Bill Would Require California Retailers To Have Gender-Neutral Sections; Violators Face Fines

[TomC]

Which is exactly why I wanted clarification before addressing the rest.

Which part of
"And you seem to think stores coerce consumers, when it's clearly the opposite. Stores arrange merchandise to suit the customers."

are you unable to understand?
Tom

 

[Jokodo]

Which is exactly why I wanted clarification before addressing the rest.

Which part of
"And you seem to think stores coerce consumers, when it's clearly the opposite. Stores arrange merchandise to suit the customers."

are you unable to understand?
Tom

"Clearly" or "by assumption".

 

[TomC]

Which is exactly why I wanted clarification before addressing the rest.

Which part of
"And you seem to think stores coerce consumers, when it's clearly the opposite. Stores arrange merchandise to suit the customers."

are you unable to understand?
Tom

"Clearly" or "by assumption".

Given that you're reduced to this, do you really see this conversation as worth continuing?
Personally, I don't consider store layout all that important, as long as it's efficient and understandable. I don't want stores to become reeducation centers concerning gender issues.

You don't seem to agree.

Oh well.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Some people will value the sex-segregated sections for toys and clothes, because it's arranged in a way that they are used to and they know where to go to find what they want.

Some people have nothing beyond 'age and sex' to go on when shopping for someone else's child (birthday, Christmas gifts), and/or have children they are shopping for who have strongly sex-stereotyped interests, and for them it will be probably be inconvenient.

But these are the overwhelming majority of shoppers.
And you seem to think stores coerce consumers, when it's clearly the opposite. Stores arrange merchandise to suit the customers.

You've never been to a grocery store, have you?

The current method of organizing stores is carefully honed to best suit most people so they leave happy and come back.

Are they?

 

[Jokodo]

"Clearly" or "by assumption".

Given that you're reduced to this, do you really see this conversation as worth continuing?
Personally, I don't consider store layout all that important, as long as it's efficient and understandable. I don't want stores to become reeducation centers concerning gender issues.

You don't seem to agree.

Oh well.
Tom

I don't want stores to "become reeducation centers concerning gender issues" either. I'm claiming that they are more of that now than they would be by thematically sorting their goods - if nothing else, this is evidenced by the experience, mine and other parents', that they sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer.

I still have to see an argument, or at least an explicit claim, that this perception is inaccurate. So, are you or are you not, claiming that the customer looking for a boy, anything really as long as it's clearly boyish (that is, someone who benefits from gender>thematic sorting), is a more typical scenario than the costumer who is looking for a winter jacket (a card game, a backpack,...) and will take a range of products in that category (including some as may be marketed to girls as long as it's not full of pink unicorns or some such), if price and quality are right (=someone who benefits fro. Thenatic>gender sorting)?

If you want to claim it, go ahead and claim it and we can go on from there, as of now, you seem to be trying to sneak that assumption into the common ground, without ever making it explicit, much less justifying it. That is dishonest and I won't let you do that. Which is why I wanted clarification. You're evading though. If I have to speculate, you probably get that it sounds absurd when made explicit, but aren't quite ready to drop the assumption yet. You should though. The arguments that are made more convincing by an absurd unspoken assumption are few and far between, and yours isn't one of them.

 

[TomC]

I'm claiming that they are more of that now than they would be by thematically sorting their goods - if nothing else, this is evidenced by the experience, mine and other parents', that they sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer.

I still have to see an argument, or at least an explicit claim, that this perception is inaccurate.

You're claiming this. That stores aren't responsive to customer's wishes and tastes.

I'm claiming this.

"And you seem to think stores coerce consumers, when it's clearly the opposite. Stores arrange merchandise to suit the customers."

Give me a reason to believe that big American stores aren't responsive to consumer wishes and tastes. That they are now more inclined to "sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer."

What I'm expecting is for you to dodge and respond with some anecdote.
Tom

 

[bilby]

I'm claiming that they are more of that now than they would be by thematically sorting their goods - if nothing else, this is evidenced by the experience, mine and other parents', that they sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer.

