Children don't want sexist pink and blue toys

In a week when toy companies were called into Westminster to justify their marketing decisions, and ministers suggested that the pinkification of girls' toys could be playing a part in preventing them from achieving their full potential, we could do a lot worse than start listening to the smart, savvy voices of children such as Charlotte.She is not the first child to point out the painfully obvious to the toy giants – in 2012, a six-year-old girl took Hasbro firmly to task in a letter highlighting the fact that when you play Guess Who?, the small ratio of female to male characters means that if you choose to play as a woman you are much more likely to lose. It's a sad day when a child of six feels the need to write to a toy company to point out: "It is not only boys who are important, girls are important too." And she was smart about it, taking care to emphasise the impact she could have on the company's bottom line: "I am cross about that and if you don't fix it soon, my mum could throw Guess Who? out."This is by no means an issue that affects only girls – for every girl yearning for a chemistry set, dinosaur excavation kit or fire truck in the forbidden boys' section, there's a baffled boy being told off for wanting to play with a doll, or even (heaven forbid) pick up something in a shade other than blue. When 13-year-old McKenna Pope realised her cookery-loving four-year-old brother would feel unable to play with an Easy Bake Oven because it was so aggressively marketed to girls, she started a Change.org petition that amassed more than 40,000 signatures, asking makers Hasbro to explain why they "made going against the societal norm that girls are the ones in the kitchen even more difficult". As she neatly pointed out, the pastel colours and gendered advertising sent a clear and unhelpful message to kids: "Women cook, men work."This week, a seven-year-old girl called Charlotte Benjamin wrote a heartfelt, straight-to-the-point letter to Lego asking it to rectify the fact that there are "more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls". She also pointed out that "all the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs, but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people … even swam with sharks". She also swiftly and succinctly expressed her displeasure at the illogical and old-fashioned use of pink and blue marketing to separate Lego into boys' and girls' sections. In brief, she nailed it.In a week when toy companies were called into Westminster to justify their marketing decisions, and ministers suggested that the pinkification of girls' toys could be playing a part in preventing them from achieving their full potential, we could do a lot worse than start listening to the smart, savvy voices of children such as Charlotte.She is not the first child to point out the painfully obvious to the toy giants – in 2012, a six-year-old girl took Hasbro firmly to task in a letter highlighting the fact that when you play Guess Who?, the small ratio of female to male characters means that if you choose to play as a woman you are much more likely to lose. It's a sad day when a child of six feels the need to write to a toy company to point out: "It is not only boys who are important, girls are important too." And she was smart about it, taking care to emphasise the impact she could have on the company's bottom line: "I am cross about that and if you don't fix it soon, my mum could throw Guess Who? out."This is by no means an issue that affects only girls – for every girl yearning for a chemistry set, dinosaur excavation kit or fire truck in the forbidden boys' section, there's a baffled boy being told off for wanting to play with a doll, or even (heaven forbid) pick up something in a shade other than blue. When 13-year-old McKenna Pope realised her cookery-loving four-year-old brother would feel unable to play with an Easy Bake Oven because it was so aggressively marketed to girls, she started a Change.org petition that amassed more than 40,000 signatures, asking makers Hasbro to explain why they "made going against the societal norm that girls are the ones in the kitchen even more difficult". As she neatly pointed out, the pastel colours and gendered advertising sent a clear and unhelpful message to kids: "Women cook, men work."(theguardian.com)ANN.Az