The article that I chose was issued to me in a Women's Studies class called Women and their Daughter's and Sons. The article is called "Gender-Neutral Parenting" by Cindy Ingram. In this article, Ingram discusses how the toys that parents buy for their children will, in the long run, help to shape that child's ideas of what it means to be of a certain gender. The article opens by stating that you can walk into any toy store and see that there are strict boundaries between the boys' and the girls' toys, whether it be as visible as color or size of a toy, or something not so visible, like the texture of a toy. Ingram feels that it is important for parents to examine the toys that they buy for their children, because they might, unconsciously be sending the wrong messages to their children about certain gender ideologies. There is evidence in the article from a licensed Clinical Social Worker that says, "82% of all youth crime is committed by boys." Ingram states that it is inevitable that this statement will become true because of the strict gender boundaries set for males and females. Males are encouraged to be aggressive and females are encouraged to like these aggressive behaviors in males. Ingram states that every person that a child interacts with will have some kind of influence on what the child perceives to be appropriate and expected behavior, and giving boys violent toys will encourage violent activity, and fluffy, fragile toys for girls will encourage fragile activity to follow. Ingram feels that parents need to consider the messages that they are sending to their children, and if they do not want to send certain gendered messages, then they should follow certain steps to ensure that they encourage gender-neutral parenting. The parent must first think about what kinds of messages the toys will send their children. They must then ask how the toy will affect their child, and then d...