Photo: Frederick FLORIN / AFP / Getty Images
The state of California now requires large department stores and toy stores that both toys and children’s personal hygiene items be displayed without any gender stereotype and rather the presentation is “neutral”.
The new legislation does not refer to eliminating the division of articles for girls or boys, but it is expected that a neutral space will be opened and that there will be a “reasonable” selection that does not commercialize if it is for female or male.
The legislation is for businesses with more than 500 employees, so these small businesses are exempted from complying with the legislation.
This project of law, tried to be passed on two previous occasions in the state of California, and it is not until now that it finally passed. In this regard, one of the promoters of said project, Democrat Evan Low said he was “incredibly grateful.”
Some Republicans who rejected the law, consider that does not correspond to the government ” instruct parents on how to buy things for their children. ”
Instead, Democrats like Low say that “California is reexamining how gender toy sections reinforce stigma and negative stereotypes about children.”
For Low, the idea is that although other businesses do not are obliged, both in California and in the rest of the United States, “avoid reinforcing these harmful stereotypes” . “We must let children be children and not stigmatize products for sale by gender.
The promoter of this legislation said that the daughter of He was inspired by one of his employees, a 10 years old, when he asked why she was excluded from use some toys for being a girl.
In this sense, this week, The Lego Group also announced a similar decision regarding the toys it manufactures, promising to eliminate “gender biases and not mark their toys more with the label of “for girls or for boys.”
In a study that the Lego Group did to make this decision, The results indicated that professions such as engineering and construction are seen in a 89% of the sample “only for mens”; as well as scientific and athletic activities. Parents of girls are more likely to cheer them on for cooking games, dressing up, and dancing.
This eliminating “stereotypes” in the distribution of toys for girls or boys is law for the first time in the state of California, however, and other stores and corporations have made some changes in this regard even without being obliged by law.
An example of this was given by the Target Corporation that since 2015 stopped using in its more than 1, 900 stores, throughout the United States, signs directed to a specific genre .