You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

[Shana A]

You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It
By Christina Hoff Sommers
Dec 6 2012, 11:29 AM ET

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-give-a-boy-a-doll-but-you-cant-make-him-play-with-it/265977/#.UMNRw944zLg.facebook

The logistical and ethical problems with trying to make toys gender-neutral

Is it discriminatory and degrading for toy catalogs to show girls playing with tea sets and boys with Nerf guns? A Swedish regulatory group says yes. The Reklamombudsmannen (RO) has reprimanded Top-Toy, a licensee of Toys"R"Us and one of the largest toy companies in Northern Europe, for its "outdated" advertisements and has pressured it to mend its "narrow-minded" ways. After receiving "training and guidance" from RO equity experts, Top-Toy introduced gender neutrality in its 2012 Christmas catalogue. The catalog shows little boys playing with a Barbie Dream House and girls with guns and gory action figures. As its marketing director explains, "For several years, we have found that the gender debate has grown so strong in the Swedish market that we have had to adjust."

Swedes can be remarkably thorough in their pursuit of gender parity. A few years ago, a feminist political party proposed a law requiring men to sit while urinating—less messy and more equal. In 2004, the leader of the Sweden's Left Party Feminist Council, Gudrun Schyman,proposed a "man tax"—a special tariff to be levied on men to pay for all the violence and mayhem wrought by their sex. In April 2012, following the celebration of International Women's Day, the Swedes formally introduced the genderless pronoun "hen" to be used in place of he and she (han and hon).

[Joelene9]

  This is a good article on the "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" analogy.  The so-called "gender neutral" society can lead to problems.  Leave the toys as they are.  If a boy likes to play with dolls and wear pink dresses, let him!  If a girl likes 'boy toys' like Tonka trucks and likes to wear boys' clothing, let her!  No need to pass laws such as a "man tax" or abolishing recess for the children in school, as one Swedish school has done. 
  In my case, I grew up with two younger sisters.  They had their Barbies.  I did play with them for a little while, but I got not much with them.  On the other hand, I did nothing to those dolls to abuse them as my younger brother did.  If there was a Barbie left out in the open, he would behead it.  My sisters still talk about that to this day.  These are the same sisters that modified a Barbie as "Middle Aged Barbie", complete with baggy sweats and vericose veins. 
  No laws of this kind mentioned in the article are needed if there is just a little more tolerance.  The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have programs for teachers on "Teaching Tolerance" and non-binary gender differences.  There will always be a lot of intolerant people in any society and passing any kind of tolerance laws or levies will cause a runaway pressure cooker analogy.  This is what happened to some of the past empires.   

  Joelene