Since some lawmakers want you to believe that gender is a social construct, Californians might have to say goodbye to pink and blue aisles in department stores.
Last month, Assemblyman Evan Low, a Democrat, introduced a bill to ban retail department stores from separating their children’s clothes, toys, and other products by gender.
The bill, which may be heard in committee later this month, targets “unjustified differences” in products marketed to boys and girls. It argues that this supposedly significant problem “can be more easily identified by the consumer if similar items are displayed closer to one another in one, undivided area of the retail sales floor.” In other words, consumers are too stupid to notice retailers’ plot to perpetuate traditional gender ideology.
Boutique vendors would be exempt from Low’s crusade to merge the two genders: The legislation applies only to retail department stores with 500 or more employees. If stores that the bill would apply to, businesses such as Target, Macy’s, and J.C. Penney, fail to comply, they would be hit with a $1,000 fine.
The enforcement of this proposed legislation seems like more than a waste of taxpayer money. This legislation is silly for many reasons, ranging from the unnecessary use of government resources to the state-sanctioned imposition of gender ideology. Are gendered preferences for children really so dangerous that the state must eliminate them? It’s not as though little girls can’t already hop over to the boys’ aisles for a Bob the Builder set. And the argument for gender-neutral sections grows even more ridiculous when it comes to clothing.
As for children’s entertainment, there’s evidence gendered toys have different effects on children, according to research. Judith Elaine Blakemore, a professor of psychology and associate dean of arts and sciences for faculty development at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, says nongendered toys are more likely to have positive effects on children. The more gendered, the less pro-social. For example, she argues, Barbie is shallow. Guns are aggressive.
That doesn’t mean children need Mattel’s gender-neutral dolls, but it does indicate that a balance in traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine toys could be healthy. But there’s nothing currently keeping children from enjoying what they enjoy, even if that means walking to another aisle.
