Boyhood Masculinity and Violence: How Toys and Sporting Equipment Taught Young Men Violence in Canada, 1900-1950

Jocelyn Chugg

doi:10.29173/mruhr547

Abstract

In this essay I discuss the subject of violence and how toys and sporting equipment were used to teach young boys masculine behaviours that were aligned with the heterosexual ideologies of the first half of the 20th century in Canada.

Highlights

From the years 1900-1950 Canadian society had specific masculine beliefs that young boys were expected to live up to
By examining the toys and sporting equipment found throughout Sears Wishbook Christmas catalogues and comparing them with newspaper articles from that time it is clear that starting at a very young age, boys were subjected to various forms of violence in everyday life that was meant to ensure they grew up to be the tough, dominant and powerful men that were idolized in the first half of the 20th century
It was a concern that young boys who led sedentary urban lives were provided with “little opportunity for differentiation between the sexes.”[1]. In most urban middle-class white families the father’s role was that of the working breadwinner while the mother stayed home performing domestic duties and tending to the children