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Gender No Longer Exists
Today I made the mistake of turning to ABC for their morning network news. After being blinded by the pastels of their dollhouse-like set, I watched several bobble-headed women and one extremely handsome fellow discuss Target stores doing away with gender signs. The giddy news “person” reported that there will be no more girls’ toys or boys’ toys — just toys. No more girls’ or boys’ clothes — just clothes. They will remove pink wall paper from the Barbie aisle and remove blue from G.I. Joe’s section. Target wants to do away with any gender signage to create “balance.”
Why? ABC explained that a pierced, hair dyed, tattooed Mother was shocked, SHOCKED!!!, when she saw the evil gender signage. Abi Bechtel is a self referred feminist who doesn’t want her kids playing with toys meant for their own gender. It’s sexist!
Don’t do this, @Target pic.twitter.com/cfh3cp5Nqa
— Abi Bechtel (@abianne) June 1, 2015
Target considers this “social media backlash” against gender signage as justification to, well, ignore gender all together.
By the way, the ABC “news” team had absolutely zero mention of anyone who may disagree with this craziness. Fair and balanced, amirite?
As a father to two sons, one a definite alpha male, and the other, well… he likes hugs, I cringed at this report. One thing I know is that kids gravitate toward what they like. Most kids like toys or clothes designed for their own gender.
What Target is doing is furthering the extremist narrative that gender in itself is exclusionary. It’s better to remove “boys” and “girls” labels as those could make the infinitesimal percentage of kids who feel different, also feel excluded.
The question is, where does this stop? When will the color blue be outlawed? When will Mattel Toys be mandated to have Barbie, Ken and Pat?
You can watch the full ABC report here.
Published in Culture
To my ear, it sounded like you were implying others disagreed with this. I just wanted to point out that you can have a problem with the action even if you trust the market to work it out eventually.
Now that I think about it some more, we really need to end all segregation in clothing stores. Really, who is to say who is an adult and who is a child, or even a baby? Winter clothes, summer clothes – why the discrimination? In a just world, the clothes would all be mixed up in one giant pile, and customers would randomly select things while blind-folded, so that each piece of clothing has an equal chance to be bought. If you get home and find your purchase doesn’t remotely fit you . . . we’ll figure out that problem at some future time.
Jojo, “segregation” implies nefarious intent. When a boy is standing in a toy aisle he wants to see all of his options together. Lego Star Wars next to Lego Marvel. Construction sets next to erector sets. He is more likely to choose something to his liking as opposed to have to seek and pinpoint his selection amongst toys he has zero interest (girl toys.) And Im sure little girls feel the same. They don’t want to see a Hulk Smash next to American Dolls or Bratz.
This is simply about merchandising, nothing more, nothing less.
Doing away with gender-specific clothing could herald a sort of “Cultural Revolution” in fashion!
It’s grown-ups with their hang-ups that drive these issues. Kids don’t care. But rarely a week goes by without someone in my Facebook feed posting a sentimental story about some poor little girl who wanted to dress up like Darth Vader, and was told by the Evil Corporate Overlords that she couldn’t . . . until Feminist Dad became her White Knight, and defeated the Evil Corporate Overlords with his Tumblr Memes, and now she’s a happy Sith Princess . . . or something.
For what it’s worth, my eldest daughter once told me she wanted to be a Jedi when she grew up, and I was so proud.
Indeed. There is an entire research discipline dedicated to where products need to go in order to maximize profits.
Perhaps someone at Target imagined caving into the SJW crowd on this was worth it for the free advertising it has generated but when this type of nonsense starts to hit their bottom line I expect the idea to be quietly dropped.
I suspect that the announcement is as far as it will ever go. I can’t imagine every Target store across the nation going completely Gender-Neutral as described.
Aaaaack! By segregated I just meant, you know, separated. I meant that I don’t think there’s any great benefit to labeling and separating toys by “these are for girls” and “these are for boys.” By categories, sure. Dolls one place, building sets another place. I’m okay with putting the action figures with the dolls and the pink Lego sets in with the primary-colored ones. Or not. You are right, it’s about whatever works for merchandising. I don’t think it’s quite the end of civilization either way.
