The toy car trial that's apparently 'only for boys'

[AmandinePoulain]

I've just received an email inviting parents of boys aged between 4 and 7 to fill in a questionnaire about some new designs for toy cars and trucks, because I'm on the MN panel. Why are only boys allowed to have an opinion on toy cars? I thought MN was trying to discourage the concept of 'girls toys' and 'boys toys', this survey is hardly going to help with that, is it?

My dds play with cars so why aren't dd1's opinions valid, just because she's not a boy?

Will you also tell them that we think they are being riddiculous in discriminating in this way?

Perhaps point them in the direction of the 'lettoysbetoys' campaign...

Yes, very inconsistent with the campaign to stop gender stereotyping in selling toys which I thought Mumsnet was fully behind?

Why not refuse to do this particular survey?

I filled in the survey with my son. It did specifically ask for boys, but one of the first questions was 'are you filling in this survey with a. a boy or b. a girl'

Modern Tonka toys are rubbish quality anyway.

Rake - yes totally agree, since it's easy to split and analyse the boy/girl data, why on earth don't they just gather both? They might learn something.

Pretty disappointed with MN response tbh. We know that's what they asked for but do you really want to support that?

What company is this anyway? MNHQ please be sure to tell them that I won't be buying their cars for either my DDs OR my nephews.

Exactly Beau, you've kind of made my point there haven't you? Boys and girls are both perfectly capable of playing with cars and forming opinions on them!

I don't really get it Olivia - surely you can just say 'no, we're happy to gather our users opinions but you can't specify just boys' , thanks for responding though.

And yes, I do have other things to worry about but starting this thread took up about 5 minutes of my time, I'm perfectly capable of thinking about more than one thing at a time thanks

Its tonka i think neo

I have just filled it in, its for tonka toys.

There was an additional comments box at the end.... I may have told them that I don't appreciate gender discrimination, especially when its aimed at children...

I would not expect anything other than casual sexism from a profit-orientated toy company trying to sell more product; but I do expect more from MNHQ and feel the world is a wee bit sadder tonight as their choice/responses have been crap.

That's not actually a joke, if mumsnet can't put principle before profit what bloody hope is there.

How disappointing on both accounts. If they ever do decide to target toy cars at girls they probably won't bother finding out what they think. All they will do is paint it pink and put some inane comments like "I look gorgeous in this car!"

Do please see Carrie's post here
Thanks

Thank you

A good result

Well done MN.