God is Great, Wine is Good, and People are Crazy

During my lunch hour today, I ran out to do a few errands.

First, I stopped for gas since my tank was empty.  The tank in my sports car, the 5^th sports car I have owned.  I know moms are supposed to drive minivans or SUV’s, but I would not own one if you gave it to me free.  Just the thought of it is making me a bit nauseous.     

Next, I stopped at CVS.  In looking for airplane acceptable toiletries for my son and my husband, they didn’t have the men’s toiletries separated from the women’s in the travel-size aisle.  I managed to find the men’s deodorant in 2.74568988 seconds.

I then went to another aisle to get the only school supplies we still needed, folders.  The pink ones with the fairies and the ones with the kittens were all mixed in the same pile with the ones with footballs and the ones with with superheroes.  Same with the spiral notebooks.  There were no labels telling me which were for boys and which were for girls.  What is a mom to do?  Well, if my son was younger, I would have picked up a couple with kittens and a couple with footballs because he would have loved them both, alas he has plain folders of certain colors on the supply list from school.  I did almost buy myself one with Minions, just because I like them.  I don’t know if they are really “meant” for 47 year old women who don’t need school folders, but, well, so?

Next, I went to the very limited grocery aisle, because I was trying to cut out a trip to another store, to get some tomato sauce to make tonight’s dinner.  I noticed that the fruit snacks came in all kinds of characters.  Again, however, nothing to tell me which were OK for girls and which were OK for boys.  Since they had none without artificial coloring, which my son cannot have, I skipped right over them, luckily avoiding the dilemma of trying to figure out which would not cause my child to spontaneously combust for consuming a character meant for the opposite gender.

Next it was to drop a package at UPS.  It contained the phone with the broken LCD display that needed to be returned to Motorola so as to not be charged for the free replacement they had sent.  The broken phone that I, his mom, a woman, despite it being more natural for males to be the technical wizards, had not only managed to save his pictures from despite not being able to turn on the screen, but had wiped those pictures and the personal info from the phone being sent back.

Finally, I had to stop at the pharmacy to fill my and my son’s prescriptions.  While waiting, I noticed the other items were grouped by purpose, and then alphabetically.  Stomach remedies were together, pain relievers, supplements…There was nothing there to tell me which were most helpful to males and which to females.  If I wanted to know what helped with testosterone levels, I would have had to ask one of the pharmacists.  Can you imagine?

This week it was announced that Target, one of my favorite stores as evidenced by the amount of money I have spent there, was going to stop labeling their items (excluding the clothing sections) as for girls or for boys.  No big deal, right?  After all, a Lego set is a Lego set.  Or so you would think….

There was no social media frenzy, no media-induced crisis, no coverage whatsoever about Target planning to do so.  After the fact, we are told that a mom complained to Target that they shouldn’t be labeling their toy aisles as for boys or girls. Target decided that maybe she had a point.

And the frenzy then began.  Conservatives and Christians are calling this some kind of attack on their values.  Note, please, that I am a Christian, and lean conservatively, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with what is being done at the store.  No one is attacking me.  No one is making me or my husband or my son or our friends question our gender.  No one has changed our lives ONE LITTLE BIT.  Well, maybe a little, because I now question if there is a sane person left in our country.

Honestly, I never really noticed if Target, or any store for that matter, labeled things by gender.  I guess I didn’t need a map to tell me what marketers thought was OK for my son to play with or sleep on.  It obviously was not something that I felt repressed me, nor was I offended by it, I was just merely blissfully unaware.  When I heard that it was changing, however, I thought “Well, yeah, why do we need signs distinguishing girl’s toys from boy’s toys?”  I actually read the articles about them, not just headlines or one line blurbs on Facebook.  I am actually aware of what they are doing, and I think it is in reality one of the last phase steps in recognizing that women and men are equal, and both genders have talents and likes unique to them as an individual.

For those of you who made it this far in my somewhat unusually lengthy blog, and haven’t walked away in disgust at my moral failings at not realizing that Barbies are only for girls or Hot Wheels are only for boys, Target is not re-arranging your store.  They are not mixing all the clothing together.  They are not going to make you walk to the northeast corner of the store to get the Spiderman pillowcase from the same aisle the bras are in, and then to the southwest corner to get the matching sheet.  Your child is not going to walk in happy in her frilly little pink dress clutching her baby doll, happy as a clam to be a girl, and then walk out wanting a gender change. They are simply removing the gender label on what, like it or not, are truly gender neutral things. 

I do believe that there are some traits that are more common in girls and some that are more common in boys.  There are gender differences.  For instance, girls tend to be more nurturing, boys more rough and tumble.  Girls tend to excel in language, boys in math.  The key words, however, are “common” and “tend.”  All children, all people, are individuals.  I don’t share all the same traits and likes with the woman who lives next door.  I do, however share some of the same traits my husband has, maybe even more than with my neighbor, which is one of the reasons we are married.  People all have some traits that may be more common in the other gender.  AND THAT IS OK.  It does not cause you to lose your “gender identity.”

I am a heterosexual female who wears makeup every day, likes wearing dresses, loves high heels, and always has painted toe nails.  I have absolutely no doubt that I am female, I’ve never questioned it.  I, however, am not overly feminine and pretty much am “male-brained.”  I excel, to an extreme, in math and related areas.  I am great with technology.  I can manage not only navigating Home Depot and finding the things I need all by myself, I can complete home improvement projects unassisted.  If something needs fixed, I don’t go find my husband, I just do it.  I’m the one who takes the trash out.  I love talking politics.  As aforementioned, I have a great fondness for sports cars.  I’m athletic.  I don’t own a single tube of lipstick and often cut my hair very short because I don’t like having to deal with it.   I can’t stand romance novels or non-comedic romance movies.  I love action and sports movies.  When I was a kid, I owned Hotwheels cars and tracks and would set up races with my other tomboy friends, when we weren’t playing Cowboys and Indians or climbing trees.  I’ve always had more male friends than female.  And I even have a fondness for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

My son, he is very much like me in his personality. He also is athletic, can be LOUD, is messy, loves sports, and is a pretty typical boy. He has no doubt that he is one.  However, in some areas, he possesses some of the more characteristically “female” traits that I lack, like sensitivity, empathy, language skills, and knowing how to be friends with girls. And when he was a toddler, he had dolls and toy kitchens, at his own request, despite any sign that might have been on the store aisle.

And I don’t care if any of that fits the “norm” form our genders.  We are who we are, and we know who that is.  If there is any “confusion,” it’s not on our part, it’s on the part of those who cannot understand that.

I’m pretty sure this country has crossed the line of insanity.  That’s why they have wine, and I’ll continue to buy it at Target.