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Our project started with us discussing how gender stereotypes influenced our lives. Especially when growing up. As a child you are from the day your parents find out what sex you are, influenced by genderstereotypes. We were never really concious of it until we now started talking about it and found out how much of our childhood was determined by it. Product design is always influenced by gender stereotypes, but especially products for children are highly gendered.

JeongMee Yoon (see here below) did a project on gendered childrens products.
Description of the project:

"My current work, The Pink and Blue Projects are the topic of my thesis. This project explores the trends in cultural preferences and the differences in the tastes of children (and their parents) from diverse cultures, ethnic groups as well as gender socialization and identity. The work also raises other issues, such as the relationship between gender and consumerism, urbanization, the globalization of consumerism and the new capitalism." (Mee)

"Pink was once a color associated with masculinity, considered to be a watered down red and held the power associated with that color. In 1914, The Sunday Sentinel, an American newspaper, advised mothers to “use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.” The change to pink for girls and blue for boys happened in America and elsewhere only after World War II. As modern society entered twentieth century political correctness, the concept of gender equality emerged and, as a result, reversed the perspective on the colors associated with each gender as well as the superficial connections that attached to them . Today, with the effects of advertising on consumer preferences, these color customs are a worldwide standard.

The saccharine, confectionary pink objects that fill my images of little girls and their accessories reveal a pervasive and culturally manipulated expression of femininity” and a desire to be seen. To make these images, I arrange and display the cotton - candy colored belongings of several children in their rooms. When I began producing the pink images, I became aware of the fact that many boys have a lot of blue possessions. Customers are directed to buy blue items for boys and pink for girls. In the case of my eleven-year-old son, even though he does not seem to particularly like the color blue over other colors, whenever we shop for his clothes, the clothes he chooses are from the many-hued blue selection. The clothes and toy sections for children are already divided into pinks for girls and blues for boys. Their accessories and toys follow suit.

The differences between girls’ objects and boys’ objects are also divided and affect their thinking and behavioral patterns. Many toys and books for girls are pink, purple, or red, and are related to make up, dress up, cooking, and domestic affairs. However, most toys and books for boys are made from the different shades of blue and ? are related to robots, industry, science, dinosaurs, etc. This is a phenomenon as intense as the Barbie craze. Manufacturers produce anthropomorphic ponies that have the characteristics of young girls. They have barrettes, combs and accessories, and the girls adorn and make up the ponies. These kinds of divided guidelines for the two genders deeply affect children’s gender group identification and social learning.

As girls grow older, their taste for pink changes. Until about 2nd grade, they are very obsessed with the color pink, but around 3rd or 4th grade, they do not obsess with pink as much anymore. Usually, their tastes change to purple. Later, there is another shift. However, the original association with the color-code often remains." (Mee)

After talking and researching about gender stereotypes in product design, we started to brainstorm on how to visualise this topic. We quickly came to realise that we wanted to come up with a visual language that could help people who aren't "woke" how gender stereotypes are used in products all around us. First we thought of a satirical decision tree for a gender reveal. It is a big hype at the moment to do a gender reveal during pregnancy, which (like was said before) starts the genderstreotypes even before you are born. So with the decision tree we wanted to make people aware of this and criticise the genderstereotypes that are in our current society. We thought about making a card game out to make it something interactive. We couldn't quite figure out how to make it into a card game. We then were inspired by the youtube series ----. We came up with the game were people put everyday product on a scale of masculine to feminine. To have them think and motivate to discuss about how the design/function is adapted to genderstereotypes.