018 when at the time of the writing of this thesis Toys R’ us declared bankruptcy and closed its stores across the US.

In any case the story would begin with the purchase of the set because boys find it attractive for all its action adventure qualities. Once the figures are unboxed the boy with have all of the elements required to play the game. He will have information cards of each of the characters and information to open an account online in the Animal rescue team website. Once the account is up and the user has a username and a password to enter the account, the real play begins.

The narrative will begin with the website taking the role of a mastermind system that is able to detect animals in peril. This monitoring system will set an alarm off for the animal rescuers to take action

Figure 18 Storyboard 02

The system will give boys a new mission. The idea is to have an algorithm that could make different aleatory combinations to have different missions each time kids enters the site The mission will provide information about the animal that needs to be rescued what are the conditions of the emergency and the place where it took place. Whit this information about the place the animal and the circumstances of the emergency, the child must assemble a team of three experts to face the challenge. He must evaluate the situation and look for information about the team members he has available to choose from to match the characteristics of the emergency and the type of animal to the professional profile of the characters. Once he has selected his three options the system will evaluate his selection and give him a green light to proceed or a recommendation to make a better selection.

6.- COMPLEMENTARY RESEARCH PHASE

After defining the basic narrative and defining characteristics for each one of the characters, the next step was to validate the overall design with parents. It was necessary then to establish a criterion for selecting them. First, it would be important to mention that the logical choice to validate a project like this, would have been to test it on a group of children, however in the second chapter it was said that parents exert a strong influence over their children’s’ toy choices, both through their rearing discourses and their purchase decisions,(Freeman, 2007) so it became relevant to first test the concept with them before trying it with children. Moreover, it is parents specially fathers, the ones that often express concern when presented with the possibility of allowing their sons to play with feminine toys.(Aina &

Cameron, 2011, p. 14) Therefore, it is of special interest to explore fathers’ discourses and perceptions about the concepts embedded in this project, because it has been reported in different researches that it is them who deter their sons from exploring play with feminine toys.(Eisenberg, Wolchik, Hernandez,

& Pasternack, 1985).

6.1 Persona definition Personas were defined to serve as a reference for the classification of the interviewees into categories according to parents rearing approach towards gender. First, these personas were defined using level of education, income, socioeconomic status and parenting style. According to Baumrind (1996) there are four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, neglecting, and permissive, which are determined by the interaction of two axes: the responsiveness axis and the demandingness axis (E. E. Maccoby &

Martin, 1983). Authoritative or competent parenting has high levels of warmth, support, and communication as well as control and disciplinary limits. Authoritative parents tend to encourage bidirectional communication aimed at well-being within the family. Therefore the persona definition started with the following guidelines: City dweller, college educated, authoritative parents. (Halpern &

Perry-Jenkins, 2016). The next characteristic was a more nuanced aspect of parent rearing that has to do with the approach parent take when dealing with gender issues. (Brown, 2014)

Dr. Emily W. Kane (2012) Interviewed a group of parents and classified them according to their approach towards gender issues and their reactions to social pressure. Dr. Kane created 5 categories of parents:

Naturalizers, Cultivators, Refiners, Innovators and Resisters.

Using these classifications we developed a series of cards containing information about these personas.

The cards contain a brief biography with key information about the persona, then we created a bar graph to visualize the level of different factors that are important for the project.

We needed to rapidly visualize certain factor s to be able to classify parents according to their discourse about gendered rearing so the graphs help understand how much resistance a parent shows to gender patterns. Also how much Sexual orientation anxiety he shows in his discourse as well as fear of social judgment and acceptance of gendered structures.

The cards also show information about daily life motivators, finances as well as daily Barriers and tensions which we divided into parenting tasks, family tasks and personal tasks

The result of this persona definition exercise can be seen in Appendix 13 Persona CardsAppendix 13

6.1.1 Naturalizers

These parents interpret gendered childhoods as biological in origin, and mainly reproduce gendered structures although they occasionally act to adjust them. Their main concern about others’ judgment depends in part to their children display of any gender nonconformity behavior that could make other parents uncomfortable. The only parent who had a discourse that could match this profile is Veronica

57 who said that boys and girls are inherently different and therefore they should have different toys to play with.

6.1.2 Cultivators This type of parents act in a way that promotes gendered childhoods for their sons and daughters. They believe that the origins of gendered patterns lay in society and are not really concerned about the opinion of others. They see the creation of gender norms as part of the routine of parenting and nothing to be anxious about. In the interviews this profile didn’t match any of the interviewees’ discourses.

