Stopping short of calling for an outright boycott, the Rev. Franklin Graham said customers of Target should consider taking their business elsewhere due to the company’s decision to stop using gender specific signage in the children’s departments of its stores.
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In the 1970s, according to Sweet, few children’s toys were targeted specifically at boys or girls; almost 70 percent of toys had no gender-specific labels at all.
Apparently, the big-box store was receiving complaints that the children’s toy section was labeling toys with blue color schemes for boys and pink color schemes for girls.
By the mid-1990s, however, gendered advertising had returned to 1950s-levels, and it continued to grow in the 2000s. Some people supported the change, saying, “Kids should play with whatever the heck they want-be whoever they want-and not be limited by store signage!”
In the past couple of years, the tide has finally begun to turn.
In an August 7 post on its corporate website, Target announced that it would respond to customer feedback by phasing out “gender-based signage” from the children’s bedding and toy aisles.
If you have children, nieces and nephews, or if you are a child reading this (aren’t you clever, yes you are), you have probably at some stage gone into a department store to purchase a toy. “We heard you, and we agree”. It makes sense, then, for retailers to start thinking of shoppers as “more than just male or female”, explains the e-book.
Some psychologists are applauding Target’s move. He said he thinks there will be minimal political backlash but said the move might make it more hard for customers to identify certain products.
Maybe policies like this will eventually lead to kids playing with whatever toy that will make them happy, instead of worrying about being teased by kids or scolded by their parents for not adhering to the ridiculous gender roles we put on children, or for not buying into the fact that gender should have any influence on the kind of toy they play with.
The decision came two months after Abi Bechtel, an Ohio mom, posted a photo to Twitter of a Target sign separating girls’ toy building sets from other building sets.
Girls’ preference for pink is learned, not innate; cognitive research suggests that all babies actually prefer blue. Lisa Ryder wrote that all her science-loving nine-year-old daughter could find in the girls’ clothing section were “sparkly tees with rhinestones, non-realistic looking stars, and a design featuring a dog dressed like a princess and wearing a tutu”. For others, it is the blatant disregarded for the unique qualities between the two, qualities that should be celebrated. And it’s not just that there needs to be a more even-handed approach to traditionally gender-loaded prints. Boys developed an aversion to the pink toy along the same timeline. These findings suggest that toy labeling could deprive girls from access to educational toys.
On Wednesday’s edition of the O’Reilly Factor, Reverend Graham accused Target of ignoring “hard-working families with children-and they’re not gender-neutral children, these are boys and girls the way God made us”.
As more and more people are choosing not to restrict their identities to gender, the way we shop could be in for a change.
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“Organizing merchandise by gender also acts as a barrier that prevents children from exploring the wide array of toys and activities available”, says Dinella. She said the removal of gender labels opens new doors for all children.
