Toys R Not Gender Specific
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Toys “R” Us has stopped telling its patrons what they should be buying, in a victory for many parents upset by their gender-based marketing.
The toy sales monolith has dropped its gender-based marketing on its UK website, and are now marketing under a unisex brand. This comes as a welcome change, after shoppers and politicians had warned that stereotyping could impede young girls’ ambitions to take up jobs in engineering and science.
Shoppers have been invited to browse for what their children want to play with, depending on their age group and preferred brand of toy.
This is a step in the right direction, as Toys “R” Us join other retailers such as M&S and Tesco, who are adopting similar marketing strategies.
Jess Day, a member of the online group ‘Let Toys Be Toys’ on Twitter, has been pressuring various toy traders for the last three years to hang up their gender presumptions when it comes to their products. They have a Toymark, an accolade given to retailers ‘for marketing toys in a way that is inclusive for both boys and girls’.
It is important to realise that toys are simply tools for play. Enforcing a certain gender on one brand over another is conditioning the child into a stereotypical way of thinking, which shouldn’t matter when it comes to something as simple and irreproachable as play.
Plus, who wouldn’t want a Barbie/G.I. Joe crossover?