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?

OHWF I definitely meant shelf cards to be positive. Meant to look like recommendations beyond the narrow retailer/manufacturer target group. Subtle, business card sized, but camouflaged so that store staff might not take them down as they are not obviously out of place.

I will defer to the hive mind! And as I am catastrophic at anything graphic/arty (someone didn't buy me enough colour-in-the-princess kits as a child) I can't offer to really see this one through.

Actually that's a thought. My mother almost completely banned Barbie, Sindy and my little pony from my childhood. I had soft toys, a dolly in a Moses basket, a lot of standard Lego and some Technic, a dressing up box, a piano and a lot of mental arithmetic and spelling practice in the car on the way to places. I did have one Barbie which slipped through the anti-Mattel force field I must have been given by someone. I made her a house out of shoeboxes, a bath from a vitalite tub, and soft furnishings with old flannels and cut up old clothes.

What about a chef's hat and frying pan for the boy, or a toy hoover (boys at playgroups always seem to love those)? And maybe something science-y for the girl, or a robot or something?

For the shelf stuff, the first thing that popped into my head (though not sure it's actually realistic) was to just stick a big bright-coloured question mark onto the signs/labels on toys (some speech marks would be nice too) - so they would read
" "Boys'" toys?" and " "Girls'" toys?" As in, are they really?

But realistically it would be hard to do anything like that without getting chucked out fairly quickly I guess, and the stickers removed...

Not keen on stickering really.

How about boy teapot and girl football - and boy pencil, girl rocket, so the shapes look the same but are different?

I assume for this we are going to need someone with a willing DS and DD for this?

Don't we need a willing graphic designer?!

I think the logo/identity needs to be fairly simple. Don't try to pile too much into - needs to be able to be used on a letterhead etc.. And as common branding on the FB memes/campaign material we make.

I thought maybe just let Toys be Toys with the two Toys in rectangles to look like signs?

Not keen on stickering either. These decisions are made at head office - it is better to bring attention in the press and online than make a nuisance of ourselves.

Oh I see, I think I'm getting the logo and cover photo mixed up!

It's a bit mentally exhausting all this planning a campaign business. There's so much to think of. I need a ?

Maybe we should ask MNHQ for advice on how to organise the whole shebang?

If these were small shops I would agree, but these are multinational corps; strong twitter/Facebook naming and shaming is prob most effective way to go - plus big stories in media releases...

I think we should leave calling cards in shelves saying "For whites only" or "for blacks only". Then they turn over the card and see the question "If this isn't ok, then why is this?" and a piccy of a "for boys/girls only" sign.

But that's me being a bit radical! So just ignore...

Survey update to date

14 store surveys carried out - places that still need to be covered are Hamleys (if anyone happens to be going), John Lewis, Debenhams, Boots, House of Fraser, Mothercare, Smyths, Argos, Wilkos and Toys R Us ... But others could definately be done again.

11 online surveys done - still needed: Hamleys, Entertainer, Debenhams, JL, HoF, Mothercare, ELC, Tesco, ToysRUs, Argos and Wilkos.

Thanks!

I like radical. However, if I worked in Sainsbury's toy dept I would prob just sweep cards up n bin em.

I can do JL, Boots, TRU and mothercare this weekend. Have Costco to put on the form - a little off the norm as it's wholesale, but people do buy family gift stuff there.

Agree that social networking is the way to go....it's more fightening for these companies. What we need is for some slebs to follow us on Twitter and like us on FB.

Twitter account needs to get following known Feminists with children such as Sophie Ellis Bextor and hopefully they might re tweet or whatever it is they do on Twitter!

Who is in charge of the Twitter thing? (I can't grasp it and though I have an account, I never go on there! May have to try now.

Just popped over to look at the Twitter account....there are 55 people following Let Toys Be Toys but the account is only following 5 people.

I don't really understand Twitter properly but wouldn't it be important to follow a lot of other groups/people? Or don't they see your tweets unless they follow you too?

MrsMushroom, yes you're right, it is a good idea to follow people on twitter to get follows back. It's part of the plan AFAIK.

However I reckon it's be a good idea to hold off on that front for a little bit - until we have just a few more tweets to make it look like an interesting and active account, so people want to follow us.

MrsMushroom wrt twitter, people see your tweets if they follow you.
Or if one of the people they follow "retweets" (shares) your tweet. Or if they do a search of some sort and your tweet comes up in that search.

People don't see your tweets if you follow them. However following someone is in a way an invitation for them to follow you back; it's a good way to get people to notice you, some of them will follow you back, so you can build an audience this way.

You don't want to go overboard though. If you're following 500 people but only have 60 followers, people might think you're not really worth following. The most popular / influential tweeters have many more followers than people they follow.

Done another survey, and signed up to twitter. Its all very confusing to me, but hopefully ill get the hang of it.!?!
Dont like the idea of stickers, to be honest, I don't think causing damage will bring retailers onside.

Ah I see! I am beginning to see that the sticker thing may be problematic...but also can't really see retailers getting onside...but I may be wrong about that.

Have just done HoF. No gendering, brilliant! You get the same list for both, including dolls, construction whatever, and they are all grouped in toy types. (mobile site anyway).

Going there tomorrow I hope so will check out the RL store

"but also can't really see retailers getting onside"

Hamleys scrapped categorising by gender and changed over to categorising by theme last year.

In general businesses will make changes like this if they think it'll get them some good publicity - and it could well, especially if we manage to make the campaign big enough. Hamleys for example got features in the Telegraph, Mirror and the Guardian (possibly more, this is just what I found by a 10 second google) as well as plenty of blogs etc across the internet.

They'll also make the change if they think to not do so will tarnish their reputation.

Oh and I suppose also if they get an attack of conscience / insight and realise it's the right thing to do (not totally impossible?!)

A good / wide-reaching campaign can definitely help change the behaviour of businesses.

Or to put it another way:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

:)

That sounds very encouraging. I DO wonder why MNHQ haven't been on to offer any thoughts about this.