Bruno Retailleau created controversy over gender toys with his reactionary remarks

The life of a politician is anything but easy. You have to ensure the sustainability of your political group and be able to stand out in order to seduce your potential electorate.
Fortunately, there’s a technique for creating the buzz that works every time: inventing problems that don’t exist so you can chastise them later.

Games for children of genres and fantasies of all kinds

At the microphone of the show The Grand Jury airing October 9 on RTL, Bruno Retailleau said:

I don’t want kindergarten to tell a little girl that she should play with a truck or a tractor and a little boy that she should have a doll.

Again according to the senator:

We must preserve the conscience of children, which is absolutely sacred

If that last part doesn’t mean much, you have to admit it sounds good. By bringing together the word child in the same sentence, a term that evokes protection and biblical allusion, it always has little effect.

But no offense to Mr. Retailleau, none of his detractors want to impose dolls on boys and trucks or tractors on girls. His intervention is part of a well-known conservative fantasy and does not fail to convey the good old toxic injunctions: children should limit themselves to certain games, predefined according to their presumed gender. Games that, of course, lock them up from childhood in stereotypical roles.

Use small ropes to move the wind

You would think that in 2022 we would finally be spared from this kind of demagogic statements, yet … they would like to deprave our dear treasures. And the worst part is that it works.

Reassure Bruno Retailleau: his opponents do not want to force the boys to choose the dolls and the girls, the trucks. They just want to allow children to play the games they like, without having to worry about whether that game is right for them or not.

Photo credit image by to: Bruno Retailleau in Télématin – screenshot