teach your daughters to iron and air laundry

[louiseRyan2020]

I was shocked in Aldi this weekend to see toys - clearly marketed at girls - that involved an ironing set (complete with toy iron and ironing board) and a 'clothes airer' - clothes horse (complete with laundry basket).
Ironically both toys were labelled with the slogan 'imagination and creativity' and 'curiosity and discovery'.
The mind boggles . I fail to see how teaching little girls how to iron and air clothes will feed their curiosity or imagination. Both toys seem to show a total absence of imagination - unless perhaps 'how to imagine yourself fulfilling a 1950s stereotype of femininity'?
Perhaps the toys are meant to be ironic and this is actually a plan to teach little girls to rebel against such limited gender stereotypes and domestic drudgery. Apart from anything else, what a total waste of money. It would be cheaper to buy a real clothes horse/ airer than this toy one.
does anyone else find the so-called toys highly objectionable in the 21st century?
I recently went to the new exhibition on the women's rights movement 'Unfinished Business' at the British Library. Well absolutely, this is clearly 'unfinished business' when these kinds of toys are still be marketed at girls.

Lidil Otoh have chosen a little boy to advertise their play ironing set while the little girls play with the race car track. I thought it was a nice touch.

What a bloody boring toy. Maybe if you had a big Wendy house and wanted to kit it out but still..

Kids love to model what they have seen their parents/caters doing, I can imagine the children in my class loving those toys. They always love playing cars or clothes and pegging them on the line.

I had a toy iron when I was a kid in the seventies.

When my ex moved out he took the iron.

Only thing I’d used it for was Hama beads.

I bought DD an iron for her 12th birthday.

A soldering iron.

To be honest my DD would quite like that I think. She does like toy trains and cars too though.

It would have been much better if they'd had pictures of both a boy and a girl on the box. I think that should be a general rule for all toys.

It would have been much better if they'd had pictures of both a boy and a girl on the box. I think that should be a general rule for all toys.

It's odd they don't do this more, increase the size of their market.

I wouldn't buy one but my daughter used to make a beeline for the toy iron at one of our playgroups. They should have put a boy on one of the boxes though. Their Dad does all the ironing in this house, I'm useless at it.

Lidl had the right idea

My son loves his toy dustpan and brush. As I recall it had no child on the box so no stereotyping. We still have the dustpan and use it as a Lego tidy up tool!

Oh I don't know, children like to roleplay things that they see adults doing. My children wouldn't know what to do with a toy ironing board specifically as we don't iron anything, but they both like pretending to do household activities like cooking, cleaning, DIY and hoovering as well as other adult things like childcare and going to work. I've got a boy and a girl, 3 and 5, and they both like pretending to be grown ups and doing small chores around the house.
I don't see an issue as long as you're not saying it's just for girls or just for boys, especially if they see adult role models of both sexes taking on a balanced range of responsibilities.

In the magazine available in store, the picture shows boys using the ironing board FWIW.

Nothing wrong with the toy - children like to model what they see adults doing.

The problem is the way its presented.

I sounded off at my MlL after opening a gift from her side of the family which was a pink ‘beauty’ set. To open an iron and ironing board set from her the next day. I was but stood by my original comments.

As it was plastic it was relegated to a garden toy and disposed of after an appropriate time had passed.

DH does all the laundry in our house, so my daughters may be in for a shock in the future. Mind you, so does my brother, but my dad is the typical ‘women’s work’ type

However, I think it would get more use as part of a fort.

@ErrolTheDragon

I bought DD an iron for her 12th birthday.

A soldering iron.

Love this. Well done her

Just bought DS a cleaning trolley for his birthday recently. He loves to copy me cleaning and I think it's nice that he gets involved. I was a bit annoyed though that the pink set had a girl on it and the red set had a girl too. As if cleaning is just for girls. I bought him the pink set anyway as he loves pink. I do think they need to include more inclusion in their branding. I'm sick of seeing race car sets with little boys playing and dolls with little girls playing on the front. I'm trying to bring DS up to know he can like whatever he wants and nothing is for 'boys' or 'girls'. But as he gets older he's going to be less likely to want a toy if it's just marketed towards girls and it's annoys me.

Er - what's an iron?

😂 it’s one of those big things with a handle on the top that sits on top of my washing machine.

I liked Lidls catalogue. Also a girl on her bike, but I can't upload more than 4 pics.

These are great toys for many children and the toy and packaging are marketed in a gender neutral way, though I agree that there should be both a girl and a boy on the box.

Both sexes playing together, dad in the floor with kids, just v refreshingly relaxed without stereotyping.

There's nothing wrong with a woman ironing and hanging up clothes.

Ds loved to play with the iron. He was modelling DH who is the iron ing man in this household.

The Irish one has a little boy ironing, and seems to be a good mix.