Tesco fail children with gender specific marketing

Late last night I saw via author Keris Stainton's Twitter that Tesco's new advertising campaign includes more gender specific toy marketing.

She highlights a blog post by Caroline Smailes which outlines the reaction of a 7 year old to an advert that states that baby faced dolls are for girls and transformers are for boys.

Littlest watched the advert and got really bothered. Her response was, “But that’s not fair. Transformers are good for boys and for girls.” We had to explain to her that it was OK for her to like Transformers too. She didn’t understand why Tesco would be so mean.

Remember way back in July, when the Early Learning Centre's website were marketing nurses' uniforms at girls and doctor's costumes at boys? After a whole load of complaints, they backed down, apologised and changed the wording on their site. 

Can I point you in the direction of Tesco's customer services contact form so you can express your displeasure at this ridiculous piece of gender biased marketing? I think children should grow up being themselves and find their own interests without being bombarded with commercial material that tells them they should like certain things based on whether they're a boy or a girl.

I have a daughter whose interests over the years have included little plastic ponies with glittery hair, little fuzzy animals in collectible sets, planets, dinosaurs, Doctor Who and animal welfare of any description. I certainly would never want her curiosity, her horizons to be limited by arbitrary factors such as her gender.

I'm not as kind as Caroline. I won't be buying toys from Tesco until I have some indication from them that they are going to rethink this sort of thing, and I do have the alternative of a nice shiny new Sainsbury's opening in Livingston before Christmas so I may not have to bother with them at all. I think it's important that we challenge such outdated stereotyping where we find it.

Early Learning Centre apologises and changes website in response to complaints about sexist language

Finally, here is the follow up post I promised after the brief one I e-mailed earlier.

I am delighted to report that, after Jennie, I and others encouraged our readers to complain to the Early Learning Centre regarding the wording on their website which suggested that girls should dress up in nurses' outfits while the doctors' ones were for boys, the relevant section has changed from this:

"For the little princess in the family we have great feminine outfits like Butterfly Fairy, Sleeping Beauty, Ballerina and Nurse’s uniform. Why not add a medical case for that extra touch of authenticity.

The boys are catered for too, with great Doctor, Policeman & Fireman uniforms, not to mention fantastic Pirate and Knight costumes"

to this:

"The whole world is a stage and we have an incredible line-up of classic children’s dressing up outfits that your little ones will love. ELC stock a great range of activity toys for babies including sensory ball pits, play mats, baby gyms and baby ride on toys to ensure your child can learn to move, play and develop in a safe and happy environment.

Our children’s costumes and outfits are perfect for fancy dress parties or for that all-important performance, be it at home or in the school play. Dressing up encourages your child to express themselves in a fun and educational way, serving to increase their long-term confidence."

This is the text of the e-mail I received earlier:

Dear Caron Lindsay,                                              

                                         

Thank you for your e-mail to our customer service team.

Following our previous response to your original email regarding the content on our website about our dressing up and role play outfits, we would like to add the following,

We apologise for the inappropriate wording that was placed on dressing up product page, it is certainly not our intention to promote stereotyping and we fully appreciate this does not represent our brand values. At Early Learning Centre we pride ourselves on offering a huge range of toys and in an assortment of colours for customers to choose from and our photography throughout our website and catalogue features boys ironing, girls playing with space aliens, boys playing with dolls, boys cooking and pushing buggies, girls building and playing with remote control insects.

As a direct result of your feedback we immediately removed the text concerned from the website regarding the dressing up outfits and would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention.

We are extremely sorry for any disappointment or upset caused. I hope this information is of help and I have gone some way to restoring your faith in the Early Learning Centre.   

This is good news and it just goes to show that it is worth complaining because sometimes these companies will listen. I really appreciate the fact that several people I know of complained to the Early Learning Centre as a result of reading the post here and that will be the same for the other bloggers who brought it up.

A Reply from the Early Learning Centre regarding their sexist marketing

Late last night, I blogged this in outrage at the Early Learning Centre's appallingly sexist marketing of their dressing up outfits.

I wrote to them saying that I was horrified that they were marketing nurse outfits directed at girls and doctor outfits directed at boys. I think that limiting the ambitions of kids who are barely out of nappies is unacceptable and not appropriate for the 21st century.

Nor is it really appropriate to push girls to the passive and sparkly, leaving all the action of the pirate, superhero and cowboy to the boys.

My experience of providing a wide range of dressing up outfits is that both genders will wear just about anything. Both girls and boys will get in there with the cloppy shoes and the tutus as much as the Batman outfit or whatever. Each child is individual and what they like should be up to them. They should not be enslaved by the Early Learning Centre's narrow gender stereotyping.

Anyway, I had a reply saying:


Dear Ms Lindsay,

Thank you for your recent email.

It's not our intention to promote stereotyping or sexism, especially to young, possibly impressionable children so I can only apologise that you feel this had been the case. Please be assured that you comments will be passed onto the head office for their consideration.

I have replied saying that I'd like a further reply when this has been discussed at Head Office and I would be happy to discsuss this with them in person.

We shall see...........

What century are the Early Learning Centre living in?

Well, I was actually feeling quite mellow and cheery, having just written a blogpost meandering down memory lane which you will read at a later date.

Then I looked at Jennie's blog, because I always hang on her every word and what I saw there made me very angry indeed.

She pointed out this on the Early Learning Centre website. It's their dressing up outfit page.

Apparently:

For the little princess in the family we have great feminine outfits like Butterfly Fairy, Sleeping Beauty, Ballerina and Nurse’s uniform. Why not add a medical case for that extra touch of authenticity.

The boys are catered for too, with great Doctor, Policeman & Fireman uniforms, not to mention fantastic Pirate and Knight costumes

Who the mucky duck (rhyming slang, don't you know) do the Early Learning Centre think they are marketing their dressing up outfits in such an appallingly outdated and misogynistic way?

Conditioning 3 year olds into thinking that girls are nurses and boys are doctors is an absolute outrage. I kind of thought we'd moved on.

How very dare they try to limit the ambitions of girls and the expectations of boys who are barely out of nappies?

I showed it to Anna who commented that that "wasn't very nice." Although she does like cuddly, pink and sparkly things, she also loves Doctor Who, planets and dinosaurs.

If you are similarly outraged, please complain to them here. Please also join me in refusing to buy anything from them until they change that wording.