I still have to see an argument, or at least an explicit claim, that this perception is inaccurate.

You're claiming this. That stores aren't responsive to customer's wishes and tastes.

I'm claiming this.

"And you seem to think stores coerce consumers, when it's clearly the opposite. Stores arrange merchandise to suit the customers."

Give me a reason to believe that big American stores aren't responsive to consumer wishes and tastes. That they are now more inclined to "sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer."

What I'm expecting is for you to dodge and respond with some anecdote.
Tom

Stores are laid out specifically to coerce customers to maximise their spend.

Only very rarely does this coincide with being suitable to the needs and wants of the customers.

 

[Jokodo]

I'm claiming that they are more of that now than they would be by thematically sorting their goods - if nothing else, this is evidenced by the experience, mine and other parents', that they sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer.

I still have to see an argument, or at least an explicit claim, that this perception is inaccurate.

You're claiming this. That stores aren't responsive to customer's wishes and tastes.

I'm claiming this.

"And you seem to think stores coerce consumers, when it's clearly the opposite. Stores arrange merchandise to suit the customers."

Give me a reason to believe that big American stores aren't responsive to consumer wishes and tastes. That they are now more inclined to "sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer."

What I'm expecting is for you to dodge and respond with some anecdote.
Tom

If what you say is true, it also has to be true that the customer looking for something for a boy, anything really as long as it's clearly boyish (that is, someone who benefits from gender>thematic sorting), is a more typical scenario than the costumer who is looking for a winter jacket (a card game, a backpack,...) and will take a range of products in that category (including some as may be marketed to girls as long as it's not full of pink unicorns or some such), if price and quality are right (=someone who benefits from thematic>gender sorting). Do you believe that's true? Or that plausibly might be true? This is, I believe, the fourth or fifth time I'm asking you variations of the same question and I have yet to get a straight answer. Reciting an article of faith doesn't answer my question.

But I'm dodging mister? Sounds reasonable...

 

[TSwizzle]

There's the question whether gender neutral shop would lead to improved or impoverished customer experiences,

The only way to know would be to experiment and conduct studies/surveys. Big retailers are pretty big on analytics and shopping trends.

 

[TomC]

Stores are laid out specifically to coerce customers to maximise their spend.

That's exactly what I'm saying.
Stores are organized to maximize shopping, not coerce people into gender roles. [MENTION=408]Jokodo[/MENTION]; keeps claiming things like

they sort by gender way in excess of what consumers demand, in excess of what would be most convenient for the typical customer.

You and I agree. It's Jokodo who doesn't.

Only very rarely does this coincide with being suitable to the needs and wants of the customers.

I don't think it's all that rare. Stores want repeat customers. They get those by making it easy to do what the customers want, in the way of shopping. That gets you repeat customers.

Sure, they'll lay things out in a way that encourages customers to buy another item or two. But a store that "Only very rarely" provides customers with what they want when they want it is a store that's on it's way out of business.
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

I don't reject your scenario out of hand, I just find it rather tortured. I do find it highly unlikely that this scenario is anywhere near common enough for the pain caused to customers by giving up gendered sections to be more than a blatant red herring, especially compared to the very natural and common scenario of a parent looking for a couple pairs of solid trousers for his or her boy who will reject Frozen merch and the like but won't reject everything that is, for some undiscernible reason, marketed to girls just because it is marketed to girls, even if it doesn't show it. I assure you, as a parent who talks to other parents, that there is nothing tortured about my scenario, that it happens every day.

I gave you scenarios where because you requested them. You altered the scenario and then claimed your altered version did not show the scenario to be a disbenefit.

Those same stores that run out of gym shoes for kids just about when school starts every fucking year, as if schools haven't had sports education for the last 100 years and required special gym shoes for the last 50? Why would I trust them with anything really?

Who's asking you to 'trust' anybody? Shop where you want to, it's your money.