6.1.3 Refiners

They recognize both biological and social factors when explaining gendered outcomes and act resisting and conforming, being aware of the possible judgements of others. None of the interviewed parents match this profile either.

6.1.4 Innovators

These parents resist gendered structures for their children and are unconcerned about the judgment of others. This was the profile that 8 out of 9 parents that were interviewed showed.

6.1.5 Resisters This group of parents has the most negative feelings about gender typical attributes and behaviors for both boys and girls than any of the other groups. In addition their actions are more clearly against the reproduction of gendered patterns However, they do display significant concern about being judged by others.

Because these parents are young and well educated they are tech savvy and therefore have access to many different sources of information. This allows them to recognize the hegemonic structures of power that perpetrate all sorts of inequality. This knowledge allows them to better direct their actions

58 to undo gender constrains on their children , which they aim towards the different interactions with different social groups and institutions rather than only focusing on the individual level of their child’s gender identity.

This knowledge however also hinders the optimism the Innovators show, and maybe this discourages

Resisters to push even further against gender expectations for their children. They are aware that social change cannot originate only within individual families but as Risman (1998) summarizes “must occur simultaneously at the level of identities, interactions and institutions”.

6.2 Recruitment Participants were recruited through mental health centers, local high schools, social media, and personal networks, in Mexico City although a couple of Mexican parents were interviewed via Skype all the way from Portugal. To select the participants, a set of 5 questions were asked extracted from MEN’S AND

WOMEN’S ROLES questionnaire by Brogran & Kutner, (1976) that helped to get an overall sense of parents gender ideology related to economic factors. These five questions were not part of the main interview but were used to determine whether the candidates had the basic notions of gender equality to understand the projects main objectives.

The participants had to mark a number from 1 to 6 in a scale that went from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Slightly Strongly Strongly agree Agree Slightly agree Disagree disagree disagree

1) The old saying that “a woman’s place is in the home” is still basically true and should remain true.

2) Marriage is a partnership in which the wife and husband should share the economic responsibility of supporting the family.

3) If a man and a woman are being considered for the same job and the woman is slightly better qualified, the job should still go to the man because he is more likely to have a family to support.

4) The husband should take primary responsibility for major family decisions, such as the purchase of a home or car.

5) A woman should not accept a career promotion if it would require her family to move and her husband to find another job.

The selection of these questions was based on their content of gender, career and economic factors, that could help find the profile of flexibility and openness that was required. The recruiting material included the personas developed for this project as general reference to parents’ experiences raising their children that did not emphasize any gender conformity or nonconformity. The main goal of the recruitment was to find those parents that could most likely fit the Resister persona and not those who specifically were struggling with gender related issues.

Once the volunteers came forward they were interviewed by the researched in a consulting room that was provided by one of the mental health centers. This was important because the consulting room had a special annex room designed for children so that if the participants had to bring their kids with them, they could entertain themselves with the toys and activities there.

From the 9 interviews conducted, 7 were face to face, held in Mexico City and 2 through Skype from

Portugal.

6.3 In-depth Interview In depth interviews were used in this project to achieve a deeper understanding of the subject than could be obtained through surveys or experiments. The scope of the project also asked for a method that could be managed in time and size because surveys and experiments usually require larger number of participants so that the results can be generalized to a broader group, the project required parents to talk freely and extensively rather than crossing check-boxes on a survey or their behavior being

60 observed and counted in an experiment. Controlled experiments and quantitative observational studies are most useful to document parenting actions and surveys also are useful to document parental beliefs and actions as well, however in this case the extraction of nuances in their discourse was needed, to get a deeper understanding of how parents think about their children’s play time in regards to gender as well as the motivations for their toy buying decisions.

A set of 10 open-ended interviews was accorded with the thesis chair because it was a number that allowed for patterns to emerge and also because it was a number that could be managed in the short period of time allotted to find the right people and interview them.

A typical number for this kind of qualitative interview, with diverse sample of parents, would be 40 people, although the profile of the sample was sampled down for time managing reasons by following the information determined by the Persona definition tool. The profile determined by the personas information asked for parents that had at least one son between the ages of 7 and 10 although in just one case it was considered useful also to interview a parent with a younger son to see how different his answers would be from the rest.

