From teddy bears to tricycles, gendered marketing can loom large in the toy aisle as parents are urged to be on the lookout for unhelpful biases.
Toys are crucial in children's development, helping them to express emotion and creativity.
But gender stereotypes can limit children's interests, development and aspirations, with the consequences lasting well into adulthood.
It's never too early to start conversations about gender biases with children and doing so through toys can be a good way to communicate these topics, RMIT marketing Associate Professor Lauren Gurrieri told AAP.
"Toddlers are capable of recognising colours and symbols, so encouraging them to understand that there is no such thing as 'boy colours' and 'girl colours' is a great start," she said.
"For school-age children, help them build literacy about advertising, for example that just because a boy is represented in an advertisement for a product does not mean that it is solely for boys.
"These are continual conversations you can have as your children grow older, helping them to navigate marketing messages that provide powerful and sometimes harmful social cues about how they are expected to think, look and act."
While people are increasingly seeking gender-inclusive products, marketing has not necessarily kept up.
Brands tended to be quite risk-averse when it came to children so even though societal understandings of gender had evolved there was a lag with how this was reflected in the toy aisle, Dr Gurrieri said.
"Although some brands, such as Lego in 2021, have made voluntary pledges to reduce gender bias in their toys there is nothing holding them to account for this, especially in the absence of any regulatory pressure or enforcement," she said.
"Decision makers in the boardroom also often lack diversity and this further inhibits engagement in progressive social change by brands."
