Last week, my talented colleague Bee and I paid a visit to the Argos Christmas gift show.
Well, well, well. What can we say? We were NOT impressed.
Now I totally accept that there may be some inherent differences between boys and girls, with girls often being inclined to enjoy more traditionally ‘girly’ toys, and vice versa. I also know though that there are plenty of girls who like playing with robots, cars, dinosaurs, and other things that aren’t bright pink, so why on earth did Argos feel the need to shove such horrible gender stereotypes down our throats?
See here, we have toys for girls:
And here, the toys that boys are allowed to play with:
It got worse.
On one side of the room, you had a hairdresser, offering women the chance to get their hair curled with the latest appliances, and opposite, you had this, because we all know that only men can play musical instruments:
Women obviously are too busy getting their nails done and arranging their daughters’ toys into different shades of pink.
Come on Argos. We’re in the 21st century now. Pull yourself together.
Oh dear – my boys fav toys by far are a cooker and play food.
I’m not convinced Argos has ever been in the ’21st century’ to be frank… Did you have an opportunity to give consumer feedback at the event?
Or, should we set up an online protest group against Argos and its obvious reluctance to move with the times..lol.
I love this post! We live in Turkey, and a couple of weeks back my son had a “life” class (where they learn stuff like wash you hands after using the toilet, look before you cross the road, and other stuff I wouldn’t have though to teach him, anyway…) in this class he had to separate and correctly identify “girl toys” and “boy toys.” On the walk home when he told me about it, it gave me one of those helpless this-country-is-insane-I-wish-my-kids-were-at-school-anywhere-but-here feelings. But now, hooray! sexism lives on in the UK, call off the re-patriation I can fight anonother day.
Oh Em Gee, as my children would say – sorting toys was an actual thing?? That’s horrendous!!
yes indeed, and it wasn’t just something the teacher dreamed up – it was an activity in the compulsory, government sponsored text books! Sometimes it is easy to understand why society has a very definate 1950′s edge to it over here.
I commented on twitter a while back on another children site about there boys toys and girls toys, so they went an removed the heading…the power of twitter
Elaine, that wasn’t VUPbaby was it?? I work with them, and I know someone on twitter complained and they took action!
Oh dear. Let’s hope they read this.
no, it´s not just to “hope they read this…” twitter is the way!! make it visible in twitter and facebook! it is how it works now… courage!
Hi I left a comment did u not publish it
Hi Claire – they should come up automatically, so that’s weird?!
Here’s a little reader appreciation for you http://knittymummy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/reader-appreciation.html
[...] For the New Statesman, I’ve been talking about gendered marketing of products. Capitalist producers and public consumers have a symbiotic relationship. Each plays their role in creating demands to be supplied, manufacturing needs to be met. At a crude level, marketeers and advertisers will only produce such guff because enough of us indulge their campaigns with our custom. Our purchases add up to our public personae, and of course our gender is a key component of our identity. As autonomous adults we can choose the extent to which we want to play along with such constructions. It is rather more troubling when companies like Argos start prescribing gender roles to infants with strictly demarcated Toys for Boys and Toys for Girls. [...]