California considers bill requiring gender-neutral children's sections at large retailers

[Revoltingest]

So it would be a joint effort between government and corporates to socially engineer children?

Oh, we can't trust private industry at all. Government
should determine what society should be like. Companies
must then submit to its wise revolutionary dictates.
The people will fall in line, & uniformly correct behavior
shall spread throughout the land.

 

[Kooky]

So it would be a joint effort between government and corporates to socially engineer children?

You mean, like in basic education, or in a different way than what we are used to?

 

[We Never Know]

Retail stores in California may be required to become more gender-neutral under proposed legislation.

State lawmakers are debating a new bill that would prohibit department stores with more than 500 employees from dividing products for children by gender.

The restriction would ban separate areas and signage and mandate online retailers that have a physical location in the state use gender-neutral terms to label children's items in a section of their websites. It would apply to toys and other kids' items but not clothing at this time, the bill's co-author Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia told USA Today.

If passed, the bill will go into effect in Jan. 1, 2024, and comes with a fine of $1,000 for violations.

The proposal, introduced Feb. 18, follows a series of recent moves championed by LGBTQ advocates. Last month, Hasbro made its Potato Head brand gender-neutral and the Congress passed an expansion of the Equality Act with protections for the LGBTQ community.​

California considers bill requiring gender-neutral children's sections at large retailers​

Here's a simple solution that doesn't require a bill.... If someone wants to buy girls things, go to the girl section. If they want to buy boy things, go to the boy section. Problem solved.

 

[Samael_Khan]

You mean, like in basic education, or in a different way than what we are used to?

I am talk Edward Bernays level marketing. I am not familiar with America's education system, but ours over here (crap as it is) has the problem of not allow critical thinking at a sufficient level. This makes them susceptible to manipulation by others.

 

[Samael_Khan]

Oh, we can't trust private industry at all. Government
should determine what society should be like. Companies
must then submit to its wise revolutionary dictates.
The people will fall in line, & uniformly correct behavior
shall spread throughout the land.

So this is what normally happens. I just don't know if at the moment government is the main driving force. Have you ever looked up Edward Bernays?

 

[Revoltingest]

So this is what normally happens. I just don't know if at the moment government is the main driving force. Have you ever looked up Edward Bernays?

I just looked him up. I've far less trouble with a free market
of different businesses trying to manipulate us than with a
central government coercing us by force of law.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I dunno. I’ve known plenty of boys who played with makeup, barbie dolls and the like.

My sister got so mad at me once when I took a marker and made her Barbie dolls anatomically correct.

 

[SomeRandom]

My sister got so mad at me once when I took a marker and made her Barbie dolls anatomically correct.

Lmao!!!
I never jived well with gendered specific toys as a kid. And I refuse to wear makeup. My cousin put foundation on me once. Legit, my pores felt like they were suffocating. Maybe that’s just an allergic reaction. (I hope it is and girls are not literally suffocating their skin!!!) But still

 

[Samael_Khan]

I just looked him up. I've far less trouble with a free market
of different businesses trying to manipulate us than with a
central government coercing us by force of law.

Didnt government also hire him? I cant remember. I thought it did.

 

[Revoltingest]

Didnt government also hire him? I cant remember. I thought it did.

He personally isn't the problem. It's how others would
use his work to maliciously manipulate the populace.
This is a power most dangerous in government hands.

 

[Samael_Khan]

He personally isn't the problem. It's how others would
use his work to maliciously manipulate the populace.
This is a power most dangerous in government hands.

They are doing it already so....

 

[Revoltingest]

They are doing it already so....

.....it's worth resisting government's malicious use of propagandizing.

 

[Samael_Khan]

.....it's worth resisting government's malicious use of propagandizing.

It is, because government should serve the people. Governments shouldn't take the place of monarchies that we thought were abolished.

 

[Kooky]

I am talk Edward Bernays level marketing. I am not familiar with America's education system, but ours over here (crap as it is) has the problem of not allow critical thinking at a sufficient level. This makes them susceptible to manipulation by others.

We are already doing that for the sake of selling more toys, are we not?

 

[Samael_Khan]

We are already doing that for the sake of selling more toys, are we not?

I don't know. Its a chicken and the egg scenario. I don't know if the distinction we are chatting about on here is a result of social engineering or natural psychology between the sexes. If it is the former I would say yes. If it is the latter I would say no.

