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?

5mad we're back to our humble beginings - an email campaign :) I sent emails to three shops a few months ago ( and posted a thread about it ) and have updated that email a bit and would be happy to offer it as a template we could amend / edit / work from.

It's on my home computer, I'm at work now, but I'll post the body of it in a couple of hours, if someone else doesn't draft one first.

Email campaign should be part of our action plan. I think once the surveys are done, and we hopefully have some press coverage on that, we can coordinate our efforts toward the worst offenders (or those most likely to change, or the biggest ones that the most children access...? so many decisions!!).

Ooh, I've got a cunning plan. (Well I think it is, feel free to give me a reality check if not!)

I can make an online quiz - "Girl's Toy or Boy's Toy?"

We can use the most extreme examples, and then after people guess, reveal a picture and which shop thinks it.

I'll try to make it fun (maybe a picture quiz?) and hopefully people will share it, and it'll link back to the Facebook page (possibly twitter too).

What do you think?

Here's the list so far:

Arts & Crafts (Boots)
Marble Run (M&S)
Elmer the Elephant (Debehnams)
Science kits (Boots)
Duplo (Boots)
Gruffalo slippers (John Lewis)

Hmm, maybe need a few more, particularly at least couple more ones aimed at girls. What are your strangest / most extreme examples?

The only one in that list aimed at girls btw is the Arts & Crafts.

Shall go bookmark that thread, after the woman in tk.max i shall email their head office, oh and 23mrh old dd chose a toy dinosaur from the "boys' shelf which she then carried round town, it kept her entertained whilst i was xmas shopping.

Interestingly i noticed in boots that tho they had a pink shelf and a science shelf, pretty much everything else was done by age/brand so that was quite good :)

See aufanie how much does it depend on the individual shop as the boits in my town (norwich) had stuff predominantly by age. One pink section which was mainly barbie and hello kitty etc and a science section, but everything else was by brand/age so pretty.mixed up and there were no boy/girl labels at all.

I wonder how much regional variation there is and how much direction stores are given on layout etc?

Aufanie, I love the quiz idea.

"I wonder how much regional variation there is and how much direction stores are given on layout etc?"

Good point :)

I guess we'd need to make sure we use careful wording to account for that.

Or we could list the shop name and location.

That could work well too, what do you think?

As ten ton truck suggested earlier, I imagine there is more gender segregation of toys in areas of deprivation. It would be difficult to map unless we got lots more surveys I imagine.

I have just got myself a twitter acvount and i 'think' i am.following let toys be toys! My twitter 'name' is my mnet name, what else am i meant to do with twitter? And how do.i find people to.follow?

99 twitter followers! Anyone got a corkscrew handy?! ...

5madthings, one way to find people to follow, is to use the search, just type in a word which interests you (feminism / wine / science / whatever) then click "people" near the top left and see which ones look interesting to you (if any).

Search for authors / journos / slebs etc you like and follow them.

Follow Caitlin Moran if you like her (she tweets a lot!)

Say hi to a few people and you'll start to find your feet :)

Yay! 100 twitter followers :)

Here's to many more!

The search? I will.have to fiddle around. I noticed caitlin moran on thw let toys be toys bit under following? Followed shall have a fidfle around later, my children are requiring attention!

What stuff do people tweet about? And you can.upload pics? Can i link.it to my fb account?

cheers, aufaniae and all you other twitterers!

Wooo! well done! I wish I could be more actively involved...but I am just too bogged down in work at the moment. WHOOP on the possible Indie story!! And just bloody well done for making such waves SO quickly....and it IS really quickly....imagine what this could be like in a years time??

Yes well done to all those working on the social media! You're doing a brilliant job of keeping the dialogue going and posting interesting stories. Not to mention asking questions of influential people and companies - John Lewis, Boots etc.

Some thoughts of more people to follow on Twitter

TheRealSGM (Stewie Griffins' mom)
Hugo Schywzer (male feminist with 3 year old daughter)
Deborah Orr - feminist columnist
Jezebel magazine

Also could follow object and no more page three and woman's room

Survey update:

Stores 20 surveys done. Still missing: Hamleys, John Lewis, Boots, House of Fraser, Mothercare, Smyths, Wilkinsons - These are most urgent over the weekend please!

If we could get them all done (apart from maybe Hamleys which is a bit harder...) then could start the data analysis.

Online: 25 Surveys done. Still missing: Hamleys, The Entertainer and Tesco

Thanks to all

Facebook and Twitter has been great by the way. Should we tweet the survey link? I know it's 'back room' stuff but I really feel we need to cover as many branches as possible to allow for regional variation etc. We just need to be careful we don't explicitly encourage photos as it could get people in trouble!

I can possibly do Hamleys on Thursday lunchtime. I have a meeting in London in the morning.

Tweeting/fbing the survey would be great idea, imo.

Just out of interest, Lady, why do you think the photos are a prob?

When I took photos I had my alibi - " I am going to show this to my partner before we buy it..."
I shouldha been a spy.

Maybe put the survey on fb, and say to twitters, if you want to do the survey, please go to fb