Our readings this week include investigating several sites on the web that relate or are for tween girls. While the information and sites are helpful to girls, someone suggested on our discussion post that materials and information for boys is sadly lacking. Having worked with young boys in a daycare setting for years, I can see the lack of tween age materials for them being somewhat of a problem.
Granted many boys in the tween age group are still interested in playing outside, riding bikes, running around and such, there are plenty who find sitting around watching television or playing video games to be just fine. Is this lack of variety due to the boys themselves or the lack of marketing to boys? That is the chicken and the egg question all over again. Boys as a rule, do not "require" the clothes, makeup, shoes, and hottest new products that girls do. For tween girls there is a never ending list of the latest gadgets, music, etc that manufacturers can market too. Tween boys though do not seem to have the same "needs". Some of it is obvious- boys don't wear make-up, do their hair, fawn all over the latest male singer, wear several different sets of clothes in a day (sports being the exception) and so on. What would manufacturers market to boys? Sports equipment, new bikes, maybe some hot new sports shoes but that does not represent nearly the market share that girls do.
Some of the dichotomy maybe due to the expense difference but some of it is simply that boys more than girls tend to be seen as either a "child" or a "teen", at least in my experience.
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