 

[Kooky]

I don't know. Its a chicken and the egg scenario. I don't know if the distinction we are chatting about on here is a result of social engineering or natural psychology between the sexes. If it is the former I would say yes. If it is the latter I would say no.

Your answer seems to indicate that you do not believe that the social environment of children plays a major role in shaping their gender roles and gender-specific behaviors. However, so far we haven't found any genetic markers for psychological behavior at all, and the brain structures of infants don't seem to vary along gender lines, either.

Where would this "natural psychology" come from, then?
More interestingly, why would a fundamental natural part of human behavior only manifest in ways that curiously conform to modern Western cultural traditions? We know for a fact that our gender roles are not, and likely have never been, universal, so why would our "natural" psychology be so uniquely modern, Western, and capitalist in nature?

 

[Samael_Khan]

Your answer seems to indicate that you do not believe that the social environment of children plays a major role in shaping their gender roles and gender-specific behaviors. However, so far we haven't found any genetic markers for psychological behavior at all, and the brain structures of infants don't seem to vary along gender lines, either.

Actually I think that it social environment plays a major role in childhood development. But in many cases I can't say whether something is purely biological or not. I have read books that say that there are common psychological markers throughout the species, which is why we can predict general human behaviour so well. For instance tribalism is a natural psychological disposition that humans have that can be capitalised on. The very fact that humans can be socially engineered means that there has to be something that is passed genetically onto humans that makes us react in certain ways to certain things. I am less concerned about infants varying along gender lines and more concerned if people's have actions and preferences informed by their sex. So as a basic topic would be are human males more prone towards aggressive behaviour and are human females more prone to nurturing? If that has scientific basis then does that follow through with human males being more prone to playing with action figures because of aggression and girls preferring to play with baby dolls because they are prone to nurturing things.

Now, I don't remember saying that I leaned towards one direction or the other. I have specifically said in my last response that I do not know if it is genetic or social in many instances.

Where would this "natural psychology" come from, then?
More interestingly, why would a fundamental natural part of human behavior only manifest in ways that curiously conform to modern Western cultural traditions? We know for a fact that our gender roles are not, and likely have never been, universal, so why would our "natural" psychology be so uniquely modern, Western, and capitalist in nature?

I would speculate that natural psychology comes evolution. I would disagree that the toy distinction that we are talking about is necessarily only a Western tradition. Most cultures have a distinction between male and female. For instance in most tribal cultures the men do the hunting while the women stay at home to look after children. Religions also have gender distinctions that are similar, such as Western civilisations, Middle Eastern ones, Far Eastern ones and African ones. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all from the Middle East, The Incas are from America, Hinduism from India, Bantu religions from Africa. They all had these basic gender distinctions. And if that is common throughout the world, then there is probably a genetic reason why. For instance women had to bear children in the past therefore had to be protected whereas as men were physically stronger so they had to defend the tribe and protect the women. That is genetics informing the social structure and roles. Whether that is relevant today at a time where technology makes those distinctions irrelevant is another topic.

Obviously there are exceptions to both these points which I highlighted in my Gender Map thread I started.

 

[Kooky]

Actually I think that it social environment plays a major role in childhood development. But in many cases I can't say whether something is purely biological or not. I have read books that say that there are common psychological markers throughout the species, which is why we can predict general human behaviour so well. For instance tribalism is a natural psychological disposition that humans have that can be capitalised on. The very fact that humans can be socially engineered means that there has to be something that is passed genetically onto humans that makes us react in certain ways to certain things.

I am less concerned about infants varying along gender lines and more concerned if people's have actions and preferences informed by their sex.

(my emphasis)
Of course they do!
Duh!

We are having our entire lives - our behavior, our values, the way we see ourselves and others, the way we judge and are judged, the way we walk, talk, love, hate, befriend - gendered from a very early age on. We are informed every day in our waking life what is expected of people of our gender, what we must do to conform to these expectations, and how little we are worth if we fail to conform to - or, worse, consciously reject - the roles we have been assigned.

It would be patently absurd to suggest that most kids, sensitive as they are to other people's expectations of them, would utterly fail to pick up on this entire spectrum of emotions and information they are being bombarded with.

So as a basic topic would be are human males more prone towards aggressive behaviour and are human females more prone to nurturing?

If that has scientific basis then does that follow through with human males being more prone to playing with action figures because of aggression and girls preferring to play with baby dolls because they are prone to nurturing things.

What do you mean by them being "prone to" behavior here?

