Toy signs changed after Hamleys accused of sexism

Submitted by Broadsword on Tue, 2011-12-13 15:40

Article here. Excerpt:

'Instead of a “pink floor” for girls and a “blue floor” for boys, Hamleys has introduced plain white labelling with red lettering throughout.

Toys have been reorganised by type rather than which gender is expected to want to play with them.

Laura Nelson, a blogger who accused the firm of “gender apartheid” in October, was celebrating what she claimed as a victory yesterday.

She wrote: “In response to the campaign against categorisation of toys by gender and sexist stereotypes, Hamleys has changed its signage.”

However Hamleys denied the changes were prompted by her campaign and claimed that, instead, they were part of planned alterations to “improve customer flow”.'

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Comments

Stereotypes are an interesting thing. On the one hand, it's bad to stereotype genders because then children feel limited by whether they are male or female. On the other hand, males and females each have inherent characteristics. For instance, boys tend to learn things best through doing, while girls learn optimally through hearing and talking about it. I personally do not feel strongly one way or another about this story.

On the one hand, good for the store and the woman to challenge stereotypes. They are actually bad for our gender as well. On the other hand, I simply don't see how having a segregated toy department for girls and boys would be a bad thing, though it would certainly make shopping harder for parents with children of both genders.

A unified toy department seems to be the logical way to go. The store also appears to stress this as their motivation. Maybe this is so feminists won't try to demand a "girls only" section to provide them sanctuary from boys.

Evan AKA X-TRNL
Real Men Don't Take Abuse!

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Submitted by xtrnl on Wed, 2011-12-14 20:30