EDIT: Since you prefer desegregated kids sections, wouldn't you prefer to take your business to a shop that did it on its own, rather than one that was compelled to do so? Doesn't the former show the shop to be more 'trustworthy'?

 

[Jokodo]

That's exactly what I'm saying.
Stores are organized to maximize shopping, not coerce people into gender roles.

We are making progress, now they're organized to maximize sales - not to be convenient or transparent to consumers.

A store's ideal customer is someone who comes in determined to spend 250 dollars on cool stuff they don't really need. The ideal store visit for most consumers, on the other hand, is returning with exactly those items they went looking for, in good quality for a reasonable price. Shops increase sales by nudging their typical customers to behave more like their ideal customer, and you claim customers push stores to do it and would suffer if they stopped?

[MENTION=408]Jokodo[/MENTION]; keeps claiming things like

You and I agree. It's Jokodo who doesn't.

Only very rarely does this coincide with being suitable to the needs and wants of the customers.

I don't think it's all that rare. Stores want repeat customers. They get those by making it easy to do what the customers want, in the way of shopping. That gets you repeat customers.

Sure, they'll lay things out in a way that encourages customers to buy another item or two. But a store that "Only very rarely" provides customers with what they want when they want it is a store that's on it's way out of business.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

We are making progress, now they're organized to maximize sales - not to be convenient or transparent to consumers. A store's ideal customer who comes in determined to spend 250 dollars on cool stuff they don't really need. The ideal store visit for most consumers returning with exactly those items they went looking for, in good quality for a reasonable price. Shops increase sales by nudging their typical customers to behave more like their ideal customer, and you claim customers push stores to do it and would suffer if they stopped?

[MENTION=408]Jokodo[/MENTION]; keeps claiming things like

You and I agree. It's Jokodo who doesn't.



I don't think it's all that rare. Stores want repeat customers. They get those by making it easy to do what the customers want, in the way of shopping. That gets you repeat customers.

Sure, they'll lay things out in a way that encourages customers to buy another item or two. But a store that "Only very rarely" provides customers with what they want when they want it is a store that's on it's way out of business.
Tom

Yeah, I think you are onto something: the goal of a store is to MAKE MONEY. This means putting things in front of customers which you think those customers will buy for the greatest price you can extract.

That by definition means a store's intent is not customer satisfaction but rather relieving the customer of money.

It strikes me as the reason that, despite a candy aisle, certain candies are at the checkout.

It strikes me as a pertinent reason as to why you might design a store where, to satisfy both of two people buying clothing, the customers will be prodded to walk across the entire store and see all that exists between the sections.

In a lot of ways though, one of the things the store sells is the idea of gender itself. In the simple act of categorization, people get pigeon-holed and more often than not just go with the pigeon-holing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Reality: I have never seen a store big enough to separate clothes for 6 year olds from clothes for 8 year olds. At most I've seen four divisions--infant/toddlers, kids up to something like 8-10, kids above that, adults. I don't recall ever seeing infant/toddler sorted by sex.

Some products are pretty much gender-neutral--my prime example would be socks. Second would be t-shirts.

However, there's a hidden gender to most clothes that I haven't seen anyone mention yet: Closures. Male clothes have opposite closures from female clothes. Consider a jacket--you might have an "identical" male and female jacket--but they're not the same, the zipper will be opposite. Since you're operating that zipper by touch you are going to prefer the gender-appropriate version.

The backwards female clothing is a legacy thing but since it's what they have learned there will be opposition to switching it. (And, yes, it's the female clothing that's backwards. It was meant to be forward for the servant dressing the woman.)

 

[ZiprHead]

Store do all kinds of things to maximize profit. Higher priced items at eye level, cheaper down below. Put usually related departments at differant locations. A couple of the Meijer stores here remodeled. The pet food/supplies used to be next to the food area. They moved the pet supplies all the way to the other end of the store, making you take the back aisle past the housewares and electronics or the front aisle past the clothing and shoes. Pharmacy in a differant corner.

Personally, I believe this to be an academic discussion. This legislation will never pass.

