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While there may be a biological component to some sex-typed differences, most children learn to like the toys they are expected to like because of their sex or gender identity.

Directing, producing and editing became masculinized — only writing remained open to women — and the crafts became “sex-typed.”

In Time, Annie Murphy Paul writes that her son and his friends have embraced looming, upending the stereotype that boys prefer to throw and smash, while girls like to finesse and prettify. “Toy choice is the single most sex-typed behavior that children display,” Murphy Paul notes, so if Rainbow Loom has lured boys into the “pink aisle,” that’s a big deal.

Toy choice is the single most sex-typed behavior that children display.

In the 70s, psychologist Sandra Bem argued that psychological androgyny–the extent to which a person crosses sex-typed standards of desirable behavior– has important consequences.