The selected age range is the period when most children begin to show a decrease in the rigidity of their gender stereotypes use, because they had already undergone the developmental stage where they acquire gender consistency and stability.(Trautner et al., 2005) This flexibilization of their gender concepts is what opens a window of opportunity for the project’s concept to work.

6.4 .- Questionnaire design The main focus of the interview was to get details and nuances from parents about how children play and how they deal with gender issues during their play time. For this purpose a 12 question

61 questionnaire was designed to elicit a free style narration where parents could explore whatever subject they wanted to talk about and as deeply as they wanted to.

The first set of questions dealt with the play habits of their children in four different scenarios: First, when he plays by himself in what is called solitary play, second, the type of play he engages in at school, how he interacts with other children, especially with girls; third when he plays with other family members that could be his same age such as siblings or cousins and finally how is his interaction with other kids like neighbors or regular playmates in group play.

6.4.1 Solitary play

Question 1.- When your son is playing by himself, what does he like to play?

This question elicits information about type of toys and types of play boys enjoy the most when

they engage in solitary play. The answers to this question can validate the idea that an action

figure collection could be a proper way to make children practice by themselves how to evaluate

a person according to his abilities and skills and not by its nationality, age, color or gender.

6.4.2 Group play Question 2.- What does he enjoy the most to play when he is at school?

This question explored the different play activities boys have with other classmates during

recess and other times dedicated to play at school. A following question linked to this one is: Do

you know if boys and girls play together? Because this is a yes or no question it requires a follow

up one to explore how that mixed gender play takes place. Are there any leaders while they

play? Can a girl be the leader? These two questions aimed to get a reaction from parents about

their feelings concerning their son interaction with girls; especially, in the case of having to

follow orders from them.

6.4.3 Family dynamic The next questions explored their son interaction with other family members about the same

age than him.

Question3.- Does he play with other family members his age? Does he have any siblings or

cousins?

Very similar to the school questions, this one requires follow up questions because it can be

answered with yes or no. If the answer was affirmative the next would be an open ended

question: What do they like to play? Also followed by the questions: Are girls involved in this

type of play? Are there leaders involved in this type of play? Can girls be the ones that lead?

These set of questions were not treated separately because they are closely related and are all

part of a set of ideas that during a conversation flow easily from one another.

6.4.5 Neighborhood dynamic For these questions I followed the same pattern of the previous two scenarios, first by asking if

their son had any neighbors to play with and if so what do they like to play, followed by asking if

boys and girls play together. If all of the answers are affirmative then I would ask if there was

leader in their group games and if so, if it could be a girl?

I anticipated that the answers to these questions might appear anywhere during the

conversation so I had to be careful to catch them so that I would not ask about something that

had already been mentioned.

The second set of questions dealt with toys and consumption habits. Even though by the time I finished designing this questionnaire I had already done a comparative analysis of competing toys in the market, these questions allowed me to narrow my focus on specific brands and collections that could be compared more directly with the new concept.

6.4.6 Popular culture 5.- What cartoons or TV series does he enjoy?

6.- What movies does he like?

7.- What did he ask for Christmas?

This question had the purpose of getting an overall picture of the type of discourses boys are receiving these days through different types of media. It would also provide information about boys’ topics of interest.

This question is similar to the previous one in trying to understand what themes are catching the attention of young boys these days.

These questions aim to explore consuming habits and give insight to their preferences and themes that they like.

6.4.7 Parent buying criteria 8- Have you ever bought a toy because you wanted him to have it instead of him asking for it? Why?

This question was meant to explore the decision making process done by parents when buying a toy

First by identifying if this process in fact takes place and in which circumstances and later on to see if patterns emerge among the different answers.

6.4.8 Parents views on gendered division of toys 9- Why do you think there is a division between toys for boys and for girls?

With this question we want to know how parents view this topic that is central to the whole project. The information from this question will not only help us classify each parent by their view of the topic but also will give us ideas as to where to continue looking for more information about the subject.

6.4.9 Gender rigidity phase 10- Was he ever reluctant to play with girls?

This final question is simply a yes or no question to find out if parents remember any time where their son might have rejected the idea of playing with a girl.

7.- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The participants of this in depth interview were most cooperative and informative when answering the questions of the researcher. They answered each and every question with enthusiasm and interest. It is important to report this because in depth interviews require this kind of attitude from participants, so as interviewers it is important to generate the right rapport to be able to elicit this kind of rich responses.

