'Online toys let boys be boys and girls be drudges '

Let toys Be Toys has been brilliant for getting change happening here, and hopefully things can keep moving in this direction. It is sort of necessary to embarrass the retailer so they feel its better PR to stop segregating toys than it is profit to keep doing so.

I agree it would be good if toys weren’t gendered in searches - it will be kindly well meaning relatives often and people can immersed in stereotypes using that search and it might do some good for them to have a lovely mixture of dolls, science kits, footballs and cooking sets coming up for them.

But I can imagine the retailers find it often more lucrative to conform to the stereotypes. That’s surly how we got to (or what will have encouraged) this horrible amount of gendering (compared with the 80s when we all thought it would all be gone by now) - capitalism and the desire to make as much money as possible, so important to make sure children ‘can’t’ share toys.

See the above post. Also, it shows that those items are labelled which means that the retailers still think it is worthwhile to do so. Which shows that lots of people do still think like this, and there is still a lot to be done to drop those old fashioned beliefs.

Searching for 'gifts for girls' is fine if done with the John Lewis approach!

No it isn't. It is only "fine" if you think some toys are suitable for girls and some for boys. You are perpetuating pointless differences by using that search term.

It shows that those items are labelled or tagged as for girls

I know that but thanks for the feminist plaining there. Your explanation fails to address why one would use that search term in the first place unless one was of a mindset that "gifts for girls " is a thing.

What the hell would a searcher be expecting? Common sense says all toys are for all children- so what purpose does the search "gifts for girls" serve? What meaningful or better result would be achieved than say "gifts for 10 year olds"?

To try and suggest that toys and cards aren't still very "gendered" is to be wilfully blind.

Regarding 'gendered' toys, searching for toys using the term 'for girls' will, by definition, produce toys that are 'gendered' but that isn't representative of toys as a whole. It's like looking for 'cooking apples' and then drawing the conclusion that the majority of apples available aren't suitable for directly eating. Until you start comparing the ratio of cooking apples to general apples on offer, you can't really draw conclusions about how biased the apple market is towards cooking apples.

It shows that those items are labelled or tagged as for girls.

When searching for a card that has the word "daughter" on, and why not if it's for your daughter, the complaint was that the cards available were all pink and sparkly. Why should a card with the word daughter on it have to be pink/sparkly? Of course you could get another card without the word daughter on it, but that doesn't change the fact that the choice is very limited if you happen to want to buy a card labelled "daughter".

To try and suggest that toys and cards aren't still very "gendered" is to be wilfully blind.

If one starts off with such a loaded instruction I'm not sure why there should be shock, horror and surprise when the result is skewed to stereotypes.

Really nicely put, MargueritaPink

A search on Google for “gifts for girls” and “Amazon” last week suggested 74 gifts from the online store. Items in the top 20 included a toy washing machine, a pink play kitchen, a wooden set of pots and pans and a toy ironing set

Why would anyone run a search for "gifts for girls?"

I really don't understand this. If one starts off with such a loaded instruction I'm not sure why there should be shock, horror and surprise when the result is skewed to stereotypes. We don't do mother's day in this household but "mother's day gifts" for example will produce things like CDs of music I would loathe and items of bilious sentimentality.

It's not even a useful instruction given girl could mean anything from newborn to 16 years old. Why not search "gifts for 10 year olds/ "gifts for Harry Potter fans"/ gifts for pony fans" or whatever.

It reminds me of the poster here who complained that she couldn't find a birthday card for her daughter that wasn't pink and sparkly. There are literally millions of cards to choose from if you make a choice of something the recipient would like / is interested in. I really didn't understand why anyone would even be looking for a card targetted at a generic "daughter" rather than the specific recipient.