To wonder if you need a penis to operate this boat?

[Queenbean]

Otherwise, why else could it possibly be "ideal for boys"? Or is it probable that girls wouldn't want to play with boats, or things relating to the police?

Such an unnecessary addition to the description

DS (now 16) used to love pushing a pram around the house. We quite happily let him, his sisters did it so why shouldn't he. We also let him paint his nails when they did. Cue astonished gasps from certain cuntish members of family, words of warning flew from their mouths. Now my son has announced he is gay. I am just waiting for the I-told-you-so's.

If they say anything ChunkyMcBitch you can point out that 16 years ago nothing was known about the chemical properties of nail polish and the texture of toy pushchair handles, these days however, everyone is fully aware that these two things in combination can drastically alter a person's sexuality.

BFG that buggy is obviously from the 1960's because it turns on a sixpence - not many of those around for the last thirty years or so.
Jessie lol at the idea that there are boy's eggs - bit of a contradiction
Whilst there has always been this sexist nonsense with children's clothes and toys, IMO the pink/blue thing is worse than it was twenty years ago.

Pink lego aimed at girls came out in 1992. It really isn't a new thing.

Well I let my older son play with his cousins pink playset once and his willy fell off.

I did have the pleasure of watching my 2 year old son and another boy of similar age have a proper screaming fight in play group over who got to push the pink pushchair. I did intervene btw, but I suppose I had better make him play with some more manly toys else the same fate befall him that did his brother.
I always played with lego, especially technic, as a child. Loved building cars and stuff. Is this why I now have so many chin hairs?

pink TEAset that should say.

Not toy-related but I saw an ad on the tube yesterday, about 'Dave' who had saved money selling his house "so I bought a new kitchen for the missus". Sigh.

I have a friend who allegedly sunbathes nude whilst sailing. He probably uses his penis to sail the boat in a manly fashion. Ties a lanyard to it or something.

Toys marketed by gender are utterly ridiculous and I can't stand that certain characters are deemed to belong to one gender or another. There was a story on a local Facebook parenting group this week where a mother had to complain to a store. She'd taken her son with her to buy paper plates and napkins and bits for his My Little Pony themed birthday party. The cashier had asked if they were for his sister. When she was told it was for the boy's 4th birthday party, she then asked the mother if she thought her son was gay!

I'm shocked anyone would even think anything so stupid, never mind say it out loud.

We can already tell that it's ideal for boys by the blue box and absence of female figures.

How do you know the figures aren't female? Is it because they aren't in pink dresses with pretty hair?

My son has an aeroplane that came with a captain. He has decided she is a woman. I have very short hair and he knows that hair and make up do not make a woman.

I have a pink toy loom which claims to be "girls only" on the box. I'll try it out later with DS1, see if he can manage it or if it's too complicated for his boy-brain. Or possibly it's far to easy & beneath his magnificent man-ness.

Ds with his picnic basket😊

One of the police figures has a moustache and the robber has stubble. Hard to see whether the third figure has any male features, but the short hair would at least suggest it is supposed to be male.

Yes I know a child could pretend that the flat-chested short-haired police officer is female, but given that female playmobil characters tend to have eyelashes or blushing cheeks or flippy hair, it would be going against what is intended instead of actually having a clear female character in the box.

I once had 2 random children come up to dd at the bus station and tell her that her scooter couldn't possibly belong to her because it was blue and she was a girl. I had to give them a short lecture on why colours are not gender specific. After a few minutes I notice they were backing away slowly looking slightly terrified by my ardent feminism

I was buying sandals for DD and she was particularly taken with a red pair. A boy nearby could be heard loudly saying 'but she can't have them, they're from the boys section'. The mother was horrified, saying 'but you've got a pink scooter!'. It seems that however hard we try with our kids they still get stupid stuff stuck in their head.

My DS was looking at the book Doctor Maisy with my DD recently and said that Maisy was a boy because he was a doctor. It took pointing out that Maisy was referred to as 'she' to convince him otherwise. The annoying thing was that Doctor Maisy had been his book and he'd had it read to him loads when he was younger. That early training that doctors could be girls was superseded by later societal influences.

Pink and blue should be done away with when it comes to toys. Dozens of other colours to choose from. Oh, and get rid of sparkly stuff too. Just make things neutral. I expect a toy designer would be able to make quite a bit of money by making gender neutral toys. There's a definite gap in the market.

Good to still see thread like this but on the whole everyday sexist has got so much worse in mn in the last few years.

Update: they've removed the "Ideal for boys" bit. The tweets and emails have worked.

Hurrah!

That's great that it has gone now. I wrote to BrightMinds about six years ago about the fact that the "science" section of their catalogue was filled with pics of boys with maybe two girls, and the "creativity" section was all girls with not a single boy to be seen. They were apologetic and said they could only use the pics the manufacturers sent, but I have noticed it has got a bit better - there are loads more girls in the science bit, although still not that many boys in the creativity bit.

As a PP said you can of course just buy toys anyway even if the description states they are for the opposite gender (or doesn't state that but show the product only being played with by girls or boys). But the children will pick up on how the product is being marketed. My sons like My Little Pony and will happily colour pictures I print from the internet but there is no way they would want any MLP product bought for them and they won't tell their friends they like it.

I work in the book trade and have noticed this a lot with regard to books for children. Some great books which could be appreciated by boys and girls are marketed to one or the other. Books for girls have pink sparkly covers. Books for boys have manly thing son them. It's utterly ridiculous, and has been the subject of many complaints. Some books have been re-issued with better covers, but it does still go on.

I still remember being narked that the Willard Price Tiger/ Lion/ Volcano etc series was marketed as "great adventure stories for boys" when I was nine.