To think that the ELC should realise that some nurses are male. And some doctors are female. And some men dance ballet. And some women engage in piracy on the high seas. Etc.

[missedith01]

"For the little princess in the family we have great feminine outfits like Butterfly Fairy, Sleeping Beauty, Ballerina and Nurse?s uniform. Why not add a medical case for that extra touch of authenticity.

The boys are catered for too, with great Doctor, Policeman & Fireman uniforms, not to mention fantastic Pirate and Knight costumes. All these can be combined with a range of accessories so your child will really look the part."

www.elc.co.uk/children%27s-dressing-up-outfits/5540,default,sc.html

And i think the pink globe is so cute!!! Love it! Shame I can't buy it cause don't have a girl yet. And then I'll also need a book with answers for girls "Why the sky is pink, why the water is pink"..

zingydog...I'm so pleased if they have changed it (and hopefully the pink globe has gone)

I emailed saying I wouldnt go back there until they sorted it out..they must have realised how much I had been spending!

Glad they've changed this.

I was horrified recently - took 3-yr-old DD to the (female) GP, and her friend of the same age came along too. When we were leaving, DD's friend confidently announced 'SHE wasn't a Doctor, TheOldestCat, because she's a girl - she's a nurse'.

!!!

I assured her that girls can be doctors, boys can be nurses etc etc

Almost started a thread earlier today to bump my gums about the gender stereotyping in Happyland but found this thread. I see Wonderstuff mentioned it a few pages back.

DS (age 2) has loads of happyland sets thanks to a over indulgent generous godmother and I'm appalled at the gender stereotypes. All the 'professionals' seem to be male and all the 'assistant' roles seem to be female. He's only 2 so the female tearoom assistant regularly drives the fire engine etc but I don't see the need for it at all. I get (but don't like) the pink sells argument, but I can't see that it would make any difference for the vet, airline pilot, police officer or whoever to be female. Or the tea room assistant, nurse etc to be male.

Pleased to hear that the elc have dealt with some of the issues in their new catalogue though.

TomsMum, just wanted to say - yes you're right re pink used to be a boy's colour. I have a cot sheet that was my dad's (one of 4 boys), that is pink with embroidered bunnies on it. I use it for my DS. One of my friends with a DD (who only wears pink) thinks I am psychologically damaging him by allowing him to sleep on a pink sheet. He doesn't seem to mind much!

FWIW I predict a MASSIVE reaction to all the pink crap when today's toddlers reach teenager-dom. There is hope.......

and at your friend thinking a pink sheet will psychologically damage your son, RTL!

Great to see ELC have listened & acted. And, yes, I predict a massive move towards dark, muted colours in 10 years' time ... I wonder whether they'll dress their DDs in top-to-toe pink?

Don't get me starten on ELC. My dd got a Round the world game for her birthday. They explained they had simplified map but they left out Republic ireland and Northern Ireland. I guess they don't sell many of these games in their Irish Stores.

This reminds me of a Nintendo DS game I saw online, called "I did it Mum". Amazon's description actually says,

"There are two versions of the game - one for boys and one for girls. The two versions have a different selection of minigames designed to appeal to sons and daughters alike, with the boy version featuring games like "toy train" or "drive the car," and the girl version offering games like "colour the animals" or "little kitchen." I Did It Mum offers simple but fun challenges for this age group, which they can enjoy completing with a parent. Additional feature allowing a voice recording option for Mum to encourage their child when completing the minigames."

Little kitchen! LITTLE KITCHEN! And never mind that perhaps a father might want to play games with his children... Grr. You'd have thought we'd have moved on from that!

imagine being a girl who is only a nurse or a teacher....how awfully low acheiving of them. My dc have a dressing up box. They dress up in whatever takes their fancy for that moment. I do not stress about whether ds is a fairy or a pirate or whether dd is sportacos or a dalek. They are having fun. They learn that the world is open to them from us, their parents, not from whether they are wearing pink or blue.

BrightLightBrightLight and Rockbird and LolaKnickers I agree it's down to individuals to make their purchasing power count (I do) and by no means do I lay the condition of wimmin all at the door of the ELC. But they could do their bit and I object to the clear inference from the blurb that there are certain costumes for girls and certain costumes for boys. They could remove that inference with little or no consequences for sales, I should think. But it's not just retailers ... a few years back I bought a doctor's case for a birthday present for a young lady of my acquaintance and got thanked by her mother for the "nurse box" .

tabouleh good point - I shall email about this page if I get the chance to do it before the page disappears.

Altinkum others have said it more eloquently than me, but I think that we all of us are aware, some to a greater and some to a lesser extent, of the roles which society has picked for us ... the roles in which they find comfortable, the roles in which we "fit". All of us have to find a way to deal with that - some people take to society's expectations readily, some people struggle and some people positively rebel. I disagree that this makes no difference to the outcomes for girls ... I think it makes a great deal of difference.

