Bengaluru: A recent trip to a mall reiterated a known fact for me. A mother refused to give her son the pink Kinder egg that her daughter bought. She insisted that he buy the white one or none. The child, all of 4 or 5, didn’t know about the binaries and insisted on having the same one as his sister.

It was sad and shocking for me. Sad because we haven’t spared even our children from such stereotypes and shocking because Kinder has indeed come out with a pink egg for girls.

“Why do we as a society advertise, commercialise products on such a divide? Why do we sell ideas and concepts that propagate such a divide? And why have we bracketed each sex to a few colours, choices and stance? Why are we surprised when a man is the face of an advertisement for kitchen accessories?” asks Sugita Roy, a writer.

It is hardly a surprise that we are conditioned to clichés, such as boys don’t cry, and girls have to be presentable and, therefore, look a certain way. “Society believes that men can just be themselves, strong and magnetic,while the onus of looking good lies with girls;therefore products catering to women are highly priced. Say the same razor for men and women are differently priced, the pink razor costs more,” quips Priyanka Mittal, a social scientist.

Adding to this,Sayantan Das, an engineer, says, “The Nivea men’s body wash I use is for “strong” men. So the pressure to be strong is immense. And the same product is marketed for women appealing to their feminine side. This is called gender marketing, and the more the world talks about abolishing gender stereotypes, the more we indulge in it, in nuanced forms.The gender lines are drawn early in life–superstores are full of guns in the boys section and Barbies in the girls section.”