Let’s Talk: Would you encourage your grandkids to do this?

Remember back in the day when boys played with their trucks and cars and toy soldiers and girls played with their Barbies and doll houses?

No doubt you’ve heard about this push to break down the gender stereotypes surrounding toys in recent years.

Well, it’s ramping up again in the lead up to Christmas and you as a grandparent are being encouraged to give your grandkids gender neutral presents as part of No Gender December.

It’s another area of political correctness that many of us seem to be fed up with.

Read more: Retailer to go gender neutral… is it political correctness gone mad?

So, why is their a push behind No Gender December?

The campaign is being designed to fight “gender division”, to stop different fields of work being dominated by one gender and stop the divide in workplaces between ‘pink’ and ‘blue’ jobs.

The group behind the latest No Gender December campaign points, The Good Education Group, to a wave of toys that are now gender-neutral.

“There’s an exciting new wave of gender-neutral toys designed to encourage more girls to develop fundamental skills in maths and science beyond stereotypes. It might not be a quick fix but getting behind No Gender December is a good start to redressing this imbalance,” CEO Chris Lester told NewsCorp.

“Just as toyshops typically separate girl’s from boy’s toys, workplaces in the Western World are sharply divided between pink and blue jobs.”

In fact, as the Herald Sun reports, a number of stores don’t actually categorise their toys by gender.

In Target toys are organised by age and brand, while online Big W toys are organised by price and category.

It’s a subtle difference that not many of us have probably even noticed.

You might remember this issue being debated fiercely in the public arena by politicians and commentators back in 2014?

At the time the then Prime Minister Tony Abbott lashed out at the “political correctness” of the program.

He said he wanted “boys to be boys and girls to be girls”.

“Above all else, let parents do what they think is in the best interests of their children,” he said.

Shouldn’t Christmas be about getting the kids what the want, instead of what others want them to play with?

Would you buy your grandson a barbie doll? Or your granddaughter toy cars?