Would anyone like to join in an effort to convince retailers to stop categorizing toys by gender?

[OneHandWavingFree]

Following on from this thread and similar ones, a few of us are interested in discussing ways to send a message to retailers that it is not acceptable to designate 'boys' and 'girls' toy aisles which reinforce the message that science and adventure are "boys stuff", while girls should be primarily occupied with looking 'sexy' or practicing for domestic drudgery.

The first steps might be to draft a letter and identify a few retailers to target for an email campaign. Other ideas of how to get the message across are very welcome too, though.

Would anyone like to join in?

That's such an encouraging article re Sweden, nickel.
I think I love EqualiToy!!

I think that's a great strap-line:

Fair Play
Let Toys Be Toys, For Girls and Boys

i also foudn this articel

might it be a good idea to get MmeLindt in this debate, too?
she has an online magazine aimed at pre-teen girls (real ones, not fluffy pink princesses)

and even the daily mail is getting in on it

I was also about to link to the current news in Sweden NickelBabe.

www.thelocal.se/44628/20121124/

There's also : www.thelocal.se/39988/20120330/ and www.thelocal.se/22504/20091006/.

Getting kids involved is great. Has anyone got DC doing social studies or media studies who could make a project of getting this into the media?

Facebook campaigns can be really effective. www.thelocal.se/36844/20111019/ If people are collecting data for the survey, snap pictures and post them with why they so displease you on the retailers and/or manufacturers facebook pages. Let's see if we can't get some of them to go viral!

Or how about just "Let toys be toys" for the title, with "for girls and boys" as the strap line:

Let Toys be Toys
for girls and boys

So the campaign would be the "Let toys be toys" campaign, but when we have the luxury of more space the strapline could be used too.

Although, on second thoughts, it's not as does-what-it-says-on-the-tin as "Fair Play" (although I appreciate that's a campaign already!)

Hmm, I sense I'm going round in circles here!

Just back from M&S (which actually wasn't too bad). DD really excited to get a (green) recorder. Then, to my dismay, put it back saying "oh no, this is a boys' one! HERE'S the girls' one!" She is now the owner of a pink and sparkly recorder. (I bought her a dinosaur as well to balance it out!)

I like "Let toys be toys" as it reinforces the idea that we just want children to play freely without gender issues coming into it. (We're not the political ones, they are! )

oh Lady :(

how awful.

Green has always been my favourite colour. I would hate to think that it has to be a boy's colour.
PS: maybe you could tell your daughter that actually, green is a girls' colour - it was used along with purple and white for the WSPU (later the suffragettes)
here info
and here
here
and another one

It's an interesting point that maybe individual store managers lay out their shop floors differently (although I doubt it!). This one had no signs but there was a distinctly pink display! Most toys were mixed though.

I like the card idea too! We'd need to make sure they made their way to Head Office though.

I like "let toys be toys"

I see Barbie and Action Man together on the picket line, Toy Story style

Nickel - I tried my best with the green! Including feigning ignorance ( "why on earth can't boys have pink?") but it didn't work

M&S weren't too bad on first glance in my local one - they didn't have sections actually labelled "boys" and "girls" for example.

But take a closer look, and their own-brand stuff is actually labelled "Boy Stuff" on the packaging. Like a marble run for example (sorry to keep going on about it, but I was really "wtf" at that one! In what world are marble runs only for boys?!)

:(

I've already planned that if DD tries to pull a stunt like that it'll be "either you get the one you wanted before you were brainwashed into thinking boys and girls can't have the same colour or you'll be blowing on the hoover pipe for the next 5 years"

I'm well aware this might not work (and doesn't help you in the slightest )

my recorder is brownyblack.

can you return the crappy one?

Thanks to this thread I now have a youtube clip to go with my media teaching unit that's going to be a month long anti-cinderella rant.

"It's an interesting point that maybe individual store managers lay out their shop floors differently "

I know when I worked for Woolworths in the toy department we were given very specific floor planners, which I'm pretty certain came from head office. I'd be surprised if Woolies is the only major chain to have done that.

yep, all major chains have very very specific floor plans.

when ottakar's was taken over by waterstone's, it was one of the massive bones of contention that suddenly we were perceived as completely incapable of merchandising.

at blowing on the hoover pipe.

Lady, tell your DD that I got married in green, with flowers in my hair!

I got married in green as well

no flowers, but stars in my hair

maybe we were separated at birth

Just laughing to myself at the idea of anyone's getting married in pink: there are some things that colour cannot do!

Pluto, I got married in pink! A lovely deep dusky pink, with a rose in my hair and a baby on my hip!!