https://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/o...ald-s-boy-girl-happy-meal-toys-175534779.html
"Happy Meal with a Skylanders toy. Photo: McDonald's
Connecticut teen Antonia Ayres-Brown is on her way to becoming a feminist hero this week for standing up to a billion dollar corporation McDonalds over its alleged tendency to box kids in by gender when doling out Happy Meal toys.
More on Yahoo Shine: Teen Takes on Surfer Sexism in Awesome Letter to Mag
In the fall of 2008, when I was 11 years old, I wrote to the CEO of McDonalds and asked him to change the way his stores sold Happy Meals, Ayres-Brown, now a high-school junior and talented musician, wrote in a Slate essay thats gone viral since being published on Monday. I expressed my frustration that McDonalds always asked if my family preferred a girl toy or a boy toy when we ordered a Happy Meal at the drive-through. My letter asked if it would be legal for McDonalds to ask at a job interview whether someone wanted a mans job or a womans job?
The precocious inquiry yielded a series of communications between Ayres-Brown and the fast-food chain. It also led to some serious data collecting by the girl and her dad Ian Ayres who is, unsurprisingly, a heavy-hitting Yale law professor and economist who has previously collaborated with his daughter on research about McDonalds employees and the Happy Meal gender bias. The findings had them filing a complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities in no time. And while McDonalds was initially dismissive, Ayres-Brown writes, the daughter-father team finally achieved a sort of victory in the form of a letter from McDonalds chief diversity officer Patricia Harris in December of 2013.
More on Yahoo: McDonald's to Put 'Fish McBites' in Happy Meals
We take your concern seriously, she wrote, according to the letter, which is attached to the Slate essay. It is McDonalds intention and goal that each customer who desires a Happy Meal toy be provided the toy of his or her choice, without any classification of the toy as a boy or girl toy and without any reference to the customers gender. Additionally, Harris noted, the company had said it recently re-examined our internal guidelines, communications and practices with regard to how toys are to be given out.
Ayres-Brown noted that the response was a start and that a recent photo on DoSomething.org's Facebook page of a local managers reiteration of the gender-blind policy was heartening. Her dad, meanwhile, in a blog about their efforts for the World Consulting Group, notes, To my mind, this is evidence that McDonalds is really trying.
Indeed, a McDonalds spokesperson tells Yahoo Shine in an email, Its true we occasionally re-share procedures with the restaurants, and in this case have done so from time to time related to the recommended practice around Happy Meals, which is to name the toy properties by name.
Virtual high-fives for Ayres-Brown have been numerous, with SheKnows calling her inspirational and forward-thinking and Jezebel praising her efforts as not too shabby. Tweets have called the teen smart," "persistent, and awesome.
But, as Ayres-Brown notes in her piece, The problem with Happy Meal toys may seem trivial to some, but consider this: McDonalds is estimated to sell more than 1 billion Happy Meals each year. When it poses this question Do you want a boys toy or a girls toy? McDonalds pressures innumerable children to conform to gender stereotypes.
And thats not just teenage conjecture, according to Christia Spears Brown, author of the new Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Your Child Free of Gender Stereotypes and a University of Kentucky associate professor of psychology.
It is important for two reasons, Spears Brown tells Yahoo Shine in an email regarding Ayres-Browns efforts. First, research has clearly shown that simply labeling a toy as a boy toy or a girl toy will determine what children are interested in. So instead of asking children which toy they would like and letting it be based on actual preferences for play, by labeling it for one gender or the other, we are shaping what children will play with. Second, and more importantly, she adds, labeling toys with boy or girl actually teaches kids that gender is such an important part of who they are that it should determine their type of play. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Some food for thought next time your kid is asked to choose between a My Little Pony and Skylanders toy to go with her burger."
Seriously? Arguing over gender stereotypes? If you put 100 girls and 100 boys in a room with a doll and a truck, 99 boys take the truck, 99 girls take the doll. There have been many studies done on this. It goes far beyond societal stereotypes, it is ingrained in our DNA, this is nature at work, not sociology. Not all boys will want the boy toy, not all girls (more girls in fact) will want the girl toy, but there is nothing wrong with giving people the option. Boy or girl is a lot easier than having to remember the exact description of the toy included. When I was a kid, there was no choice, if it was my little pony, you got stuck with a pony-shaped hair brush. If it was He-Man, then my sisters got Man-O-War. to quote an earlier thread, Etadik.
