With the rollover into a New Year, a previously-passed piece of legislation requiring any toy retailer within the state to present their relevant wares in a “gender-neutral” fashion has now gone into effect across the entirety of California.
Originally brought before the Golden State’s legislature in October 2021 by the California Assembly’s current member Evan Low and then-member Cristina Garcia, Assembly Bill No. 1084 “require[s] a retail department store that is physically located in California that has a total of 500 or more employees across all California retail department store locations that sells childcare items or toys to maintain a gender neutral section or area, to be labeled at the discretion of the retailer, in which a reasonable selection of the items and toys for children that it sells shall be displayed, regardless of whether they have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys.”
As defined by the bill’s authors, this gender-neutral display requirement will apply to all products “designed or intended by the manufacturer to facilitate sleep, relaxation, or the feeding of children, or to help children with sucking or teething”, designed for “persons 12 years of age or less”, and those which “are intended by the manufacturer to be used by children when they play.”
“Unjustified differences in similar products that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys can be more easily identified by the consumer if similar items are displayed closer to one another in one, undivided area of the retail sales floor,” the bill argues. “Keeping similar items that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys separated makes it more difficult for the consumer to compare the products and incorrectly implies that their use by one gender is inappropriate.”
Of course, like most pieces of legislation, AB. 1084 also holds a penalty for those who violate its terms: Following the bill’s official enactment date of January1st, 2024, “a retail department store that fails to comply with these provisions [is] liable for a civil penalty not to exceed $250 for a first violation or $500 for a subsequent violation, as provided.”
In addition to its numerical designation, this newly realized piece of legislation is also colloquially known as ‘Britten’s Bill’, named after the then 9-year-old, “self-proclaimed feminist” Britten Sires’ whose activism against gender roles inspired the bill.
Recalling the experience that sparked her gender-neutral toy aisle campaign, Sires told Spectrum News in 2021 that upon one particular visit to a store, “I was like, wait, why is there a boy’s section? I’m a girl, but I want to go in it.”
“Boys is more like knowledge and trying to get them smarter so they can get into a good college and get a good job, and then women’s is more like makeup and cooking sets,” Britten explained. “Whether it’s the state or the world, you can change it if you just let people listen to you.”
Offering his own reasoning behind taking the bill to the legislature, the aforementioned Low told the news outlet, “A young girl who is vivacious and is very talented and understands that toys are toys and that we should let kids be kids.”
“We want to make sure we create a welcoming, inclusive environment for all children,” he added.
