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?

I was out all day and the mobile died, so just catching up now. MrsDevere I love the idea about the cards.

I want to try and get a Facebook page up and running tonight. I am happy to have other admins on the account so that this campaign keeps its grassroots, collaborative feel and doesn't become about one person's view (mine or anyone else's) of how we should move forward. I'm aware that I have strong opinions on the issue and have found the back-and-forth of agreement and disagreement and having to justify my views so far on this thread to be really good for refining the arguments also I don't want all the responsibility .

Now, while I spend the next hour or so going through my MN posting history with a fine-tooth comb before outing myself via Facebook, would the rest of you like to agree on a name for our campaign?

The contenders so far are:

Equal Play (optional tagline: Let Toys Be Toys for Girls and Boys)
Fair Play (optional tagline as above)
Let Toys Be Toys ... for girls and boys [tagline]
EqualiToy

Apologies if I've missed any - rushing to go and do bedtime now. Please add other suggestions and / or vote on your favourite. Majority rules! That goes for you too, lurkers !! :)

smyths toy shop? cant remember is that is divided by gender?

ConsiderCasey It is a killer colour which can do anything!!! Starting to get scaredof pink...

aufaniae - I got a clandestine photo of some 'boy stuff' bits - the one thing (other than the recorder debacle) that made me feel slightly ill!
DD spent the rest of the day attacking people with her toy dinosaur so I think there's hope for her yet!

I'm torn between Equal Play and Let Toys Be Toys. Both work really well.

Would love to be a FB admin if no one minds :)

COUNT ME IN. I haven't read the whole thread yet, but am working my way through it. Of the names I think I prefer Let Toys be Toys. Maybe there could be a poll to see which is most popular?

Couple of points, hope am not repeating anyone, I know Pink Stinks has been mentioned, they've done some excellent campaigning re shops and I think they're the only big UK group. An affiliation or similar with them sounds a good idea. I think it's the manufacturers that need to be tackled too. Regardless of how the toys are displayed in the shops, the pictures on the boxes, (or in catalogues), show who the toys are aimed at.

On a personal note, amongst many things, the appropriation of outer space for boys really pisses me off, particularly as it's something my DD and her friends are really into - toys, greetings cards, clothes all reflect it, girls get cute kittens, cupcakes and so on. I have bought my daughter blue shoes, labelled 'Boys' because they were the only practical style in the shop but that was before she could read and I think she might object if I try it again now that she is more aware. Sorry, I'm a bit Baileyed, will read through properly and return.

I think I prefer Let Toys be Toys, as it sounds like it'll have wider appeal.

Equal Play is snappier though I suppose ...

I'll ask DP for his opinion in a bit (I'll be neutral, I'll promise!) ...

Me too on the FB admin - please!

Forced myself to go into Toys R Us on account of our mission and boy was that a depressing experience! On so many levels!

After walking through the pink aisles of Barbie and Girlz, under huge posters of girls dressed as princesses, through the aisles of construction toys, under equally huge posters of boys jumping and being active, I thought things couldn't get any worse.............until I saw this -the ultimate in "let's take a mainstream product, colour it pink, wack in something about shopping and jewelry - and sell it to girls - cher ching!!".

I wanted to vomit right there in the aisle!!

OK I have done a final edit of the surveys

(drafts here www.surveymonkey.com/s/6TWFRPK and www.surveymonkey.com/s/DF6NN2M)

NB: DONT FILL IN REAL ANSWERS HERE YET!

Should I launch it? I will start a new thread, so this one can continue with general campaign discussion.

"I think it's the manufacturers that need to be tackled too. Regardless of how the toys are displayed in the shops, the pictures on the boxes, (or in catalogues), show who the toys are aimed at."

Absolutely Trish - I thought that too today. The box covers spoke for themselves.

Himalaya - I know you said final edit, but...

Can it be 'personal grooming / beauty items' rather than 'personal grooming sets'? They're not necessarily sold in sets and I think things will be missed with that wording..

Also, where you have 'nobility dress up' could there also be 'hero dress up (e.g. firefighters, police, superheroes)'? I think that's the most comparable contrast.

Sorry for not suggesting these earlier, was on phone all day until it died and had trouble trying to open survey.

Also, I was going to start a new thread when we had agreed on a name and had a FB page up and running; Himalaya did you want to do a new thread just for the survey, or would it make more sense to introduce the survey as our first action, on the thread introducing the whole campaign?

I think that if we can sustain the interest here and garner more interest via Facebook, we will be able to move on to action plans around manufacturers, packaging, and marketing beyond the aisles and search functions that retailers use. Hopefully this is just the start.

It seems like "Let Toys be Toys" is the frontrunner for a campaign name - do people like the "... for girls and boys" tagline too?

OHWF - ok will make those changes tomorrow.

Anymore for anymore?

Was just going to start it on a new thread as an administrative thing - similar to the official MN survey threads - not for ongoing discussion on the campaign but just to manage the survey - e.g I can report back which stores have been well covered and where there are still gaps. Then when there has been enough responses close the survey and report back on the data to the ongoing discussion thread.

Re: FB - I think we will need to decide whether to keep the back room discussion here and make FB more of a public outreach site, or vice versa.

DP says he likes "Let Toys be Toys" too, and he likes the tagline too (I did ask as neutrally as I could!)

Oh yes count me in - was in M&S today and they had a week planner in the toy section - wipe clean chart with headings Monday - Friday and a marker pen and eraser. Perfect for DS to practice his wobbly writing I thought.

