Cultural anthropology, commericals in 1990s
I grew up with a lot of these types of commercials, which were seemingly geared towards capitalizing on the wealth of boomers - boomers who had children and would end up buying toys for their children. But Toys R' Us has since gone bankrupt. Is that ONLY because of the emergence of online shopping, or were there other factors involved, like the declining birthrate and decline of a major purchasing audience?
It is also interesting what this advertisement is selling. Glamorized motherhood. It seems that, less and less, we look at a young girl as someone who should be presented with such toys which could shape and condition her to want to be a good mother some day. This is interesting in view of the functions the girl was born to develop, to deliver a child into the world.
Girls are almost exclusively pushed now to become career women - to become independent, to not want children. I ask myself why; why do we want her to enter the labor market and pursue a highly-educated professional position where, in consequence, we discriminate against men just so that the number employed in such a position is gender neutral? Why should we welcome the consequences of a saturated job market, which is what all this leads to? How is that in society's best interests?
