Help us find out which toy stores are best and worst about pink/blue segregation?

[Himalaya]

Citizens of Mumsnet,

A few MNers have been talking about starting a campaign to 'Let Toys Be Toys'

The basic idea is to ask retailers to stop limiting children's imagination with marketing and merchandising that tells them that some toys are only suitable for girls and some for boys. You can join in the conversation here

The first step is to work out which retailers are best and worst at this. We would like to collect this data over the next couple of weeks and need your help.

There are two surveys: one looks at High St stores here and one looks at online sites and paper catalogues here. Please do one or two or ten each!

You can also download a printable version of the store survey here if you want to take a stack with you on a clipboard.

It doesn't matter if retailers get surveyed more than once (in fact it will help to make the data reliable), but I will let you know if some have been well surveyed, and others have been missed.

Please use this thread to sign in, or for technical questions, feedback on the survey etc... but use the main thread for ongoing chat about the campaign idea.

Thanks!

[MurderOfGoths]

Signing in. Not sure when I'm at the shops next, shall also check in a minute how easy it is to access the survey on my Android phone so I can fill it out then and there.

[OneHandWavingFree]

Signing in! :) Thanks for all the work on the survey, Himalaya (and all who gave input / made changes too). Will be starting with Debenhams, Boots, Tesco and TK Maxx tomorrow.

[KRITIQ]

If only they could all try and be a bit more bold, like this toyshop in Sweden. rt.com/news/sweden-toys-catalogues-gender-527/

[Himalaya]

4 surveys completed today!

Keep it up - thanks folks!

[tougholdbird]

Signing in. We only have one toy shop in our town, will do survey at the weekend hopefully

[Himalaya]

Thanks tougholdbird - we are also including supermarkets, WHSmith, Boots, Wilkos etc... not just specialist toy stores

[ashesgirl]

Marking place ...

[Innat]

Good work. I tried to bring this issue up on a Facebook group that sells second hand toys and was totally brushed off and told people find it easier to search by gender. Grrrrrrr it makes me angry!

[Innat]

I can't fill in another survey as the link takes me to the end page with no option to take the survey again. you should be able to set an option in survey monkey to return to start of survey which might fix this, assuming this isn't just my problem!

[Himalaya]

Thanks for letting me know. I'll have look tomorrow.
Can you try clearing cookies and let me know if that resets it?

[WomanlyWoman]

Has this been moved? Only just seen it. Hard to get to shops right now due to floods. I only have an Avon catalogue in the house at the minute - they do do a few toys at Christmas, let's see, hmm, 'for your little princess' anyone think it's worth adding?

[WomanlyWoman]

Ah yes closer look, cleverly they're not labelled girls n boys, but have a pink princessy range called Ella and a football range called Arnie illustrated with boy or girl using each. lovely.

[Himalaya]

Survey update: 11 done so far

The Entertainer x2
ELC
Tesco
Sainsbo's
M&S
Fenwicks
Home Bargains

Online :
John Lewis
Bright Minds
Mulburrybush

Thanks everyone

Keep going! It is good if we do multiple surveys on each retailer, as well as getting wide coverage.

Clear your cookies to do a 2nd survey.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Wow, impressive work Himalaya.

[BertieBotts]

We've got a couple of independents in our town which have stuff sorted by category, so the sylvanian families are all together and the trains are all together, but no gender markers at all - other than that one kind of toy tends to have an overall pink sheen It's great TBH :)