SWEDEN'S largest toy chain "gender neutral" after picturing boys
holding baby dolls and banishing girls from the dolls pages of its
Christmas catalogue.
"For several years, we have found that the gender debate has grown
so strong in the Swedish market that we ... have had to adjust," Jan
Nyberg, director of sales at Top Toy, franchise-holder for US toy chain
Toys R Us, said.
The country's advertising watchdog reprimanded
the company for gender discrimination three years ago following
complaints over outdated gender roles in the 2008 Christmas catalogue,
which featured boys dressed as superheroes and girls playing princess.
A
comparison between this year's Toys R Us catalogues in Sweden and
Denmark, where Top Toy is also the franchisee, showed that a boy
wielding a toy machine gun in the Danish edition had been replaced by a
girl in Sweden.
Elsewhere, a girl was Photoshopped out of the "Hello Kitty" page, a
girl holding a baby doll was replaced by a boy, and, in sister chain
BR's catalogue, a young girl's pink T-shirt was turned light blue.
Top
Toy, Sweden's largest toy retailer by number of stores, said it had
received "training and guidance" from the Swedish advertising watchdog,
which is a self-regulatory agency.
"We have produced the catalogues for both BR and Toys R Us in a completely different way this year," Nyberg said.
"With
the new gender thinking, there is nothing that is right or wrong. It's
not a boy or a girl thing, it's a toy for children." More here:
Well, my guess is that this company is trying to go along with the political correctness in hopes the "advertising watchdog" leaves them alone.
But I think they're going to lose sales. Because even though the adults don't think male/female kids are different, the kids know better ... and if they have second thoughts about a particular toy, they'll leave it alone (i.e. won't clamor for it.)
I mean, I've known about this company for a long time and haven't bought anything from them since I "learned.:
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