What the crap.
Amazon.com, the nation’s largest online retailer, has removed the Gender category from its website’s Toys & Games department along the sidebar search options. Before, consumers used to be able to narrow their searches to “Boys” or “Girls” in that area. Some might notice this but also see that Amazon still has separate sections for boys’ and girls’ toys, so they wouldn’t consider it a big deal. It’s just a little option on a shopping website. Amazon has yet to address why they took this step. Taken with a cursory glance, it would appear to be a move by the online giant to satisfy the online toy-shopping experience for activists or something to that effect.
But it’s more than that. This seemingly minor move by Amazon goes beyond political correctness. It dives headlong into the realm of absurdity. Eliminating this little option is another aspect of the ongoing broader attempt to change what we’ve always known regarding typical preferences for boys and girls, all because some group looks at everything and perceives a problem that doesn’t exist. An action that appears innocuous and insignificant on its face often indicates a sign of what’s to come. It’s like the theory of a butterfly breaking wind in Kansas, which eventually leads to mass weather disasters around the globe. As goes Amazon, so goes the rest of the retail world.
If people want to search on Amazon for Star Wars action figures or Tonka dump trucks, they can. If they want to search for Barbie dolls or Easy-Bake ovens, they can. Without gender filters. No one was forcing anyone to check a box next to “Boys” or “Girls” in Amazon’s search options. No one was preventing anyone from buying certain toys and games because of some imagined gender-driven agenda. But because a few people offended by gender stereotypes were compelled to exert their social justice muscles, millions of shoppers now have to weed through more junk in their searches to find the right toys for their kids.
I imagine this all started because some liberal arts student or learn-ed professor perceived this one example of “gender bias/specificity/non-neutrality” and took it upon its nonlabeled self to lecture Amazon in a lengthy, sermonizing email. This then prompted Amazon to take a serious look at the charges, with the corporate folks ultimately coming to the executive conclusion that gee, this one insightful, dissatisfied person is right, that is sexist! We need to change this straight away before our sales suffer! The interoffice memos about the matter would be fascinating to read.
Steinem forbid if shoppers are presented with options that might hurt their fragile psyches. Having the ability to categorize by gender could turn boys and girls into…men and women–men who choose masculine activities and women who choose feminine activities. There’s this insistence by modern feminists to change how females view themselves by modifying innate behaviors. Modern feminists exercise their beliefs through unnecessary, overreaching manipulation and control. While they would say they’re merely giving girls more options, their approach is to give everyone fewer options. They add by subtracting. Amazon’s decision here to yield to the forces of subtraction is a perfect example of such social engineering.
People have to stop buying into these notions that any separation between males and females, that any preferences of one versus another, are unjust. These aren’t always matters that have to be fixed. And yes, this move by Amazon is sort of a big deal. It’s little things such as this–these small victories by those urged by their never-ending compulsion to fight for social justice within every hidden corner of society–that add up over time and eventually become impossible to rectify. We accept each of the changes so that bit by bit, everything we thought about ourselves is altered to the point where we believe we should be offended by nonexistent slights. Many Americans have already been brainwashed to that point.
Political correctness is not a virtue. It’s a sign of weakness. It’s a sign that you are too weak to handle reality and the natural behaviors of mankind. Enough with the acquiescing to the adolescent type of people who would feel so aggrieved that pink toys are kept separate from blue toys.
In other words, grow up already. That includes you, Amazon.
