To think mumsnet are helping promote sexist attitudes

[YoniFoolsAndHorses]

Re "girl" and "boy" toys.

I am a 'Mumsnet panelist' and regularly fill in a load of little surveys. I have never win any of the £50 amazon prizes, but actually I have never minded that at all. I can do the little surveys easily on my phone in a few minutes, and I like to think that it's doing my bit to keep mumsnet getting bigger and better.

Until this afternoon.

Until I get a survey about toy cars and trucks to which I would only be elegible to answer if I had a son.

My daughter plays with similar cars and trucks. We know the make involved well. She has fantastic and reasoned opinions on the toys involved too (we tried the survey together - although I didn't submit it - I just answered the first question incorrectly and said she was a boy).

How can this possibly be right that mumsnet is allowing such sexist marketing to continue around 'girl' and 'boy' toys?

.

This is really bad MN. Hypocrisy galore.

And there is nothing wrong with pink. For girls or boys.

"Or in your example above 'does your child like to play with sparkly dolls'."

The problem with that however is that most little boys who play with sparkly dolls do so because the dolls were bought for their sister otherwise they wouldn't have access to them. I'd suggest that the vast majority of boys who've played with dolls did not have them bought for themselves specifically. So you would be paying for market research from a whole bunch of people who would never in a million years buy your product.

"and is unlikely to make more money because so many parents despise sexism"

So pink sparkly dolls that are targeted at girls don't make more money? What's your basis for saying this - show me a pink sparkly doll marketed in a gender neutral way that was more successful that the "girl only" version.

If it's so easy to make money from dolls marketed with mumsnet feminist ideals why hasn't one of you done it rather than banging on about how much more successful it would be?

This has pissed me off too HQ and the lack of response is insulting

bailo equally, why haven't any of us begun our own, non hypocritical website? Er...we all have our own careers/jobs already and are too busy?

Has anyone reported this post?

This is bad.

btw I bought dolls for ds when he asked for them.

Right. I've had to skip most of the posts because of all the pompously WRONG assertions about market research which, though I'm out of the business now, always make me itch. I'll content myself with pointing out the obvious: that a survey aimed only at boys is canvassing only the opinions of boys. Therefore it is ignoring up to half its potential target market, which is plain fucking stupid commercially.

If they only wanted the opinions of existing users, they would have filtered for those rather than by gender. What they did was sexist - as well as stupid; assumptions lose sales.

I'm with everyone else, btw, MNHQ! Companies pay to access your audience because of your amazing relationship with us. So, if they wish to access us in a way that might piss us off, tell them how to do it right.

And I'm another one who's comfortable buying a doll for my son. Most people allow their kids to play with a range of toys IME. And all children enjoy playing in lots of different ways.

Hi everyone

All of us involved with Let Toys Be Toys were disappointed to see that this survey got through. We owe a great deal to Mumsnet as we got our start here, and MNHQ have been very supportive towards our campaign. So we are a bit surprised that the response to concerns expressed here hasn't been consistent with that.

For those who think that this kind of casual sexism towards children is unacceptable, please do keep joining us in our efforts to get that very message across to the toy industry and others. Our website is www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk in case you haven't seen us yet.

Thanks again
LTBT

Thanks for the link, LTBT. Ashamed to say wasn't aware of your campaign until I followed this link.

I was really disappointed to read the OP's post about the survey. My 3yoDS is car obsessed. He has a couple of friends - girls - who are also car-mad (One of them is a complete racing fan). They have as many cars as he has. Another girl had a go-karting party for her birthday. So Tonka's attitude is commercially as well as ethically questionable.

PS Dear Mr Tonka. I loved your 'virtually indestructible' toys as a kid. While my brother played with his Action Man, I spent many happy hours trying to smash my Tonka truck to bits. And I'm bloody prehistoric. As, it seems, are your market research team

As no-one answered, I have reported this thread.

Well done Biwi. It might give them a bit of a nudge.

Yes thanks Biwi

Evening all,

Thanks for the report BIWI.

Just acknowledging that we've seen this but being the weekend and the end of the holidays, it's taking a bit longer than normal to contact those dealing.

We will post again as soon as possible but please don't think we're ignoring you.

Thank you, lovely Rebecca

Adding my support to this thread. Mnhq please listen.

Adding my support, too. I used to sleep with a tonka truck on my bed instead of a doll. Not as nice to cuddle, but I just really loved that truck.

Thanks, Biwi. And thanks Rebecca for the update.

How very disappointing of mumsnet not to challenge this before it was sent out. I have one girl who if you chopped off a limb would ooze pink and sparkles and another girl who's favourite toys are a football, her toy car collection and a wooden fire engine. Her views are just as important as a boy who has the same preferences.

Hi all

First off huge apologies for the delayed response. I'm just back from half term hols and wanted to check in with the folks who had put the survey out to the panel before posting. The insight team are all suitably mortified that they didn't push back on the survey wording and make the client (a research agency) change the criteria before it was sent to the panel. We have certainly learnt from this experience and promise we won't allow it to happen again. We have sent your feedback to the client. We love the idea of just saying does your child play with X (insert doll/ train set/ or truck) and taking it from there. It sounds so obvious now - but sometimes in the rush of a busy day mistakes are made. We should have known better, but we can only apologise that we cocked up and take steps to stop it happening again.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to highlight the problem and apologies again.

Good. Shows how pervasive this sort of thing is if people don't question it though, doesn't it?

What a great reply! Thanks, Carrie & Rebecca :)

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

Well done Carrie, and thank you.