The Black liberation struggle was not the only identity-based movement transforming the toy industry in the 1970s, as a revitalized women’s movement began challenging manufacturers’ traditional representations of gender, race, work, and family structure. Chapters of the National Organization for Women conducted studies of the toy market and staged demonstrations outside industry trade shows and toy retailers. Ms. magazine published an annual toy shopping guide. And in 1973, feminists joined forces with other activists, including leaders of the anti–war toy campaigns, to form the Public Action Coalition on Toys. By mid-decade, a loosely coordinated network of women educators, journalists, and activists had coalesced around the goals of combating sexist toys and paving the way for what the Women’s Action Alliance called “equal play.” Part of a larger feminist reckoning with stereotypes in children’s media and consumer culture, the feminist toy movement helped establish nonstereotyped toy fare as a cornerstone of progressive parenting.
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