Let’s remember that the main objective of the interview was to detect any conscious or unconscious behaviors, beliefs or ideas that parents might have regarding gender in different facets of their children’s lives especially around toys and play that could affect a potential business model built around the action figure collection developed in this project.

7.1 Forms of play Regarding play we found out that all of these children 9 out of 9 have very structured schedules during the week that go from one structured activity to another leaving approximately only 10% of their time to free play. This means that these boys only play freely approximately 1 hour and 24 min a day. Let’s remember that free play is when children creatively come up with their own rules to play versus structured play in which they follow an established set of rules. It is on weekend when they have more time to spend playing at their will.

4 out of 9 parents reported that their sons’ main source of entertainment is video games played on their phones. 2 parents reported that video gaming is also the main leisure activity on weekends.

This information about play activities established the fact that children’s current source of play is video games therefore a component that could help bridge the traditional action figure imaginative play with modern video games is necessary.

7.2 Gender Regarding gender, all parents reported that their boys have always found acceptable to play with girls, and find ways to adapt when they have to play with more girls than boys. When it comes to play with feminine toys and female characters things are not as straight forward as they report them to be. When faced with the question of whether they would let their kids play with female characters, they all said they wouldn’t have a problem in doing so and that they would not care what other people could think about it. However, only two fathers reported actually letting their sons play with female characters in the past. Although it is important to mention that this is not so because they discouraged their sons to play with feminine toys, they reported simply that their sons never had shown that desire.

Further questions should have been necessary to clarify this situation where they say to have complete disposition to allow cross-gender play but have never found the opportunity to actually do it.

Again further questioning was required to investigate the reasons why these two cases of boys playing with feminine characters were in fact the two youngest ones of all the boys whose parents were interviewed.

When asked to give their opinion about the gendered division of toys, the responses were consistent in almost all cases, but in one. 8 out of 9 parents find a lack of valid justification behind gendered division of toys. Most parents 5 out of nine offered a commercial explanation behind the gendered division of toys by saying that it is a marketing strategy used by toy companies to sell more toys.” It is a strategy to sell the same toy twice, and so that toys can’t be inherited to the next generation” said one father. 3 other parents offered a mixed explanation between social and cultural factors in which they involved traditions and religion. Only one mother defended the idea that boys and girls are inherently different and that therefore there should be toys for each gender. She later contradicted herself by saying that girls should be taught how to be self-sufficient and independent, ignoring the fact that many of the differences that traditional values claim as inherently feminine have to do with passivity and submission.

7.3 Evaluation of the project’s concept

After answering the questions about toy preferences, play habits and gender, interviewees were presented with this project’s concept. Material included in Anex 3 was used for this presentation. The initial reaction from all of the participants was favorable by saying that they found it interesting and attractive.

One of the mothers mentioned something that could be the starting question for new research. She reported that her son (age 7) prefers action figures that look like him, therefore they prefers young looking characters. Could age be another channel that should be considered? Should the characters look younger than what they are right now?

One aspect that appeared twice in the evaluation of two fathers is the need to reward choices well made by some token or price during the development of the game. These two fathers felt that positive reinforcement could be beneficial to the overall purpose of the game by reminding boys that taking the right choices has benefits within the play structure. This is an aspect worth considering but a difficult one to implement because to be able to do that the interactive element of this game should have more relevance and continuous presence throughout the game and not just merely as an opener at the beginning as it is now.

7.4 Further research As design research shifts its position closer to social sciences it is important to recognize the importance of the mechanisms developed by these disciplines to diminish bias while conducting research. It is evident that designers are not prepared to codify and analyze all the information they might collect, but will require the assistance of mathematicians or statistics analyst to render reliable results.

All of the tools proposed in this dissertation have to be applied with help of a larger number of interviewers and coders that would allow the investigation of a larger group of people. If any of its conclusions is to be taken in consideration for further decision making.

So far this is merely the starting point that shows that a project like the one proposed here might have some commercial potential and educational merit.

It is important to widen the scope of the interviews to include other family members such as grandparents and uncles and aunts because they are also buying toys and in some cases are in fact the main providers of leisure time material.

Naturally a crucial aspect of the overall evaluation of this proposal would be to test it with children. For that a totally new research protocol must be devised to ensure the physical and emotional integrity of the participants and to elicit as much relevant information as possible.

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