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 going for a theatrical sigh, a pained expression and "I have got 19 nephews and nieces, all different ages, and every one has a parent with ::views:: on what is appropriate for them."

I actually have one niece. Who is getting a nice coloured skirt.

I've posted a thread in 'Legal' asking for advice on whether we need to be concerned about taking pictures, posting pictures, or distributing pictures, with identifying info of the true-but-negative variety.

I prefer your excuse, ten ton truck

Done two more online surveys. Ill try to do wilkinsons tomorrow

Ah, right, tricky legal questions.

This is my understanding ... so long as it's a true reflection, it should not be libellous.

If you put a spin on a photo or selectively edit it to falsify a situation or even wrongly attribute it to a certain shop, then yes would be legally difficult.

If you say Asda doesn't like girls playing with science kits against a photo, could be problematic. Because really, you can't extrapolate that alone and could be defamatory.

As for taking photos in a shop, privately owned, not sure. It's a public space, I guess. And it's in the public interest (to my mind). I wonder what Trip Advisor do about this? People put all kinds of negative but truthful pics up on there.

At some point, might be worth us getting some indemnity insurance (eek)

Yes i wonderef about the legalities of pics. But its a pic of shelves, toys and signs, not edited etc so ok i think? Whenasked i daid i was getting xmas present ideas. I did feel a bit conspicious tho!

I think pics are fine legally (I have no legal background though!) but we could get asked some awkward questions by store detectives thinking we are from competitors. Or worse, they think we're terrorists casing the joint!

I looked up the legalities of using screen shots before I did the Boots one.

My understanding of what I read is that it's OK to publish a screen shot of a part of another website of you're using it for the purpose of review or criticism. So we'd be covered there, as that's exactly what we're using it for.

There are lots of circumstances where it's not OK (making money from it being an obvious one.) One which is unlikely but perhaps worth knowing about is that if a website is a one-page website and we used a screenshot of the whole of it, we might fall foul of copyright laws. But if we're reproducing part of it (one page out of 100s for example) to review / criticise, that's fine (well if I've understood it correctly that is!)

I reckon aufanie is right - think it comes down to 'fair use' - for purposes of criticism or review.

The key question to ask is ... with either text or photos, 'is what I'm about to post fair and true'?

Have just done a quick skim of the last couple of pages, don't think you have this:

Tesco are selling a chemistry set and class it as
Gender:boys.

gender specific chemistry set as labelled by Tesco

Anyone wants to help out go and tweet answers to: What do your children like to play with from the 'wrong' aisle? use hashtag #lettoysbetoys

Now I'm totally guessing here, but I would guess that legally there's nothing wrong with talking pictures in a store and then publishing them.

However the shop are probably within their rights to chuck you out if they catch you doing it and don't want you in there. Although not illegal - their shop, their rules.

Not sure about this bit - I'm totally guessing! Do shops have to allow entry to anyone? Can they throw people out?

I'm going to look it up now! ...

Someone could post in legal and ask for advice about the picture taking and publishing?

Ooh sorry I see onehand is already on it!

Turquoise thank you for posting that - that is really shocking! "Product Specifications: Gender: Boys"

MrsMushroom, so she did. And I only read that a little while ago!

I'l rake my legal sleuthing over there ...

Does anyone know if Katrina Bryan ( nina and the neurons) or phil gallagher(mr maker) are on twitter? Wonder if they would support the campaign?

Can we not tweet the survey link please?

It is not quite robust enough for 'all comers' (i.e. who haven't been part of the MN discussion, can't come here for 'customer' support....) , and I am not sure there will be huge advantage to having tons of data on many, many different branches of each store.

After we have done this quick back room survey we could always have other simpler surveys/poll type things on the FB site etc...

But I think the next step is to get the survey analysed with at least 1 response for each store (will start this weekend) at the same time maybe building up to 2-3 for each store to get as much consistency as we can.

Then (I think) we pick the targets and launch the petition - It is the petition that we should then push on FB, twitter and to friends - to get mass signatures.

There's a thread in AIBU at the mo where the OP is moaning because someone got her 2 year old DS a girls card. Sorry...rude of me to talk about a thread within a thread but really.

(did we have some logos to look at, or have i missed that?)

Great idea ^ just followed nina, am going to ask her what she thinks of the tesco chemistry set and then i'd best leave twitter for the night as had a bit too much

Him - tweeted the survey link earlier, will do again before I log off

trishawisha....I wouldn't - it wasn't written for public viewing, it doesn't have a good enough explanation about what it is etc... We are nearly there on it without pushing it out.

Himalaya - fair enough, it was just a question really.
Trisha - presumably we can delete the tweets if Himalaya doesn't feel it's for public consumption. They may have already been picked up by some but at least we can make sure we don't advertise it further.