ZingyDogsBody thank-you for raising your head above the parapet and I'm thrilled beyond measure at the news of a girl pirate in the new catalogue. (Will they go up to size 16, d'you think?)

zukiecat Vet? Midwife? Do you not realise that if you'd only furnished your daughters with toys in primary colours they'd be hijacking international shipping and wearing parrots RIGHT NOW! Hopefully this will convince you of the error of your ways.

Blottedcopybook No of course I don't mind, and that's an interesting response. This was the response I received:

Dear Missedith01,

Thank you for your recent email.

It's not our intention to promote stereotyping or sexism, especially to young, possibly impressionable children so I can only apologise that you feel this had been the case. Please be assured that you comments will be passed onto the head office for their consideration.

Kind regards

Callie Rafferty
Internet Customer Services
Early Learning Centre

melpomene The quote was copied from the ELC website as of yesterday. The website has now changed! Huzzah!

ELC used to be the first place I looked for toys and presents for DS, but cockley put-together cheap toys (a wildly overpriced wooden garage, ditto wooden easel, pirate ship etc etc) and then awful stereotyping made me unsubscribe from the mailling list.

Did they go so badly downhill when they were bought by Sainsbury's?

It's not just about stereotyping girls, plus3. DS wants to be a teacher but already he's noticed there aren't many men doing it (admittedly he's five so will probably want to be a host of other things before he's through). And plenty of boys would make good nurses but don't think of it as an option, which is sad (wonder whether Rory in Doctor Who will do anything to change that? Time will tell...)

I agree it's really sad - I remember the ELC of the early 80s (my childhood) and it was progressive, funky and generally pretty cool.

Now it's like a children's version of the Daily Mail. They might as well have a pretty pink sign saying "Girls - Know Your Place!"

I also find it highly ironic that if they made statements like the ones quoted in the OP in their employee facing literature, like, oo I don't know, a job advert, of their company handbook, they would be sued, and quite rightly so.

Why do we assume that adults need protection from sexism, yet for children in the most formative years of their lives it's fair game?

BTW a grudging well-done to ELC for changing the text to something less -worthy.

Next would you mind changing the photos, since my child can't yet read?

even the etch-a-sketches come in pink or blue... And the pink ones have flower shaped magnets, and the blue ones cars...

ELC werent bought by Sainsburys, they were bought by Mothercare about 4 years ago.

Sadly the wooden stuff is more expensive than other places because it is all ethically sourced from FSC approved forests. Wheres you find cheaper wooden products from elsewhere arnt.
Theyve probably changed the text on the website so that it matches the new catalogue.
You'll all like the new catalogue, especially people complaining about prices.

Im soo hoping Mumsnet wont pass on my details if mothercare come on here asking for them! I'll be so in the shit lol. In my defense head office if you are reading this, I have been defending you, and it isnt media it's just a forum.

I witnessed the consumer demand for this dire sea of pink when I was in WHSmith the other day. A little girl (about 6 yrs old) was looking at those kids magazines (the ones that come packaged with extraneous plastic tat) with what I assume were her mum and grandmother. Little girl squeals 'Oh! Scooby Doo! I love Scooby Doo, I want Scooby Doo!'. Grandmother pipes up 'You don't want that, you want something pink and girly!' and proceeded to shove various hideous pink and fluffy Barbie, Tinkerbell etc magazines at said little girl. I was gobsmacked and had to bite my tongue so hard to stop myself pulling the women up on their horrific gender stereotyping (the mum was also picking out anything that was garishly pink). It brought back such awful memories of how my mum used to try to force me into stereotypically girly things.

Zings- I am fairly sure that's against all their policies. It's not like you've done anything bad (admitted a crime, etc) where there might be a public policy reason.

Oi, zingy! are you fb! I think I know who you usually are.

Zingy, do you think they'll address the gender stereotypes in happyland anytime soon?

Am sure MN wouldn't pass on your personal details to mothercare if they came looking. Anyway, you've done a really good job of defending them!

I don't have time to read this now as on my way to work - but I have written to ELC about this EXACT wording myself - pleased to see others have picked up on it. The responses I got were less than satisfactory - will post excerpts later. Meanwhile, would be very happy to see what other responses people got.

DomesticGoddess, they have most likely listened and taken on board complaints about it and hopefully are in discussions about making it less sexist. The packaging of HappyLand products has only recently changed so they probably have a couple of million boxes of it sat in their warehouse so until they have sold through of that the packaging wont change.
So when people make a complaint and nothing is done straight away the person making the complaint tends to think that nothing is being done and that they dont give a shit, but they do listen it just takes a while for all the bigwigs to do their meetings and decide on the change.

My DS is only 5 months but I've already noticed how ridiculously gender specific every item I try to purchase is - everything is either blue or pink. Even down to the weaning spoons I recently tried to buy, had to order some red ones online in the end.

Every little girl I see these days seems to be draped from head to toe in pink shit. I wonder if they really want to be permanently rose-coloured or if it's just all that's out there? I'm sure it wasn't like this when I was little. When did women turn fuschia??? I'm sure it's something to with the SATC, cocktail-swigging, Jordan-worshipping, "because I'm worth it" feminisation of society. Weird when to put your baby girl in something other than pink feels like a "statement".