 

[bilby]

Reality: I have never seen a store big enough to separate clothes for 6 year olds from clothes for 8 year olds. At most I've seen four divisions--infant/toddlers, kids up to something like 8-10, kids above that, adults. I don't recall ever seeing infant/toddler sorted by sex.

Reality: No store is so small as to prohibit such a division. There's literally nothing to stop a store from diving up clothes by age or size to any arbitrary degree of precision that doesn't imply empty categories (there's probably no clothing at all that belongs in the '8 years, 3 months and 2 days' section).

Some products are pretty much gender-neutral--my prime example would be socks. Second would be t-shirts.

However, there's a hidden gender to most clothes that I haven't seen anyone mention yet: Closures. Male clothes have opposite closures from female clothes. Consider a jacket--you might have an "identical" male and female jacket--but they're not the same, the zipper will be opposite. Since you're operating that zipper by touch you are going to prefer the gender-appropriate version.

"We have always done it this way, therefore that's what people want, so we must do it this way" is a circular argument.

The backwards female clothing is a legacy thing but since it's what they have learned there will be opposition to switching it. (And, yes, it's the female clothing that's backwards. It was meant to be forward for the servant dressing the woman.)

There's opposition to fucking everything, including not changing anything. The existence of opposition isn't a reason not to do something.

Reality: Prefacing your unsupported claims with "Reality:" adds exactly nothing to their believability.

 

[Metaphor]

Store do all kinds of things to maximize profit. Higher priced items at eye level, cheaper down below. Put usually related departments at differant locations. A couple of the Meijer stores here remodeled. The pet food/supplies used to be next to the food area. They moved the pet supplies all the way to the other end of the store, making you take the back aisle past the housewares and electronics or the front aisle past the clothing and shoes. Pharmacy in a differant corner.

Personally, I believe this to be an academic discussion. This legislation will never pass.

They moved pet food/supplies to the back, or they moved only pet supplies to the back?

If it was both food and supplies, I would commend the decision. Pet food often stinks and shouldn't be next to human food.

 

[Jokodo]

There's the question whether gender neutral shop would lead to improved or impoverished customer experiences,

The only way to know would be to experiment and conduct studies/surveys. Big retailers are pretty big on analytics and shopping trends.

They're also pretty big on making sure customers buy more than they came for, and on families with a boy and a girl a couple years apart having to buy two full sets of clothes because all his stuff is Spiderman and she deserves to get Frozen stuff too. To pretend that the result of stores applying analytics will always, or typically, be increased consumer satisfaction is incredibly naive.

 

[ZiprHead]

Store do all kinds of things to maximize profit. Higher priced items at eye level, cheaper down below. Put usually related departments at differant locations. A couple of the Meijer stores here remodeled. The pet food/supplies used to be next to the food area. They moved the pet supplies all the way to the other end of the store, making you take the back aisle past the housewares and electronics or the front aisle past the clothing and shoes. Pharmacy in a differant corner.

Personally, I believe this to be an academic discussion. This legislation will never pass.

They moved pet food/supplies to the back, or they moved only pet supplies to the back?

If it was both food and supplies, I would commend the decision. Pet food often stinks and shouldn't be next to human food.

I guess here in the US we package our pet food better than done in Australia since I've never experienced a smell emanating from the pet food section here.

 

[TSwizzle]

There's the question whether gender neutral shop would lead to improved or impoverished customer experiences,

The only way to know would be to experiment and conduct studies/surveys. Big retailers are pretty big on analytics and shopping trends.

They're also pretty big on making sure customers buy more than they came for, and on families with a boy and a girl a couple years apart having to buy two full sets of clothes because all his stuff is Spiderman and she deserves to get Frozen stuff too. To pretend that the result of stores applying analytics will always, or typically, be increased consumer satisfaction is incredibly naive.

I'm not pretending anything. You asked a question, I gave you an answer. I never inferred "that the result of stores applying analytics will always, or typically, be increased consumer satisfaction". Also, you could always get an answer yourself by engaging with a company that does studies/surveys for whatever interests you.