It’s only a matter of time before Barbie is banned altogether.
California passed a law recently that will require all large retailers to get rid of any marketing, color-coding, and language in their toy aisles that appear aimed at a specific gender. Under the new law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, stores must provide a “gender-neutral section or area” that features a “reasonable selection” of gender-neutral children’s toys and items. Something tells me Barbie wouldn’t qualify.
Any store that fails to abide by the new law will be fined.
The legislation claims that separating toys into girls’ toys and boys’ toys is “unjustified” and “incorrectly implies that [the] use by one gender is inappropriate.” According to California Assemblymember Evan Low, an author of the bill, marketing dolls toward girls and race cars toward boys is “the antithesis of modern thinking.”
Is it, though?
Despite pressure from woke activists to make gender fluidity the norm, study after study shows children naturally gravitate toward toys associated with their biological sex. A 2020 meta-analysis of more than 75 studies conducted over the past 50 years on children’s toy preferences confirmed that innate biological preferences not only exist but prevail in most cases. According to the studies, even infants, for example, tend to prefer toys associated with their gender.
California might chalk up these results to clever advertising by toy companies, but it is just a fact that girls prefer Barbie dolls to toy trucks and boys like action figures more than baby dolls. That’s not just good marketing — it’s science.
