Toy Companies Aim to Make Toys More Gender-Neutral

Will, the 15-inch doll, is a boy with a red cape; Mattel has a new line of female superhero action figures.

The toy industry is taking on a larger role in breaking down differences in how girls and boys play.

There are dolls on sale for boys. The White House Council on Women and Girls in April hosted a conference about how toys are the early shapers of children’s ideas about jobs and their roles in society. It invited companies to showcase how they are revamping toy brands to appeal to both boys and girls. Mattel Inc., for instance, is working on selling superhero action figures to more girls.

The new push comes as opinions on what girls and boys should be playing with are changing. A survey for NPD Group by CivicScience, a Pittsburgh market-research firm, found that 41% of adults, ages 18 to 34, believe that toy makers should be marketing every toy to both boys and girls, compared with 22% of 35- to 54-year-olds. “This is a new generation [of parents] that thinks very differently,” says Juli Lennett, NPD toy-industry analyst. “They are the ones moving into the childbearing years and who are going to be buying toys for their kids.”

More From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):