Skip,
I don’t know much about such things. I get angry when someone tells me my suit jacket is now too long for “the times”. But I do know fashion is a business, and like any business, they need repeat customers. “New trends” are designed by the Anna Wintours of the world creating perennial demand.
But its also an industry with a larger percentage of SJW’s than most others (except for maybe theatre). Androgyny isn’t just a style but a sociological statement that covers gender equity and sexuality.
I do find the sign kind of obnoxious, since it’s pointed out, though I would not have given it any thought in real life.
And I learned my lesson about nature vs. nurture long ago. My toddler daughter was mighty lukewarm about the mini-earthmoving equipment “just like Daddy’s” that I got her. But when she saw her first Barbie, her whole being lit up.
As a frequent Target shopper, I have never seen the sign depicted in that image: “Girls’ Building Sets.” I think it’s a fake. And I have two girls who are nuts about LEGOs.
But now I have to go to Target and look. If I don’t see it, I’m declaring it a fake.
(If I do see it, I won’t care anyway.)
Careful, “pink” is now a trigger word. ;)
The insane asylum has opened a new series of stores. People can figure out where these asylums are because they have targets painted on them.
Maybe there will be a Jenner doll for girls, and for boys?
I find the separations useful, but I’m male and hate shopping. My 10 grandchildren wanted different toys, different cloths and differently designed bikes and skates etc.. Is this a marketing decision or PC decision by the bureaucrats who worked their way up in Target? That is obvious. Good lord it never ends.
“The question is, where does this stop?”
There’s no limiting principle I know of, so we wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the most insane extrapolation of this…unless the Left moves too fast at some point and wakes up or angers enough people so they push back.
funny bit on gender: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=173&v=c8O7FICOm4c.
what are you, a gender detective?
Right – the labeling and signage helps consumers in various ways. For the clueless it helps them pick things that actually have a shot of being interesting to their intended giftee. Otherwise, it helps us find the right sections in the store; if I know my nephew likes dolls it doesn’t hurt anything for me to know unambiguously where those products reside on the shelves.
I fear this is the new Abi-normal.
I’m with Jamie and JoJo—I don’t like “Building Sets” and “Girl’s Building Sets.” I don’t mind the pink and sparkly, I do mind the heavy emphasis on romance and dating, not to mention tiny Ho’ clothes for toddlers. Prepubescent kids deserve to have a childhood, which means life is not about sex, not about body image, it’s not about “success” and it’s not really about gender. If you’re concerned about kids being pushed to identify as “trans” too soon, resist the gendered toy labels! A girl who wants to build a space ship with her lego set shouldn’t feel like she has to be a boy to do it, and a boy who wants to try painting his fingernails shouldn’t have to think about whether that means that, inside, he’s actually a girl.
Ooohh, no. Toy segregation is definitely needed! When I’m on a mad dash for that last-minute birthday party gift, I want that glowing pink Barbie aisle completely separated from the boy-blue Lego/action figure aisle. Don’t confuse me with intermingling. Time is money.
The wife and I babysat two young nieces this weekend. One thing they did was gather up all the stuffed animals they could find in the house and put the girl animals in one pile and the boy animals in another.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them that pretty soon calling a teddy bear a boy or a girl will be a hate crime.
So this is a real thing!! I thought I was imagining it.
I recently had to take Chauvinist the Younger shopping for school uniforms. Guess what, retailers?? Thirteen year-old girls wear a different cut of pants from thirteen-year-old boys. Who knew?!
I’ve always thought Erector Sets should be gender neutral.
Exactly! Now, point me to the dressing room where the women go to try on lingerie. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a second opinion on fit. In the new enlightenment they’ll probably welcome it. Right?
I think we’re on the edge of the apocalypse. One day soon we’re going to wake up, see what we’ve done, and laugh ourselves to death.
Here’s hoping her daughter will dash with glee into the gender-neutral shelves and demand that Mommy buy her a toy Uzi decorated in a Stars-and-Stripes motif.
I have been damaged by these signs all my life. I need reparations. Preferably in small unmarked bills. The word “feminist” also hurts me. It is like NOW hates me. If they would go for a generic word like “Undefinablist, that would ease my PAIN. Doesn’t everyone think “humanist” is bad too because why favor one animal over another?