By now, many of you have probably heard about the controversy over Target’s decision to remove gender signage from toys and bedding. When I first heard about the change last week, I was happy because at the time I thought it meant that I would no longer have to wander from aisle to aisle trying to find all of the LEGO sets in the toy department, as Target has typically kept the Friends sets separate from the rest of the LEGO sets. I was also happy because, of course, this move is better for children, particularly for girls, who may be interested in more than just dolls and cooking. Removing the gender signage helps open up the entire toy department (including LEGO) to everyone.
I was not prepared for the rage that followed this decision. A couple of days after the announcement, an acquaintance posted a complaint about it on her Facebook wall. While part of me knew I was probably about to get into a useless Facebook argument, I still went ahead and asked for more information about why she was upset about the decision because I could not think of any reason someone would be upset about the removal of these signs. I don’t know how else to describe her response other than, well, my question pissed her off. It was hard to get a concrete answer out of her other than the issue was black and white and always had been. I wasn’t satisfied with this non-answer, so I took to Google to try to find out why someone would be outraged. And, boy, I found a lot of outraged people.
Target’s own Facebook page in particular was subject to a lot of outrage and trolling following the announcement. Then, Facebook user, Mike Melgaard began trolling the trolls. If you haven’t read his responses as Askforhelp, you should do that, they are hilarious. In fact, the whole thing is a little hilarious, and provided me with hours of entertainment on one hand; on the other hand, it’s not really funny at all, and some of the justification for the outrage is downright scary. In what follows, I will list and respond to some of the more common complaints that I’ve read regarding the announcement.
But, it’s black and white; It always has been.
This is, as mentioned above, the first thing I heard, but no, it isn’t black and white and it hasn’t always been black and white. As I’ve written before, pink hasn’t always been associated with girls. This NPR article from last year explains the history pretty well. The Atlantic also has a pretty good read here about the history of gendering toys. In addition, for a bit last year, I became interested in old toy advertisements. During that time, I found Batteries Not Included on archive.org, a fantastic collection of vintage toy advertisements. While I didn’t always love how gender was portrayed in these commercials, girls were almost always included, unlike today.
But, it’s against my religion.
I’m not a theologian, so I’m not going to go into detail much with this one. But, I have attended a lot of sermons in my life, and I cannot recall them ever being concerned with the types of toys children play with. I do no think the bible addresses this issue. I’ve seen many people ask for evidence that the bible does talk about toys, but thus far, I have not seem any evidence that would suggest this is true.
But, it will turn my child gay or transgendered.
Please. It will not. I’m tempted to just leave it at that because this claim is so ridiculous. But, I think this is one of the things my acquaintance was trying to get at the other night. Many of my friends, along with myself, played with a variety of toys as children, and this was never a factor. However, if as a parent, you are concerned about this, I strongly suggest you educate yourself for the sake of your child.
But, I played with a variety of toys as a child, and I still think it’s wrong.
This just seems convoluted to me.
But, how will I know which toy to buy for my child/grandchild?
I know that probably 90% of the people asking this question are trolls trolling the trolls. But, I found several instances of this being asked legitimately. Unfortunately, the toys themselves aren’t changing, so it should be easy enough to determine which pink toy was meant for girls and which (super cool and fun looking) blue toy was meant for boys. If you still can’t figure it out, I suggest you get to know your kid and go from there.
Ultimately, while I was pretty excited to hear about the change, I now feel not much is really going to change. From what I can determine from reading all the articles and comments I can find, Target is only changing the signage and the back drop for the toys. That is, instead of signage reading “Building Toys” or “Girls Building Toys” against a blue or pink backdrop, the signs will now say simply “Building Toys,” but the toys themselves won’t be relocated. So, I fear I will still have to wonder around Target trying to find all of the LEGO sets. According to the Internet, Walmart made this change three years ago. I can’t verify right now because the freshman are coming to my college town, and I’m afraid of Walmart, but I don’t think their LEGO is all together. I’m more certain that Walmart hasn’t relocated the action figures to the Barbie aisle, so while finding the toys should continue to be easy, the root problem still has not been addressed. It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s a passive step. We will still have the blue and pink aisles until the manufacturers do a better job of integrating the toy lines.
