Quote of the Day

If gender is a universal, biological, and God-ordained constant, then why do children need cultural reinforcement from a retail chain to figure it out? In the bizarro world of far-right logic, gender is at once the strongest force on the planet and the most fragile. The God of Genesis may have created male and female but unless Target puts these words on signs for action figures and Barbie dolls, all of His hard work will be undone. The protests seem to be motivated by the paradoxical fear that children will grow up genderless without Target’s help even though their biology should supposedly guide them into pink and blue aisles without any intervention.

But Target is not attacking gender itself, only the outdated idea that girls and boys should play with certain shapes and colors of molded plastic and not others.

. . . To be clear: Target is not replacing its toy section with amorphous blobs of androgynous grey putty. And if a higher power ordained that your baby boy should play with toy monster trucks, those are still available and you can still obtain one in exchange for legal tender, as is your God-given right in a capitalist society. But the argument made by [Reverend Franklin] Graham and O’Reilly Factor guest host Eric Bolling that Target’s move is an attempt to appeal to some sort of anti-gender LGBT fringe is completely off base—not “off target” because please, we’re not animals.

– Samantha Allen
Excerpted from "Bigots Lose It Over Target’s Boy Toy Policy"
The Daily Beast
August 14, 2015

Related Off-site Links:
Target to Remove Gender-based Labeling in Toy Aisles – Kavita Kumar (Star Tribune, August 8, 2015).
Target Will Stop Labeling Toys for Boys or Girls. Good – Rebecca Hains (The Washington Post, August 13, 2015).
Gendering Toys Isn’t About Nature or Tradition. It’s About Ideology – Amanda Marcotte (Slate, August 14, 2015).

Image: Kristen Solberg.