But no, only in pink.

I guess boys don't do writing stuff - they barely had a single writing based toy activity there which was aimed at boys.

In ' Heros' (and this is really overthinking) need to be specific firefighter/police (can be male or female) are different from superheros, which are more character driven. We don't need to cover absolutely everything...

can't firet fighters/police be classed as adult jobs' roleplay ?

i was in saubsbury's today and took a picture if gruffalo slippers labelled "boys ".
the dress up costume was just labelled completely neutrally. there was gruffalo princess, sheep, knight, shepherd star angel and a few more, none of which said bit/girl and all mixed up then they ruined it with the gruffalo slippers .

OK, it's possibly a little late in the day, but question 5 of the store survey: "Looking around the store, how are the following toys presented?" is quite hard to follow.

I think it would be much easier if it was structured the other way round, so you have the list of toys at the top, and the choices listed in the left in rows with the tick boxes.

This is because it's much easier to remember one toy and then tick the correct option, than to have to work out which option goes with each number, every time you answer this question.

I hope I've explained that properly! Have a go at doing it both ways in your head, and you'll see it's much easier if you have a toy in your head for number 1 (or whatever), then having to look back and forward to see which number goes with which statement, 7 times over.

It's a good idea to make surveys as easy as possible as if they're complex you'll lose some people who can't be bothered or don't understand it.

Also, for both surveys, please can we add a box at the bottom inviting "any more comments". We may well learn some useful stuff here, and I think it's good survey etiquette

Personally, it always annoys me when surveys haven't left a box for comments when I have something relevant to say (sometimes about how their survey has been designed so I've been to tick a box which is not true, for example! It really annoys me that not only have they made me give them false data, they've not given me the chance to tell them! But I digress ... )

Gah! Sorry, that should have said

"about how their survey has been designed so I've been forced to tick a box which is not true"

Well, I've made a start on the Facebook page - I agree with Himalaya that before it goes 'live' we need to decide what purpose we want it to serve.

Goths and Casey - please pm me your email addresses so I can add you as admins :)

The page is there in draft form, it's called "Let Toys Be Toys - For Girls and Boys" at the moment, as that seems to be the most popular option. Anything can be changed though!

It needs a profile picture - the timeline 'cover photo' is an aisle of pink with a prominent "Toys for Girls" sign (it's from Tesco, and I chose it mainly because it was the only one I took that was the right landscape shape for the cover shot - if anyone has a better one I'm happy to change it).

I'd love to have the profile picture be a girl having fun with an item you'd never find there in the pink aisle. I have a great picture of dd playing with a dump truck in a sandbox, but DH is an anti-Facebook sort so I'd want to run it by him first and he isn't home tonight. Anyone have a good picture of a kid defying the prescribed roles? Who wants to be the poster child of our campaign? :)

Below is what I've written for the 'About' page. Please feel free to pick it over and give your input; it's important that the description of the group captures the essence of what we're about. Will hope to have things up and running by tomorrow - sorry, it's bedtime now!

Let Toys Be Toys has a simple mission: to send a message to toy makers, marketers, and retailers that it is not acceptable to categorise toys by gender, rather than by theme or function. Our first project is to convince retailers to remove the signposts in their shops, catalogues, and websites that label some toys for "Girls" and others for "Boys".

It is not the place of retailers to determine which children should play with which toys, outside of safety warnings related to age. A child should not have to find the courage to subvert adult expectation before she can choose a rocketship from a toystore shelf labeled "Boys". A child should not be made to feel that he is not a 'proper' boy because he wants a doll that's in a section labeled "Girls".

We will be conducting a survey of toy retailers across the UK and Ireland, in order to determine which are the most (and least) child-friendly with regard to respecting the right of all children to play freely with the toys that most interest them as individual human beings, without being subject to the oppressive expectation that their interests are predetermined by their gender.

Toys should be for fun, for learning, for stoking imagination and encouraging creativity. They should not be tools by which to limit children's interests and aspirations, and indoctrinate them into archaic gender roles based on false and damaging stereotypes.

Let toys be toys - for girls and boys.

I acn't really do much as I'm in the Us but please post the fb page link when it's ready as I would love to keep in touch on that. My nieces are friends with me on fb so I'd like to be able to link to it. Although neither of them need much encouragement to be individual outspoken free thinkers.

OneHand - I like the blurb but would start with the "toys should be fun" paragraph. Our biggest criticism will be that we're taking ourselves too seriously and introducing a feminist agenda where there isn't one so the more we emphasise fun and the fact that we just want kids to play with more toys, the better IMO.

And I can dig out some photos of DD we can use. As long as she's not named (or overtly linked to this username) that should be fine.

Just had a proper look but (depressingly) the best photos of her with cars are from when she's very young and possibly we want an older 'poster-child'. Let's see what other people come up with.

OHWF

I would go much less wordy on the FB page.

(I would make it a page for likes rather than a group for joining - I think the group/informal organising committee is here, FB more for outreach?)

"Toys are for fun, for learning, for stoking imagination and encouraging creativity. Children should be free to play.

Isn't it time that toy stores and supermarkets stopped putting telling children, parents and grandparents that some toys are only suitable for girls and some for boys?

Let toys be toys - for girls and boys."

I wouldn't mention the survey or the campaign until the data is done, or we have a petition to sign etc... I would make it more a page for people to like if they agree with the basic idea.

And then a place to post egregious examples. Something akin to [[
m.facebook.com/corporatebollocks? this]]