AIBU about gender segregation of annuals in WH Smith?

[Catsize]

I think that MN is getting to my inner core.

Photo was taken today in a lovely market town branch of WH Smith. Went in with my partner and 3yr old daughter to see weird subliminal messaging in the display of annuals.

If you are a girl, you'll be interested in the 'Disney Princess, Frozen, pink Paw Patrol(!!), MLP, Beauty and the Beast' shelf.
If you're a boy, you'll be interested in 'Star Wars, Minecraft, Doctor Who, blue Paw Patrol(!!) and Lego Ninjago'.

I've a 5yr old boy and 3yr old girl who like a mixture of these things but the subliminal messaging won't be lost on them.
Tempted to send them an email but want to know if I would be unreasonable in doing so.

My partner stopped me from rearranging the shelves there and then (I felt slightly entitled as I worked there as a teenager).

It doesn't say boys and girls. However, if they are arranged by type, what is the type that gets Star Wars/Minecraft/Doctor Who/Paw Patrol (blue)/Lego Ninjago on one shelf, and Disney Princesses/Frozen/Paw Patrol (pink)/My Little Pony/Beauty & the Beast/Jacquline Wilson on the other? What are those two types of books?

Yes YABU. It's a range of books ffs. Where does it say boys must buy these books and girls must buy those books. Kids will pick whatever they want regardless of the colour or what shelf something is on. I've raised two girls who are now 17 and 13 and they have always picked what they wanted irrespective of gender. My youngest loves mine craft, magnets and the DC/marvel films. But she also likes make up and pretty (shock horror) pink things.

For me I'd be more annoyed at having to spend longer looking round a shop for something which had been moved because of its perceived gender!

I've said it before - let kids be kids.

Yes, let kids be kids. By not subjecting them to gender stereotypes from birth.

How would putting them alphabetically make finding the one you want harder?

"Kids will pick whatever they want regardless of the colour or what shelf something is on." Evidence has shown that this is exactly not the case. Children are very aware of sex-targeted packaging and are influenced by it.

It's worth saying it again that there is nothing wrong with pink, or with girls liking pink or choosing pink. That's not what's being discussed here at all.

Smiths are a very long way off moving out of the 20th century.

@Rachie1973 very sensible point.
I've got a son and a daughter and another son due in five weeks.
All the toys, games, books, craft stuff, soft toys, activities, outdoor toys etc is all mixed up. They play with and do what they want. There are boundaries of no kind other than observing they're safe.

I also agree there is a degree of overthinking.

Some people just love to be offended

Who is offended, @womanbehavingbadly?

The fact that some people don't see the issue here!

E-Mail head office, the shelf plans are sent by them.

It would be interesting to do a little experiment with something like this - books, toys, whatever.
If they were all jumbled up, a girl might pick up the Star Wars annual, or a boy the My Little Pony annual. or more likely, beyond a certain age, they would already have been conditioned not to
Then arrange the books per the shelves and get the same children and their classmates in the same room. Would they be so confident as to pick up the same books, risking the derision of their friends?
And I'm pretty sure the girl would get less grief for choosing the blue Paw Patrol annual than a boy would for choosing the pink one.

Another on the documentary was the girls' inability to problem solve and build in the same way as the boys - simply because they hadn't been encouraged to play with Lego, construction toys etc. A couple of weeks of that, and they were up to the boys' level. Reminds me of my sister-in-law 'oh, we don't have Lego in the house because we have girls'.

stink, the fact that people don't see it is precisely the issue I guess. My sister-in-law thinks I am mad for disliking things like a pink nurses kit displayed next to a blue doctor's kit.

Who is offended
Assassinate
Everyone here who is turning the way a few Christmas annuals are displayed in a shop into yet another gender debate.

I do think this issue is a bit over thought. It has ever been thus. I'm not sure that many people have been damaged by it.
^^ This!
When I was a kid it was even more gender-stereotyped but it didn't stop me buying Action Men or Lego (and never the girly sets), and didn't stop me going for books that were traditionally aimed at boys like The Hardy Boys. But then we had the ability to think for ourselves in those days and weren't all confused little souls who had to follow the herd. Surely your role as a parent is to steer your child, not only towards things that you think they might like based on their existing preferences, but also towards trying out new things as well as part of learning? If you encourage independent thinking then they'll grow up without being fettered by such ridiculous thinking as we seem to see regularly on here.
Oh, and try walking into a bookshop one day - you'll find they group similar books together too. It's called marketing. It encourages you to buy more items similar to those you started looking at. No-one is going to wander round the entire shop looking for other crime fiction on the off-chance but if you stick them all in the same place then customers will be tempted. Common sense.

Totally agree with nike

This kind of thing absolutely does matter, and I usually totally agree with threads about the unnecessary gender divisions in toys, kids' clothes etc. But in this case I think YABU. Arranging the annuals in sections labelled 'boys' and 'girls' section is bad. But arranging them by similar areas of interest seems perfectly reasonable and logical.

