Gifts for boys sign removed

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
Post Reply
User avatar
skirtingtoday
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1518
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:28 pm
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by skirtingtoday »

See attached article where a 7-year old girl complained about the "Fun gifts for boys" notice in a Tesco window (subsequently removed). Her mother had advocated that all toys were for all children and there shouldn't be any discriminatiuon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-30191100

We can only hope that the "skirts for women" notices on various websites (such as e-bay and Amazon) are also removed in due course.

Ross
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on" - Winston Churchill.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it" - Joseph Goebbels
Gordon
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 570
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2014 6:30 pm
Location: Western Washington, USA

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by Gordon »

It's so nice to see that some of our society is slowly waking up.
-----------------------------
Namaste,
Gordon
Stu
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1314
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 8:25 am
Location: North Lincolnshire, UK

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by Stu »

I don't have a problem with shops selling toys, books or even clothes specifically for boys - or for girls.

I think the political correctness which frowns at this is the result of businesses allowing themselves to be pushed around by such as feminism.
User avatar
RichardA
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 698
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:26 pm
Location: Southampton UK

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by RichardA »

It's pink for a boy now and blue for a girl
User avatar
Sinned
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 5804
Joined: Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:28 pm
Location: York, England

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by Sinned »

And in an experiment the male monkeys mainly went for the boys toys and the female monkeys mainly went for the dolls and girls toys.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
Big and Bashful
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 2921
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:51 pm
Location: Scottish West Coast

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by Big and Bashful »

Sinned wrote:And in an experiment the male monkeys mainly went for the boys toys and the female monkeys mainly went for the dolls and girls toys.
That was a fascinating documentary, really fascinating.
I am the God of Hellfire! and I bring you truffles!
User avatar
RichardA
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 698
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:26 pm
Location: Southampton UK

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by RichardA »

I saw that too it was very good, now why have a just bought a pink sweatshirt :oops:
User avatar
ethelthefrog
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2010 1:31 pm
Location: Cambridge, UK
Contact:

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by ethelthefrog »

Stu wrote:I don't have a problem with shops selling toys, books or even clothes specifically for boys - or for girls.

I think the political correctness which frowns at this is the result of businesses allowing themselves to be pushed around by such as feminism.
The problem congress when sunstone is looking for a science set to help their child learn... well... science, but they have to go to the boys part of the shop to get it. The girl thinks that she is not allowed to do science because science is for boys.

The problem comes when the pink telescope is less powerful than the blue one for the same price.

The problem comes when the boy who loves My Little Pony had to go to the girl section to pick up a new toy.

It simply doesn't matter that more monkeys went for a particular toy. When it comes to children, everyone matters, and nobody needs to be told that they are only allowed certain interests because of the shape of their genitals.

Sure, a majority of girls like dolls. Does that mean that those who don't should be forced to have them anyway? Should we prevent boys from liking pink toys? Should we stop men from wearing skirts?

Unnecessary barriers should be removed. Dividing toy shops by gender creates an unnecessary barrier.

Paul
pleated
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 308
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:08 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by pleated »

ethelthefrog wrote: [snip]
When it comes to children, everyone matters, and nobody needs to be told that they are only allowed certain interests because of the shape of their genitals.

Sure, a majority of girls like dolls. Does that mean that those who don't should be forced to have them anyway? Should we prevent boys from liking pink toys? Should we stop men from wearing skirts?

Unnecessary barriers should be removed. Dividing toy shops by gender creates an unnecessary barrier.

Paul
http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/
https://storify.com/lettoysbetoys/caringboys
User avatar
ethelthefrog
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2010 1:31 pm
Location: Cambridge, UK
Contact:

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by ethelthefrog »

Yup. Exactly that.
Stu
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1314
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 8:25 am
Location: North Lincolnshire, UK

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by Stu »

There is a danger in this discussion of mixing up fact and myth when it comes to toys.

All toy stores are different but, for customer convenience, they tend to put like with like. So big trucks tend to go with cars, toy tanks go with shooting games and so on. Most toy stores don't go as far as specifying which toys are primarily aimed at boys and which are primarily aimed at girls, although there are signals in terms of pictures displayed of the expectation of the prototype of child one might expect to be playing with said toy.