• Are you argueing that their behavior is genetically determined?
• Are you saying they were raised in a specific fashion?
• Did they have certain expectations of behavior impressed upon them by a wide variety of public and private institutions?
• Or were these behaviors subtly suggested by advertisement or propaganda?

All of these mean very different things, but all could be contained in this little phrase that men or women are "prone to" this or that.

In earlier times, men were "prone to" drink and smoke cigarettes (and were being consciously marketed to for that reason) but does that mean they were genetically predisposed to such behavior, presumably by their innate aggression and manliness? Or was it a case of men attempting to conform to a widely publicized image of what it looked like to be a manly man who did manly things?

On the other hand, women are, to this day, "prone to" be paid a lot less for the same work that men do, for a wide variety of reasons that all seem to coalesce around the fact of their gender. Does that mean they are genetically predisposed to be put down by capitalists and exploited even worse than their male counterparts among the working class? Is it because of their inherent feminine nature that they do not fight as fervently for their wages as their manly aggressive colleagues? Is it some God's divine plan that female work is valued less by men and women alike?


Can you see the fundamental problem with your overgeneralizing approach here? We are driving at high speed over all these bumps and holes in your assumptions as if they didn't exist, completely ignorant of the patchwork nature of the argumentative roadmap we have laid out in front of us.

Now, I don't remember saying that I leaned towards one direction or the other. I have specifically said in my last response that I do not know if it is genetic or social in many instances.

I would speculate that natural psychology comes evolution. I would disagree that the toy distinction that we are talking about is necessarily only a Western tradition. Most cultures have a distinction between male and female. For instance in most tribal cultures the men do the hunting while the women stay at home to look after children. Religions also have gender distinctions that are similar, such as Western civilisations, Middle Eastern ones, Far Eastern ones and African ones. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all from the Middle East, The Incas are from America, Hinduism from India, Bantu religions from Africa. They all had these basic gender distinctions. And if that is common throughout the world, then there is probably a genetic reason why. For instance women had to bear children in the past therefore had to be protected whereas as men were physically stronger so they had to defend the tribe and protect the women. That is genetics informing the social structure and roles. Whether that is relevant today at a time where technology makes those distinctions irrelevant is another topic.

Obviously there are exceptions to both these points which I highlighted in my Gender Map thread I started.

I can only reiterate on what I already said in the Gender Map thread:
Most cultures have gender roles that do not map exactly to our Western ones. They may look similar when viewed very broadly and superficially, especially when we want to confirm our belief that Western cultural values are eternal and universal.

But if we go deeper and look more closely, we will start to see that, for example, it is perfectly fine for a Middle Eastern man to cry in public during times of distress - in fact in some situations a certain performative display of passion is almost expected. The same cannot be said about the Western man, whose manliness stems to a large part from being stoic and dispassionate, with aggression being the only culturally accepted outlet of male emotion most of the time.

Even in the West, the markers we currently use to signify manliness or feminity have changed significantly over the last 100-150 years, and are still changing with our cultural attitudes towards gender, masculinity and feminity. These days, at the very least displays of fatherly and brotherly love seem to have become acceptable within manly-male circles, when that was not necessarily the case when viewing cultural artifacts of the 1950s or 1960s.

Put simply, gender roles in modern Western society are neither universal nor unchanging, they were not put in our heads by a divine figure, nor were they a result of genetic inheritance or mutation.
They are intersubjective, culturally tradited practices that can change and shift, acquire and lose meaning over time, be transported or pushed upon others, or may even die out over time.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Probably because dolls are marketed toward girls while action figures and toy guns are marketed toward boys and then our society reinforces those notions.
What is feminine about a doll? Men don't take care of babies? Of course they do. What is masculine about a toy gun? Women don't shoot guns? Of course they do.
What is feminine about pink things? What is masculine about blue things? (Those colours used to be reversed, by the way in earlier centuries.)
What is masculine about pants? What is feminine about dresses?

The answer is nothing. We assign those meaning to those things as a society, rightly or wrongly and then reinforce them, for some reason.

There have been studies done showing that toddlers tend to naturally gravitate towards various toys.
Study finds robust sex differences in children's toy preferences across a range of ages and countries

I have no idea where the color thing comes from and whether that comes from a biological root.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Of course they are not, that would be girly (or boyish, respectively). Children tend to be highly conscious of our society's gender roles, and are often very sensitive as to what's expected of them.

To an extent, but, all things being equal, I highly doubt most boys would be interested in makeup and dolls if given a choice. Studies seem to bear that out, too.