I don't think anyone is offended, it's a simple discussion.

I'm intrigued what the logical areas of interest are that these books are apparently grouped by? Star Wars/Minecraft/Doctor Who/Paw Patrol (blue)/Lego Ninjago on one shelf, and Disney Princesses/Frozen/Paw Patrol (pink)/My Little Pony/Beauty & the Beast/Jacquline Wilson on the other. Why does the apparent "marketing" have to be done by stereotypes and not by some other categorisation?

It's the same for adults. Women are interested in make-up and fashion and relationships and very little else.

Men are the only ones interested not only in cars and biking, but also in outdoors activities, photography, sailing and tropical fishkeeping.

If it involves doing something, even something as sedate as cleaning out a fishtank, it's a male thing. Because women sit around looking pretty.

Assassinated I don't think alphabetical would work, it would either have to be publisher or author or title.

If I'm browsing I might not know the name of the book or author so I go and look at my area of interest.

I take your broad point but I don't really think the suggestion of alphabetical works in a book shop. I know it would drive me insane to have to look all over the place if I didn't know exactly what I want to buy (i.e. the name of the author or the title).

cory adults can pick what they want. I am a women with a fascination in politics and history (including war history). I have no interest in fashion / make up.

I'm not offended I just buy what I like.

No amount of subliminal marketing will make me think differently.

It's really depressing that so many people seem to think this is just "giving people a choice". I would LOVE to see more real choice for our kids. A display that encouraged both boys and girls to go after things that interest them. The problem is that when everything is organised by pink vs blue it doesn't drive free choice, it encourages people to think in a "boy category" and a "girl category" - creating a split that shouldn't exist. It would be like if there were a load of annuals with pictures only of white people and a load of annuals with pictures only of black people. Of course we might then find that black kids migrated to the "black annuals" and white kids to the "white annuals" but we wouldn't be happy about it, would we? Especially if one race was given lots of "adventurous" stories and one had a lot of "make overs and sleep overs"... Of course there are, as many posters have pointed out, girls who will go against the framework and pick blue annuals and boys who may pick pink - but they are clearly in the minority. Most kids go with the categories that are pushed on them because they want to fit in. Let's encourage them to fit in with "the paw patrol gang" or "the kids who love space" - not "blue" and "pink".

The problem is that when everything is organised by pink vs blue it doesn't drive free choice, it encourages people to think in a "boy category" and a "girl category" - creating a split that shouldn't exist.
It only encourages that sort of thinking in people that are blinkered that way in the first place! The rest of us make our choices quite freely. If you have the mindset that pink = girls then it doesn't matter how the magazines are laid out, you'll still wander up and down the shop looking for one that's pink if you have a girl. (And you'll probably come on Mumsnet and complain that the shop has moved all the magazines around!)
And I'm fairly sure that magazines for adults aren't kept in sections for men and for women. If a man wants to buy one filled with articles on make-up and fashion (or whatever the articles are about - I don't buy them!) then he can. Just the same as a woman can buy one from the section on Big Trucks or one entitled Powertools Monthly.

So what then is the explanation for blue paw patrol in the section with superheroes minecraft etc and the pink paw patrol with the Disney princesses. The thinking behind it is very clearly that paw patrol might appeal to both boys and girls (guess which colour they think appeals to which sex?) so there is one for each, placed strategically with the other titles they think suitable for boys or girls. We constantly bombard our children with messages that this is what girls like / think / do , and that is what boys like / think / do. We are kidding ourselves if we think that this isn't happening or even worse just isn't important. Recent studies tell us that by age 6/7 girls have already concluded that boys are better at STEM subjects than girls. All these things and many others coincide to reinforce messages about what boys/ girls are or should be good at. Of course that isn't solely about which magazines are pushed towards boys/ girls. But it's everywhere and we should challenge it whenever we see it.

@Nikephorus what do you think about how it influences children, particularly under 7s, as this is the age that children tend to get firmly fixed ideas? What are your thoughts about the research that shows that children are very aware of packaging and that sex-segregated packaging does influence their choices?

See your point Taratill, but quite frankly I think there may be blokes who find it more difficult to browse in the women's section even if they are quite into cooking. Or women who simply don't realise the wonderful range of outdoors or fishkeeping magazines because browsing in the men's section isn't really something they've thought about. Ime you need to be more confident about what you want to pick it in the "wrong place".

When I was at school I was equally shit at sewing and woodwork/metalwork. But I picked sewing because the only girls who picked woodwork/metalwork were the ones who were really good at it: to pick that, would have been making a statement about myself. That's what gender segregation does: it stops people from trying new things unless they know they are really passionate about it or good at it.

It's not just children that notice its boys and girls things! My mum bought some Radix one day and said to me "I bought the wrong one it says for men" She's 70!!