"It makes it seem like it's so normal for building sets to be for boys and then — 'Oh, by the way girls can build stuff too, we guess,'" Abi Bechtel said.
That was Abi Bechtel from Ohio talking about a sign in Target that upset her.
The sign has a label for general building sets and then another label specifically for girls' building sets.
Bechtel tweeted a picture of the Target sign with the message, "Don't do this, @Target." Her tweet has over 2,000 retweets as of Tuesday morning.
And although Bechtel has received a lot of support from Twitter users, she says there are also many who just don't understand.
"Well a lot of people are saying things like, 'Women are so thin-skinned. They need to get over it.' And, you know, 'Feminists are always looking for something to get angry about,'" Bechtel said.
Bechtel told The Daily Dot, "At a time when there's such a focus on increasing the number of women in STEM fields, Target's gendering toys like these as male comes across as out of touch."
"I would love to see girls playing with firetrucks and Star Wars and all of the building sets that everyone gets to play with," Bechtel said.
Bechtel wasn't the first to notice this signage at Target. Another Twitter user tweeted a similar picture in May asking how building sets for girls are any different than the others.
Target's website offers a gender selection to "get the perfect toy." Kmart and Toys R Us have similar options.
Our partners at WEWS reached out to Target and were given a statement, which reads, in part: "We know families are tight on time and looking for inspiration. Therefore, we continually explore how to organize our stores and website in ways that will be convenient, appealing and helpful to our guests."
Target also pointed out many of its online shoppers search for toys based on age and gender. Bechtel is a mother of three boys. She hopes her tweet will initiate more conversation around how people assign gender to children's items.
This video includes an image from Getty Images.