The reality is that the vast majority of Barbie dolls, baby dolls, kitchen sets and so on are bought for girls. This is most often either because the item is chosen by the intended recipient girl, or because the buyer knows the girl well enough to know that is the kind of toy she would like. The same applies to toys aimed primarily at boys, with military toys, Batman stuff and big trucks etc. Chemistry sets, Lego and so on is mostly placed on sections of the store which are pretty much gender neutral and mostly depict both a boy and a girl playing with these.

What campaigns like "Let Toys Be Toys" are in danger of doing is social engineering. In other words, they are demanding that stores ignore the reality that girls mostly choose to play with traditionally feminine toys and boys mostly choose to play with traditionally boys' toys, and to project some kind of other world that does not exist, but which they think should exist based on their ideological perspectives, where children are pretty much gender neutral. I find that deeply sinister and so I will not support campaigns like this. Toy shops are businesses - they must run them according to their own best lights and, within that, they have every right to decide to reflect reality in their marketing rather than conform to what a bunch of vociferous activists and feminists demand.

I have two daughters and a son in the middle. My eldest daughter liked her dolls - and she also wanted a chemistry set and wouldn't have cared less which part of the store it was in. She went on to become a doctor and is now a hospital paediatrician and earning a terrific salary. My youngest inherited boxes full of traditionally boys toys from her older brother and had zero interest in any of them and we ended up giving them to a cousin. She was, and still is as a young adult, mad about pink and make-up and sparkly shoes. I appreciate that some girls will want to play with toy guns and some boys will want a baby buggy - but they are the exception and it doesn't take much to walk across to another aisle in the same store.
Tor
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 615
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:20 am

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by Tor »

On the whole I have to agree with Stu here, but I do agree that signs in the store proclaiming a section to be for boys or girls is in most cases unneeded and unhelpful redundency. Especially these days with the completely different colour scheme any potential purchaser (save those rare true colour blind folk) are going to be able to tell which section they are in at a glance. If the store is small enough that an aisle for boys and an aisle for girls would suffice, is it really needed to have such signs at all? In the case of a larger store, signs for "toy vehicles" or "construction sets" will probably do the same job about as well for most parents or relatives looking for toys for boys, without adding an exclusionary layer for the girls who want such to break through.
ethelthefrog wrote:The problem congress when sunstone is looking for a science set to help their child learn... well... science, but they have to go to the boys part of the shop to get it. The girl thinks that she is not allowed to do science because science is for boys.

The problem comes when the pink telescope is less powerful than the blue one for the same price.

The problem comes when the boy who loves My Little Pony had to go to the girl section to pick up a new toy.
Absent specifying a gender for toys (maybe the science or constuction set are more likely to feature boys and the My Little Pony girls in the pictures, though), we are left with the second example here, which is worth taking up with stores/manufacturers as looking sexist, especially if there are only pink and blue telescopes.
human@world# ask_question --recursive "By what legitimate authority?"
User avatar
ethelthefrog
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2010 1:31 pm
Location: Cambridge, UK
Contact:

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by ethelthefrog »

Goodness me. I need to proof read when I post from my phone. Apologies for the barely literate mumblings there.

My experience of some toy shops in the UK and having read stories of people visiting toy shops in the US, I'm afraid that there are sections of toy shops that are clearly labeled with big signs reading "boys toys" and "girls toys". Truly, it doesn't matter what the majority go for, and most girls go for the dolls and most boys go for the trucks, putting up these signs does prevent some girls who want trucks from accessing them, and the same for boys.

My complaint about the science set came from someone's actual experience of visiting a toy shop and being directed explicitly to the boys' section (identified by a clear sign) in order to get one. It would be lovely if the science set was in a bit of the shop that was non-gendered, but it was not the case in that particular shop.

P.
Tor
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 615
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:20 am

Re: Gifts for boys sign removed

Post by Tor »

I will admit to not paying attention to the department stores I've been in, and there are no large dedicated toy stores around me. The small toy store I worked at was (and indeed is) small enough that there are no signs at all. Customers either browse (not hard in a space that size) or ask. I suppose perhaps I do agree largely with you, Paul, in that I see no reason to maintain "boys'" and "girls'" sections, other than the attempt to keep the types of things bought by the same group in the same area of the store that will almost inevitably produce de facto "boys'" and "girls'" sections. Signs for trucks and tanks and construction sets as opposed to signs for princesses and My Little Pony are likely to provide at least as effective a locating tool.
human@world# ask_question --recursive "By what legitimate authority?"
Post Reply