To think Waitrose shouldn't be categorising their children's cake like this?

[IWantADinosaurCake]

Just looking at cakes for upcoming birthdays on the Waitrose website, and I was disappointed to see that they had classified their children's cakes into Girls Cakes and Boys Cakes.

Girls Cakes consists of cupcakes, barbie and ladybirds, and Boys Cakes includes fire engines, pirate ships and dinosaurs.

I know you don't have to follow the categories, but I find it so sad that Waitrose have designed the categories in this way - what's wrong with just 'Children's Cakes'?

www.waitrose.com/shop/Browse/Groceries/Bread_and_Cakes/Personalised_Cakes_Made_to_Order/Kids_Birthday_Cakes

Not everyone wants to raise their kids in the same way. You want to buy only pink cakes for girls, then knock yourself out.

But don't push your ideas on other children wandering round the supermarket or looking over parent's shoulder to choose a cake online. Why should those children be subjected to the conditioning you want to give yours?

Not having gendered cake labels won't in any way hinder you from conditioning your children, so why should you be bothered if the supermarket doesn't do it?

It's not about the purchasing of the cake. It's about the unnecessary and pointless categorisation of products into gender categories that don't actually relate to gender.

You're right that we don't all want to parent the same way. So surely it makes more sense to categorise children's products by type/features/concept rather than by a stereotyped notion of gender or some other ridiculous way of categorising things.

Hmm, I foresee baby carrots creating a problem...

No, DD, that's a boys turnip...

Update - Waitrose emailed me today to say they no longer categorise their children's cake by boy/girl but had mistakenly not updated that page on their website - they have promised to rectify that. Hurrah!

Sorry! Just saw that someone else had already posted a response from Waitrose.

Still a good update, Ungrateful!

Update - Waitrose emailed me today to say they no longer categorise their children's cake by boy/girl but had mistakenly not updated that page on their website - they have promised to rectify that. Hurrah!

WOWSERS - another First World problem solved. Now, about those starving children in Africa..............

Don't let us drag you from fixing the starving children in Africa, Chimes...

You won't Pausing - after all, they could really do with some gender neutral cake being sent out in a parcel, couldn't they?

Ah, you were just joking.

That's a shame, because the fight against childhood poverty in Africa (and elsewhere) could actually do with your support.

Gendering toys, books, cakes and clothes for children annoys me. Yes, some girls like pink princessy things, and some boys like blue or green dinosaury things, but plenty of children like both.

My DD is nearly 4 and goes from playing with dolls to cars, wearing a bob the builder outfit to a fairy dress. Her favourite dressing up outfit is a tiger costume. Often with fairy wings and a mechanics jacket.

I don't want DD to get the idea that liking pirates or dinosaurs is wrong, that blue is for boys, that long hair is for girls.

Most people can think about/support more than one thing at a time, Chimes... just because there are other bigger issues doesn't mean that a small amount of time/mental energy can't be spent on a very much smaller issue.

I don't buy this 'because someone has it worse elsewhere we shouldn't worry about problems in our own backyard' approach. I happen to also be fairly passionate about child poverty in developing countries and am fairly certain that gender inequality has a role to play in those issues too.

I believe in doing what you can to address these issues where you find them, and in doing so we can all play our part.

and am fairly certain that gender inequality has a role to play in those issues too.

Oh god YES. Radio Four, girls in Ghana, strange raw tattoos on arm, told it was because they will be raped and maybe killed and the tattoos are the addresses so whoever finds finds the bodies will know where to take them back too. Countries that can must set a standard.