[acdcguy]

It's not that toy company executives are malicious. They tend to make toys for both boys and girls. But when you got shows that cross gender boundaries like Power Rangers and the current My Little Pony incarnation it's hard to market their respected toys to both boys and girls. It tends to fall on one gender or the other. Rarely both.

Think back to when you were kids. Either you or some kid you knew thought of the opposite sex as gross. They had "cooties." No six-year-old boy wants to be caught dead holding a pink ranger figure. "Pink is for girls." "Why are you playing with dolls you freak?" Same goes for the girls. "Boys are such slobs." "Why are you playing with that dumb red ranger figure?" "You're just a gross tom-boy." Kids are mean and unfortunately that reflects in the marketplace.

And it's not like the toy companies didn't try marketing to both genders. Bandai America had dolls of the MMPR girl rangers back in the 90's. More recently Hasbro tried marketing to young bronies with the Guardians of Harmony series. It didn't do too well with either gender so the movie toys were marketed directly towards girls. Unless there is a major cultural shift, the only way to get boys to buy girl toys and vice versa is to bundle less popular characters with the more popular characters.