Re: Shirley not
Someone I know at university did a study of greeting cards for children, their illustrations and messages: in American shops, not the UK. All of them used certain colors for each gender (don't make me say which colors) and the images for boys without exception were action figures, superheroes, or some other entity, say, in the animal kingdom, in action or being powerful. Additionally, the words used were enhancements to the images of power, action, fun, and an invitation to participate in the world.
The cards for girls were uniformly depictions of princesses, queens, fairies and other representations of female power depicted in - without exception - passive poses holding flowers or food, and with passive phrasing like "you're sweet".
I should point out these observations were from the mainstream card shops carrying Hallmark, American Greetings, etc., & also at drugstores and discount stores, and not the boutique "hip" paper palaces in the affluent neighborhoods where you will find small-edition cards. (I wonder now how different, if at all, they might be.) This was a survey of cards mass-produced for the, um, masses.
This is but one example from one slice of marketing. I really don't think little girls have a real choice - it's what is produced for them.
In my 3rd year of school my favorite color was black. My mother said I could have any kind of hula hoop I wanted. I chose black...for my school bag, for everything. God bless my mother for getting me a black hula hoop.