Mandated Gender-Neutral Toy Aisles Is Another Instance of California's Woke Virtue-Signaling

California started off the New Year with a mandate for retail stores selling toys or childcare items to have gender-neutral aisles. This mandate stems from a 2021 California law stating that any retailer with a physical presence in California and 500 employees is to maintain "a gender-neutral section or area to be labeled at the discretion of the retailer." Retail stores that fail to comply pay $250 for the first infraction and $500 for subsequent infractions. The idea behind this law is to allow children to express themselves without being hindered by traditional gender norms. That might sound congenial, but here are some issues:

• Retail stores are attuned to the supply and demand of its customers. Retail stores not need such a mandate to tell them that California is a Left-of-center state in which there has been an increased demand for gender-neutral consumer goods. Target dropped its gender-specific sections in 2015, and other such stores as Toys 'R Us followed suit. Even toymaker Hasbro removed the "Mr." from its Potato Head line. 
• You would think California has bigger problems to contend with, such as crime (including shoplifting in retail stores), homelessness, preventing dangerous wildfires, a population exodus, or its budget deficit. 
• To properly enforce this law, the State of California would need to hire someone to regularly inspect toy stores to make sure they are compliant with this law. If the law is unenforceable, it ends up being superfluous virtue-signaling at best. At worst, enforcement is a waste of taxpayer dollars that needlessly punishes retailers. 
• Why does the government feel the need to mandate how businesses display and market their merchandise? Such decisions should be left to business owners. 

As I already brought up, there are more pressing matters in the world than gender-neutral toy aisles. I wrote a piece seven years ago as to whether toys should be gender-specific or gender-neutral.  If parents want to buy gender-neutral toys for their children, they should be allowed to do so. The same goes for those who want to buy gender-specific toys for their children. It is partially the absurdity of the law that prompted me to write this blog entry on a solution in search of a problem. After all, satire website Babylon Bee called it before California legislators proposed the bill. What concerns me is not the overall influence this bill will have on the lives of Californians. It is setting an eery precedent and a tone that signals to woke lawmakers that they can feel entitled to manage every aspect of private commerce to their liking. I do not want to live in a world that encroaches on private businesses in such a fashion. Legislators should think twice before imposing their values onto customers and businesses in such a fashion.