My daughter is 26 months. We do make a conscious effort to limit those toys explicitly 'made for girls', but we won't prevent her from playing with something that she likes. We have LEGOS, and the ones that I have purchased for her have been gender neutral. She has a train set and a kitchen, and she probably spends equal time playing with each.

That said, anyone that thinks that gender is purely a cultural construct likely hasn't had kids. Watching my daughter, her cousins, and my friend's kids grow from birth, it's pretty obvious that they each start with their own seed of preferential interests, and there are some generalities, and yet plenty of exceptions. Speaking personally, I am not much of a jock, and no degree of training or exposure would have made me interested in playing sports. I am a straight guy that can crochet but cannot juggle a soccer ball.

At about 14 months old, my daughter became fascinated with shoes. One of her favorite things to do is to try on her shoes, or other people's shoes, and walk about. Neither my wife or I pay much interest in our shoes. My daughter looks like she might be the child of a shopaholic with a shoe fetish, but that's not where her interest came from. I have no idea where her interest in shoes came from. She also loves babies and hovers around them whenever they are about. That's just her.

I do find the gender divide in toys to be absurd. However, I find most broad-based cultural movements to be absurd. I don't worry about my daughter's interest, but do worry about her freedom to pursue them without the influence of social pressure whether or not they align with, or run counter to, her own. Like most things, I think that's where leading by example is one effective approach.