The Big Issue in the North, UK
“There’s more than one way to be a girl.” That was the simple belief that led twin sisters Emma and Abi Moore to start a campaign five years ago against what they saw as the damaging distinction being made between products for girls and boys. Everywhere they looked, they saw aisles full of pink, fluffy dolls and princess costumes for girls and toys and clothes in neutral colors, based on outdoor activities and sports, reserved for boys.
Abi was working for an American TV station and had recently made a documentary about a female scientist who had developed a new way of treating cancer. She was travelling back from the States on the day Paris Hilton was released from prison after being charged with drunk driving.
“I called Emma and had a big rant about the difference in the amount of media attention that had been given to these two stories,” Abi says. “It was really stark.”
Abi and Emma, 41, both have two children: Abi two boys and Emma two girls.
“At the same time, we were both witnessing this culture around the color pink through our children,” Abi said.
“Everything for girls was pretty, pink and sparkly and princess-like. We were particularly perturbed by the journey the girls were on. The boys’ toys were more to do with action, building and construction, much more active, and the girls’ toys were all about being passive and pretty. We decided we had to do something.”
Five years later, the campaign against gender segregation in children’s toys, clothes and other products is still gathering momentum. Last month [the British store] Boots became the latest retailer to rethink the labeling of its children’s products after receiving complaints that its Science Museum-branded chemistry sets were designated for boys.
A statement from the retailer said: “We have always been proud of supporting women in science and in particular in their careers in pharmacy, and so we were dismayed that some of our customers were unhappy with our signage, as it was never our intention to stereotype in the way described.”
This shows how responsive retailers have become to criticism of gender segregation in children’s products. But when Abi and Emma started out, things were very different. They began by launching a simple campaign website with a catchy name, PinkStinks, and within days they’d had reactions from all over the world — not all of them positive.
“Some people hated us,” Abi says. “They thought we were militant feminists telling them they were bad parents. [British broadcaster] Vanessa Feltz basically said we were trying to ban the color pink. People accused us of wanting women to have moustaches and wear tweed.”
But there were encouraging reactions, too, with adults and children getting in touch to show their support.
“Within three weeks we’d had press in 45 countries,” Abi says. “We’d been on TV in Australia and the U.S. and we’d heard from people all over the world. We heard from hundreds of children who loved us. One little girl told us ‘You are my voice,’ and we even heard from women in Colombia.”
Abi and Emma had clearly touched on a nerve, and the campaign quickly gathered pace. Early successes included persuading Sainsbury’s to drop the labeling on its fancy dress outfits (doctors for boys and beauticians for girls) and causing the Prince’s Trust to rethink a self-esteem campaign sponsored by San Tropez, in which Kelly Osbourne was pictured raving about how a spray tan had boosted her confidence. The campaign received funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, and it was not long before PinkStinks had become a household name.
Inspired by Abi and Emma’s success, other campaigners started coming out of the woodwork. In 2011, a campaign led by neuroscientist Laura Nelson led to London toy store Hamleys changing its signage, and last year Harrods followed suit, removing the “girls” and “boys” labeling on its Toy Kingdom. The campaign against Boots was led by Let Toys Be Toys, a social media-based campaign started last year that calls on retailers to “stop limiting children’s imaginations and interests by promoting some toys as only suitable for girls and others only for boys.”
Nelson started her campaign after visiting Hamleys to buy a present for her niece. “I wanted to buy a bucket and spade,” she says. “I was very struck by the signs. I hadn’t realized how extreme it was. I walked up to the girls’ floor and everything was pink and fluffy, domestic and beauty-related. On the boys’ floor it was all about action, hiking and building blocks.”
As a neuroscientist, Nelson started to think about how this labeling was shaping children’s perceptions of what it meant to be a girl or a boy.
“I asked myself whether there was something fundamentally different between men and women or whether the ideas about differences were just myths and, if so, how those myths were being propagated,” she says. “I started to look for conclusive evidence that boys and girls were different in a cognitive sense. And the more I read, the more I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any.
“For a start, it’s very hard to prove whether babies think differently because they are unable to communicate verbally, and even in the research that does exist, there is no consensus. Our perceptions are shaped much more by what we do as children than by any natural differences between us. If people climb trees from a young age, they will become good at climbing trees; if they do needlework from a young age, they will become good at needlework. The stereotypes themselves also have an effect: If people are told they are less good at something, they will perform less well at it.”
Despite the high-profile successes these campaigns have seen, there have also been some big steps backwards.
In 2011, Lego announced that it was launching a new line of domestic-themed products to “bring classic construction play to the girls’ aisle.” Hamleys still has a nail, hair and beauty bar for children called Tantrum; and most of the major toy shops, including Toys R Us, persist in separating their products according to gender. And there is still reluctance from many retailers to engage with the issue: Of the half a dozen stores contacted for this feature, officials from Boots were the only ones to comment.
According to Richard Dodd, a spokesman for the British Retail Consortium, shops will only consider changing their labeling if they think it will help them sell more products.
“Most retailers in most situations will not necessarily imply that a product is designated for boys or girls, but where that does happen, it is based on a judgment of how customers like to shop, based on feedback,” he said.
“There are many products in shops that are not associated with one gender or the other, but there are also plenty of customers who do want products traditionally aimed at one gender or the other, and they do appreciate being signposted towards particular products. Retailers are certainly interested in the issue, and any sensibly presented campaign will be given consideration, but in the end it’s what the customers say and do that will guide them.”
Abi acknowledges that resistance remains.
“Things have changed but not as much as we would have liked. The way the media approaches this subject has changed, and there is more willingness to talk about it in a sensible way now, but there is still a lot more to be done. My mother took the girls to Harrods recently and it was all Barbies, princess castles and dresses. It is very much still the case. There is an illusion of more choice, but it’s still the same.”
So what’s next for PinkStinks? Abi says the campaign will be boosting its use of social media over the coming months, and there are also plans for a new website based on positive role models for girls. With both sisters working full time and not receiving any payment for the campaign, it can be difficult for them to devote time to it. But Abi says they are both determined to keep fighting.
“We’ve had to really stick our heads above the parapet, and, when you do that, people start shooting at you. But I know we’re doing the right thing.”