The gendering for babies actually makes the most sense to me. Babies look the same, boy or girl. It's annoying when people come up to your newborn and ask for her name when he's a boy or vice versa.
LOL, I had people call my daughter he even when she was in bright pink.
This is very true. All three of my boys were called a girl as babies....while wearing blue. People are clueless.
Regarding the gendering of toys, a small disagreement erupted on my Facebook page when I asked for appropriate suggestions for a 6 year old girl's birthday present. Some suggested the Lego Friends series for girls. Then someone else came on and said, "When I was growing up, we just had Legos and both girls and boys played with them." Then the former group got defensive and said to the effect of, "My daughter happens to like the pink Legos and it's not like she's reinforcing the patriarchy by playing lol." I stayed out of it, but I agreed with the person who thinks we should just have Legos. Full stop.
I was in Toys R Us recently, and the separate boys and girl's toy sections are just disconcerting and frankly stupid. Why do we need a pink kitchen and a blue kitchen? I guess I should be thankful they are at least making the latter at all, but just make one damn kitchen that is normal kitchen colors!
Oh, and guess what the Lego Friends sets are? Stephanie's Beachhouse, Heartlake Shopping Mall, Mia's Lemonade Stand, Heartlake Pet Salon, and (my personal favorite) Dolphin Cruiser, a two story yacht. Nothing gendered about that.....Apparently we should groom our daughters to become little Beyonces.