Children’s furniture retailer Stokke Baby has come under heavy criticism after promoting a video of raising kids without gender, terming the boy-girl binary a “harmful” stereotype.
“My child likes nail polish and plays with dolls and sees colors without gender. He’s creative and confident because we allow him to express himself without being confined by gender stereotypes,” said an Instagram video uploaded by Norway-based Stokke Baby. It claimed that kids learn about male-female behavior from people close to them, which can have a “profound impact” on how they develop.
“We have to be mindful and dedicated to challenge these social norms daily. Look around and you can see how harmful these boy-girl stereotypes are. Why are clothes still pink and blue? Flowers for the girls and superheroes for the boys. Their options are so limited,” the video said.
It called for raising children “without stereotypes.” To achieve this, the video recommended that parents avoid “gender-specific toys.” Instead, it asked parents to “focus on play that develops their social and cognitive skills guided by their interests. Include them in household chores and read books that are inclusive with positive messages.”
“Let’s foster open communication and question traditional gender norms together. Break free from the outdated gender stereotypes and raise kids to be their authentic, confident selves, embracing diversity and placing value where its most important—on one’s qualities rather than their expectation” it stated.
The video attracted widespread criticism. Popular social media commentator Libs of TikTok highlighted the video through a March 19 post on X, which went viral, garnering 10,000 likes and 3,300 reposts.
“UNREAL. Baby furniture company Stokke Baby (@StokkeBaby) just put out this ad promoting ‘genderless babies.’ They claim gender stereotypes and gender norms can harm kids’ development. Stop giving your money to people who promote harmful ideologies which harms kids and hate you and your values!” it said.
“Time to cancel Stokke Baby company. It is the only way to stop the insanity,” author and educator Ed Thompson said in a post on X.
Stokke Baby has made other similar posts on childhood “gender stereotypes.” In a March 2 Instagram post, it said: “Gender stereotypes may seem harmless, but they shape our children’s paths from an early age. They limit possibilities, confining boys to tough jobs and girls to nurturing roles.”
The company claimed that allowing girls to play with dolls could make them think “they should be caregivers.” In contrast, allowing boys to play with trucks could make the kids think “they should do tough jobs like engineering.”
In a March 10 post, Stokke Baby said that children as young as two years of age “start absorbing gender stereotypes, like boys being naughty and girls being kind.” A video featured an expert with the Institute of Child Psychology pointing to what she refers to as “gender scripting”—the process of children learning about masculine/feminine stereotypes from the world they interact with.
The expert recommended adults to “watch” the language they use with children, asking parents to “challenge stereotypes.”
Gender-Neutral Children
In a May 2022 post at The Epoch Times, cultural commentator Annie Holmquist advised people to “skip gender-neutral toys and clothes” as science does not have a “genderless” view of children.She gave a real-life example of a dad who tried to make his two-year-old son like baby dolls and shirts emblazoned with furry animals. However, the child ended up liking tractors and other machine toys.
“It’s pretty hard to fight against the scientific facts of biology,” Ms. Holmquist wrote. “One of those facts is that there are biological differences between the sexes. And it is those differences—not crafted, politicized societal norms—that drive little boys toward trucks and tractors and little girls toward dolls and other caregiving toys.”
Ms. Holmquist pointed to a book by sex researcher Dr. Debra Soh, “The End of Gender,” which said that biological differences among children are also seen among animals. For instance, even after lacking any socialization, young male monkeys have been observed to choose wheeled toys while female monkeys choose dolls.
Many medical experts have warned about the growing trend of “theybies”—children raised without any gender designation.
During an interview with NBC back in 2018, Lise Eliot, professor of neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School, pointed out that raising “theybies” would pose a challenge to the children when they venture into the real world.
“Once your child meets the outer world, which may be daycare, or preschool, or grandparents—it’s pretty much impossible to maintain a gender-free state,” she said. “And depending on how conventional your community is, you could be setting your child up for bullying or exclusion.”
While speaking to Channel 9 last year, British psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer warned against gender-neutral parenting.
“By raising a child perhaps in this way, where they’re not assigned a gender at all, by definition they are different. By definition, they are standing out. No matter how we look at it, it does create that sense of difference and it is ultimately still an experiment.”
