Elizabeth Sweet, an expert on the gendering of toys, after a lot of research on the topic at UC Davis, brings up an interesting point in the video that is in April's edition of the magazine (and linked below). She talks about how kids not only feel like they are put into a box by labels for girls and boys things (she tells the story of her daughter wanting a dinosaur lunchbox until she sees that the tag reads "Boy lunchbox) and has to be convinced to take it) but that they are the ones who deal with the ridicule of going down the girl aisle in a toy store, if they are a boy — and vice versa — and they are the ones who have to "sacrifice a part of themselves," as she says, to be what is supposed to be normal in society, if that isn't naturally how they feel about the things they like. That is something huge to ask, and isn't really fair.
This is why we need to be aware of stores that HEAVILY gender toys and aisles for kids, since this can be a way they forcibly change the way they feel or act, due to what they see society strictly saying to them.
Target, even Walmart, have made some changes, and there are so many online stores selling any toys to any kids, or making and marketing unisex, gender-neutral (I prefer that more than unisex) clothing and other things for children.
We need to let children be who they want, but understand that society's pressure will still be there and so change needs to happen for them in our society as well. Watch out for the stores making a difference, and those who are not, yet.
Also, listen especially to the part of the talk where Sweet discusses how un-gendering children's things will NOT cause an apocalypse.
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