What's Toca Boca? I really don't know. Ask my obsessed 7 year old and he'll fill you in. He discovered it years ago while cruising for apps on Mommy's i-Pad and was immediately enthralled. As best I can tell, it's a series of kid-friendly apps that depicts children from all walks of life that lets children control the world that animated children live in. Kids can do all the things they can't do in real life-- cut people's hair, roam around a city, feed people poop, buy pets, and skip school. Or maybe that's just what my child does. Either way, we love it because she loves it and it isn't skewed towards girls or boys but towards children.
You see, dressing our child is hard. He describes herself as "non-binary" but leans a bit towards "girl" most of the time. We have always shopped both sides of the clothing store and he is both articulate about and annoyed by how unfair it is that boys clothing is often edgy and funny and girls clothing is sweet and pretty. We supported Princess Awesome as a Kickstarter so we could get dinosaur dresses and ordered from Primary where all of the clothing is listed together under "Kids." We take hand-me-downs from boys and girls alike and give everything an equal chance. He's been a flower girl with a masculine haircut and a ring bearer with long blond hair.
So when I started seeing reports a few days ago that Target would be offering an exclusive Toca Boca clothing line that would sit BETWEEN the boys' section and the girls' section I did my research. According to a July 10th press release from the Sweden based company,“Everything we make at Toca Boca is designed for all kids; it’s our mission to make sure no kid ever feels excluded by Toca Boca,” said Mathilda Engman, Head of Consumer Products, Toca Boca. “True to those values the collection was designed with inclusivity in mind, and we are so excited to see it will be merchandised together as a collection sitting between the boys and girls aisle of many Target stores.” The release date was Monday July 17th-- a date when we had plans to be just miles away from Target anyway. Being the stellar parents that we are, we used it as a bribe to get our kid into the car for a dreaded eye-doctor appointment. "Get in the car and you can go on a Toca Boca shopping spree." Eye drops were never so easy.
Pupils still dilated, Kiddo found his way to the clothing section of our local-ish Target with ease and we began to hunt for Toca Boca. The sinking feeling hit immediately. Hanging in the Girls' section we found a shirt, a pair of pajamas, and a dress.
A few aisles over, in the boy section, we found two more shirts and a pair of pajamas.
Hoping there was more and these were just misplaced, we asked a saleswoman on the floor if there was more and she informed us that it was just what was out. We asked why they were separated into Boys and Girls clothing and she looked at us like we were crazy. I started to explain that we had read about the clothing being gender neutral and she actually laughed. Our child was crushed. The saleswoman explained that they had decided to sort the clothes into "Boys" and "Girls" based on color and style. It goes without saying that this completely defeats the purpose- and is completely contrary to all of the wonderful publicity they have received.
We left without buying any of the clothes we'd come for because our child no longer wanted them once they were sorted by gender; the appeal of buying "Non Binary" clothing was gone. Once again the message was clear-- the world is not for people like you.
Sure enough, when I got home and started looking around on Target.com, the clothing there was also sorted into "Boy" and "Girl" based on style and color. Boys' clothing was predominantly blue and green with skeletons and sloths and monstery-type creatures. Girls clothing had cute ears, female characters, and dresses.
Word of this was starting to leak out on Twitter late yesterday, with Toca Boca replying to disappointed posts that they were not the ones who added the gendered tags/UPC codes to the clothing...
What's your next move, Target? The ball's in your court now.
Social conservatives will be angry with you for having even been within spitting distance of a gender neutral clothing line (The #BoycottTarget has been revived, according to this Queerty article.) And for taking down the Boys/Girls signs over the toys. And letting people pee where they want to pee... while social progressives will be angry for the bait and switch and for using inclusive marketing techniques as a backhanded and manipulative ploy. People are gonna be pissed ether way, so what's your metric?
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