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?

Hey everyone, got a few logo designs to upload. Taking DS to the hospital in a moment though so will upload when I get back.

5madthings you should feel good, are the instigator of great things

ashesgirl good idea :) I've just followed them both.

MorderOfGoths exciting about the logos, but I hope your DS is OK?

I reckon ConsiderCasey deserves and (for later!) today, as she was womaning the twitter last night when it the Indy journalist got in touch (by tweet), so it could well be down to her efforts last night!

Brilliant

5madthings I've been wondering if GretaGip has lurked on this thread at all. She wasn't the first one ever to start a thread about "Girls" and "Boys" signage in shops (I've seen a few over the years, and I started one a month earlier than hers that mostly got ignored :( ), but it was on her thread that you and I first started discussing taking some action on it.

I've wondered why we haven't seen her on here

Yy for Casey !

Hope DS is okay, Goths

"Mummy, what did you do in the great toy campaign of 2012?"

"I womaned the twitter"

and all round for how much we've done together in such a short time!

Hi all, have left my phone at home today, and my work internet connection is super-suspicious of social networking, so I can only come here and possibly hit a couple of online stores for the survey at lunch.

I am also thinking about who to target. I work with the armed forces and we definitely want to recruit more women, in both uniformed and civilian technical roles, and so there could be something there, contacting the recruitment divisions. I also think the Royal Society, Inst of Physics, lots of the scientific professional bodies could be interested in aligning with this.

However, we are missing a massive area - men. I am thinking of high profile dads who don't want their sons or their daughters pigeonholed. Stephen Mangan tweeted a Daily Mail picture last night chiding the DM for sneering about Leona Lewis's upper arms (or something ridiculous) - how about tweeting him a picture of the shelves of beauty products marketed as toys to under-tens - look, the whole leisure industry tells girls to be bothered about their appearance from almost day one!

What about Jamie Oliver, George Clarke, Chris Evans, Michael McIntyre, Giles Coren... what about MPs? Perhaps not all at once, but gradually. Hey, could someone tweet that pic of the pinkified microphone to Dermot O'Leary pointing out that in ten years time maybe there won't be any male singers on the X-factor???

Dur, didn't finish my point about the recruiting - I mean showing how pushed away girls are from STEM-developing and logic/maths/strategy toys could be a big eye opener for the AF and scientific societies. They

Also, actually, is there a bit of an economic divide here? Can we look at the price points of neutral vs gendered toys? If the cheap and abundant toys tend to push boys into work-related role play and girls into passive dependence, wouldn't all sorts of public policy think tanks be interested?

Bloody well done all you brilliant tweeters, facebookers and generally clever what-nots who have been bashing away at this without giving up or straying from the purpose.

It's SO exciting to see this!

You're right there TenTonTruck So for the future, a good aim might be to attempt to get that line evened out more.

Ooh ooh - Gareth Malone!

Exciting to see Peggy Orenstein tweeted to the campaign. I am just about to read her book.
Yes, re. men. And on the facebook, we have lots of girls playing with "boys" stuff, it would be nice to see some photos of happy boys cooking, etc. Plus, yes, to get men speaking out - male hairdressers, male singers, male chefs, that would be wonderful.
I agree with TenTonTruck, there is a massive socio-economic dimension to this - I don't know how we would tackle that in itself.

rioght, just been thinking.

on my shop's facebook page, i put a status saying that I loved hearing what people's childhood favourite books were, and gave an example of a customer who told me her "book that got me reading".
then lots of page likers put their books too, and a dialogue opened.

What you need to do (it has to be admin or it won't work the same way), is say "when i was a child, my favourite toy was this:....my mum says I carried it with me everywhere etc what was your favourite toy?"

Ooh, I like it. Simple. And effective. The twitter account could ask that tonight maybe and put up some of the answers on facebook.

I liked my girls world AND my blue Rayleigh Chopper.

Tenton
"That Smyths web search algorithm makes sense to me. It's both disappointing and an opportunity. What it means is that people have searched for things for boys and girls and the IT has learned from what they end up buying. So to start with, people searched for 'girls toy kitchens' and 'girls art kits' and the store had things called toy kitchens and art kits. it didn't start with girls in the description, but the algorithm learned that people associate those with girls, so now responds to the search term 'girls' by suggesting kitchens and art kits.

Now, all we have to do is whenever buying a toy that you know is currently falling on one side of the gender divide, put in the other gender as a search term. E.g. You are getting a scalextric set for someone, you search 'scalextric girls' and you'll get scalextric because it will probably just ignore what it sees as an irrelevant word. You buy, it learns that at least someone wants scalextric for girls. You do the same with every gendered toy and it loosens the associations. And it might also affect the second order associations ("people who bought scalextric also like meccano") eventually."

okay, i put in girls scalextric and it came up with a "partial match" and basically just listed shedloads of toys (of not just pink persuasion).
now all i have to do is click on the ones that "most match" my desire (in this case lego and sims games, i guess) and hope the algorithm remembers that?

actually, i'm pissed off now - everytime i type in girl and a keyword, it tells me there's no exact match, but gives me 243 items that partially match.
none of those contains the other word.
fine scalextric doesn't have a match at all, but i did it with alphabet girl and i know there's a couple of things with alphabet!

i've emailed them.

nickel, yes - although I think it will count for more if you actually go right through and buy things, retailers do look at 'dropped baskets' as well where you add stuff to your shopping cart but leave without completing the transaction, and lowest count of all would be if you just browse but don't add to cart.

To really affect algorithms, you need to get a critical mass of people doing this - to edge out those who type 'girl' when they mean 'princess'.

Woohoo!! Just checked in for update to see an Indy journalist has been in touch - that is awesome. Plus Peggy O tweeted us. Flippin' awesome!

Have you spoken to her OHWF? Did she say anything about you not being in the UK? Tell us Tell us Tell us .... I can't stand the waiting!

Him, do you need more surveys this weekend of high street stores or are you collating results now? If you need help with sorting through the results just let me know - I like that kind of thing

Favourite Toy I think you need to do it directly on facebook - Twitter moves so fast that it's really hard to open up a dialogue, whereas anyone who has "liked" the FB page will get a notification to say that the discussion is on there.

Tentruck - okay, i have just been browsing. I will start to add things to a basket.

we all need to do it, then, altogether.

Hi all, i made it into town today and shall try and fill insurveys later. Have uploaded somd pics, tk max the worst offenders with the toy shelves labelled 'boys or 'girls'

We also have a shop that is hawkins bazaar and letterbox in town and tho there was a pinkish wall they had actually mixed stuff up a bit and no obvious gendered signage etc it wasnt too bad.

Elc is very divided and i notuced that on any products relating to housework all children.pictured were girls! then with the construction and dress up of gire fighters etc it was a boy pictured in the display.

I questioned the manager in tk max re the signs, she told me it comes from.head office and essentially looked at me like i was mad! and thd old 'you can buy what you want for whatever sex child' to which i replied yes but children can read and many will be put off by signs saying girls/boys. Anyway she said to email head office as its not up to her.

Do we have draft wmails we could send to retailers?

And also what are the rules re taking photos in shops and then.putting them online, i told someone who asked me today it was for present ideas to send to relatives as i def got a funny look/vibe!

I have just spoken with Susie from the Independent. She was very nice and gets where we're coming from :)

She is still working out when a story might appear, but it does sound like there will be a story.

I think I managed to get our message across clearly and poached some excellent points you've all posted here and I did my best to emphasise the collaborative nature of the campaign; i.e. that she was talking to me because I started the thread, but we all started the movement.

I'll stay in touch with her and let you know if an article is imminent :) :)

Fab!