The AAUW Holiday Gift Guide for Empowering Girls: The 2015 Edition

With the holiday season fast approaching, shopping for the girls in your life might seem as easy as heading to the pink aisles of stores. But with several major retailers, including Target and Amazon, doing away with gender-based toy labeling, toy aisles are finally starting to blur the lines and challenge gender stereotypes. “I would think that Target [and other retailers] wouldn’t make this kind of shift if they didn’t think there were enough parents out there that were encouraged by this type of change,” says Elizabeth Sweet, a lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Davis, who has written extensively on gender stereotyping in children’s toys. This shift emphasizes a public understanding that girls’ and boys’ toys need not be fundamentally different from each other. “It’s important to think about the toys in terms of the skills they help develop,” says Sweet, because “some of those skills transcend age,” not just gender. It’s useful, then, to “offer a broad array of characteristics and themes [in toys] that apply to girls across interests.” To help you find gifts that defy stereotypes, inspire creativity, and promote self-confidence in the girls in your life, we have created a holiday guide to navigating the evolving toy aisles. (Check out our gift guides from 2012, 2013, and 2014 for more ideas.) New for this year, our guide also indicates the type of toy based on the following categories:

• Defies Stereotypes
• Builds Spatial Skills
• Makes a Charitable Impact
• Promotes Leadership Development
• Teaches Empathy

From infants to teens, this guide has something for any girl you want to empower.

Ages 0–3

Pink Is Just a Color and So Is Blue

Categories: Defies Stereotypes, Teaches Empathy

A world defined by pink and blue is becoming outdated. Whether a girl wants to crash cars or play with pirates, or a boy wants to play with dolls or become a chef, this book teaches the importance of children being themselves and enjoying life’s possibilities. $8.99, Toward the Stars

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Ages 4–6

Ruby Rails Skydive Action Figure

Categories: Defies Stereotypes, Builds Spatial Skills

GoldieBlox toys have made our gift guides for the past two years, and the gang returns again, this time with Ruby Rails. Ruby is a software engineer who loves photography and designing her own clothes with a program called Dress_Code. Ruby’s adventurous and creative spirit teaches girls that it’s cool to be smart. $24.99, GoldieBlox

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Ages 7–10

Lottie and Finn Dolls

Category: Teaches Empathy

With the vision to empower children to be themselves, Lottie and Finn dolls are based on 9-year-old characters. Developed after 18 months of research, the relatable, age-appropriate dolls stand on their own two feet (no high heels needed), an inspiring message for all girls, big and small! $19.95–$24.95, Lottie

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Ages 11–14

Feminist Alphabet Series Tote Bags

Category: Defies Stereotypes

Grow Wild was started by a studio design artist based in Washington, D.C. The ongoing Grow Wild art project, including baby onesies, T-shirts, and these tote bags, celebrates inspirational feminists, including Audre Lorde, Emma Goldman, and Simone de Beauvoir. $30, Grow Wild

StemBox

Categories: Makes a Charitable Impact, Builds Spatial Skills

Help girls unleash their #NaturalPotential with StemBox, a monthly subscription service providing at-home science experiments for girls. In an AAUW collaboration with Green Works, a portion of proceeds from each subscription during the month of March will be donated to AAUW to help further the advancement of girls in STEM. $28/month, StemBox

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