Blue for boys,

Pink for girls

Artist statement

Within this project, Hopes aim was to investigate the underlying sexism in children’s toys as well as analyse the origins of gendered stereotypes. Research indicates that children understand and apply gender stereotypes as early as age three due to capitalistic gendered marketing and media, alongside parental influence.

Dollhouses are almost always marketed towards young girls, who are expected to play pretend with the perfect family in the perfect house. This would reflect how children are seemingly being raised with certain expectations of how to run and support a household. It could be interpreted that dollhouses are subtly used to represent the future life to aspire towards, similar to toys such as plastic babies and wooden kitchens.

Hope decided to present this idea by creating an idealistic family of doll characters, still in their packaging, representing different expectations commonly assumed of each family member based on gender alone.