"Happy Meal with a Skylanders toy. Photo: McDonald's
Connecticut teen Antonia Ayres-Brown is on her way to becoming a feminist hero this week for standing up to a billion dollar corporation McDonalds over its alleged tendency to box kids in by gender when doling out Happy Meal toys.
More on Yahoo Shine: Teen Takes on Surfer Sexism in Awesome Letter to Mag
In the fall of 2008, when I was 11 years old, I wrote to the CEO of McDonalds and asked him to change the way his stores sold Happy Meals, Ayres-Brown, now a high-school junior and talented musician, wrote in a Slate essay thats gone viral since being published on Monday. I expressed my frustration that McDonalds always asked if my family preferred a girl toy or a boy toy when we ordered a Happy Meal at the drive-through. My letter asked if it would be legal for McDonalds to ask at a job interview whether someone wanted a mans job or a womans job?
The precocious inquiry yielded a series of communications between Ayres-Brown and the fast-food chain. It also led to some serious data collecting by the girl and her dad Ian Ayres who is, unsurprisingly, a heavy-hitting Yale law professor and economist who has previously collaborated with his daughter on research about McDonalds employees and the Happy Meal gender bias. The findings had them filing a complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities in no time. And while McDonalds was initially dismissive, Ayres-Brown writes, the daughter-father team finally achieved a sort of victory in the form of a letter from McDonalds chief diversity officer Patricia Harris in December of 2013.
More on Yahoo: McDonald's to Put 'Fish McBites' in Happy Meals
We take your concern seriously, she wrote, according to the letter, which is attached to the Slate essay. It is McDonalds intention and goal that each customer who desires a Happy Meal toy be provided the toy of his or her choice, without any classification of the toy as a boy or girl toy and without any reference to the customers gender. Additionally, Harris noted, the company had said it recently re-examined our internal guidelines, communications and practices with regard to how toys are to be given out.
Ayres-Brown noted that the response was a start and that a recent photo on DoSomething.org's Facebook page of a local managers reiteration of the gender-blind policy was heartening. Her dad, meanwhile, in a blog about their efforts for the World Consulting Group, notes, To my mind, this is evidence that McDonalds is really trying.
Indeed, a McDonalds spokesperson tells Yahoo Shine in an email, Its true we occasionally re-share procedures with the restaurants, and in this case have done so from time to time related to the recommended practice around Happy Meals, which is to name the toy properties by name.
Virtual high-fives for Ayres-Brown have been numerous, with SheKnows calling her inspirational and forward-thinking and Jezebel praising her efforts as not too shabby. Tweets have called the teen smart," "persistent, and awesome.
But, as Ayres-Brown notes in her piece, The problem with Happy Meal toys may seem trivial to some, but consider this: McDonalds is estimated to sell more than 1 billion Happy Meals each year. When it poses this question Do you want a boys toy or a girls toy? McDonalds pressures innumerable children to conform to gender stereotypes.
And thats not just teenage conjecture, according to Christia Spears Brown, author of the new Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Your Child Free of Gender Stereotypes and a University of Kentucky associate professor of psychology.
It is important for two reasons, Spears Brown tells Yahoo Shine in an email regarding Ayres-Browns efforts. First, research has clearly shown that simply labeling a toy as a boy toy or a girl toy will determine what children are interested in. So instead of asking children which toy they would like and letting it be based on actual preferences for play, by labeling it for one gender or the other, we are shaping what children will play with. Second, and more importantly, she adds, labeling toys with boy or girl actually teaches kids that gender is such an important part of who they are that it should determine their type of play. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Some food for thought next time your kid is asked to choose between a My Little Pony and Skylanders toy to go with her burger."
Seriously? Arguing over gender stereotypes? If you put 100 girls and 100 boys in a room with a doll and a truck, 99 boys take the truck, 99 girls take the doll. There have been many studies done on this. It goes far beyond societal stereotypes, it is ingrained in our DNA, this is nature at work, not sociology. Not all boys will want the boy toy, not all girls (more girls in fact) will want the girl toy, but there is nothing wrong with giving people the option. Boy or girl is a lot easier than having to remember the exact description of the toy included. When I was a kid, there was no choice, if it was my little pony, you got stuck with a pony-shaped hair brush. If it was He-Man, then my sisters got Man-O-War. to quote an earlier thread, Etadik.
