Dear Gary Grant, MD of ‘The Entertainer’ toy shop
Upon finding the above layout in more than one of Gary Grant’s ‘Entertainer’ toy shops (and having read and supported the campaign against Hamleys doing the same thing here:bit.ly/snAyM8) I wrote him the following letter:
Dear Gary Grant,
I am writing to you as I am interested in finding out why your shops have different sections of toys, based on the sex of child for whom the toys are supposedly intended.
I noticed during my last visit to one of your branches that this only occurs with the toys aimed at children older than ‘pre-school’ age (‘pre-school’ being a section of its own which is multicoloured and has much less gender bias to its toy displays). Why is it considered that beyond pre-school age, the sex of the child is the only way to categorise the products? I find it not only unnecessary but completely arbitrary, especially compared to using age, for example, or type of toy (creative, musical, construction, etc), which seems much more appropriate and helpful.
The fact that you have a ‘boys toys’ and then a separate ‘girls toys’ section pigeonholes young children and primes them to grow up believing that there are very different ways of playing, socialising and behaving that are appropriate for them, according to their sex alone.
In a society that has rightly banned sex discrimination amongst its entire population, it’s completely bizarre that such segregation within shops selling children’s products goes unchallenged. It is as inappropriate as separating toys according to the colour of the recipient’s skin. For this reason I will not be shopping at any of your stores to buy toys for my children until the situation changes.
As a successful business owner renowned and respected for your moral integrity, I urge you to consider a more responsible layout of your shops and let the children choose how to play.
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Yours Sincerely,
[ ]
So far I haven’t had a reply.
Hear hear! Quite apart from the personal abhorrence of gender discrimination, it’s just such a dumb way to lay out goods. Hmm, is Lego for a boy or a girl? Toy cars? Balls? If I’m looking or a present for a young relative, and I know they like building stuff, where do I go? Or how about f they like pets, or farm animals? My son loves stuffed animals, my daughter goes mad for Harry Potter Lego – where the hell do I start looking?
Lame and pointless – even if I had a pink princess girl and a blue soldier boy, I wouldn’t shop here because it’s just so poorly laid out. Get with it, retailers.
I practise Ministry of Reshelving activities ( started as a campaign for people to re-shelve 1984 in the non-fiction area of bookshops … you remember bookshops?)
So I just casually pick up various pink and sparkly things and put them in the “boys” section and pick up construction kits and put them in the “girls” section.
Doesnt solve the problem at all as no-one presumably knows why I am doing it – just think doddery old fool putting things back in the wrong place – but it IS quite satisfying on a personal level….
You’ve probably seen it, but his response can be found here:
http://jadedladies.blog.com/2011/12/08/a-most-unsatisfactory-response-from-the-entertainer-md-gary-grant/
I will be writing to him again, and then taking it further.
Will you also be asking the shop to change its toilet signs and make us all lavotorise together?
You really must have far too much time on your hands to try and save all the little children from this heinous crime this retailer is commiting.Is there really nothing else going on on this planet that you could change for the better ?
I for one would of thought it made sense to us parents to be able to find what we are looking for quickly without all this stupidity going on in your heads !
Anyway your behaviour fits all female stereotypes of organising the living room to fit your eye!you wouldn’t find any male wasting their time on earth with such distractions.
Fresh water starving children drug abuse too name a few would be far loftier ideals for someone of your outstanding intelligence to affect change within.
STORE LAYOUT!!! Get a life.
Hi Mark,
Thank you for taking the time out of your clearly more worthwhile duties to the world (I’m assuming you work for or at least spend all your spare time volunteering for an aid charity since you point out that any other activity is a waste of time) to post a comment in response to ‘store layout’. I will attempt to address each of your issues below, though do let me know if there is something you may have misunderstood.
-No, I will not also ‘be asking the shop to change its toilet signs’ so that we can ‘all lavotorise together’ (do you realise ‘lavorotise’ isn’t a word? I’ll assume you mean ‘piss’ for the purposes of this reply), as public toilets are exempt from the remit of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. (Shops aren’t, by the way.)
-Thank you also for your concern regarding my excess amount of spare time. I can assure you that regarding this issue, there is nothing for you to worry about.
-Yes, there are lots of things going on on this planet that I could change for the better, and let me once again, put your mind at ease to let you know that I do, in fact, make ‘changes for the better’ every day. You happen to have read only one example of this, so I suppose it’s understandable that you have come to believe that this is all I care about.
-I totally agree with you that it makes sense for ‘us parents to be able to find what we are looking for quickly’, and I addressed this in the original letter that I thought you had read. Never mind, I’ll outline again the opinion of many many people, that it’s easier to find what you’re looking for in a shop, when the products themselves are signposted, as opposed to the recipient. It would be much quicker for me to find a musical toy in the ‘musical toys’ section of the store, for example. Who’s to decide what sex should play with musical toys? Where would you place them, in a gendered store? Would you expect to walk into an electrical superstore and have it split into a ‘men’s’ section, full of televisions, game consoles, power tools, etc, and a ‘women’s’ section, with vacuum cleaners, ironing boards, cooking and laundry appliances? I doubt it. Do not dismiss this analogy as ridiculous; it is no more so than what is happening to children in toy shops currently.
-I’m not entirely sure what you mean by my behaviour ‘fitting all female stereotypes of organising the living room to fit my eye’. I have never heard of that stereotype. As you may have guessed, we’re trying to get away from stereotypes in this blog (perhaps that’s a little too progressive for you? May I suggest reading a different blog perhaps?). Anyway, is fitting a stereotype a bad thing? I think you were attempting an insult there; not sure what happened.
-Interestingly, I think one actually would find many males wasting their time on earth with many pointless distractions, but as I say, we don’t go in for mass generalisations or stereotyping on here.
-Thank you for pointing out some ‘far loftier ideals’ that you consider would be a greater use of my time than fretting about feminist issues. I’m afraid I don’t agree with you that either starving children or drug abuse are situations that I would call ‘ideal’ so if anything, I’d be working to combat both of those issues. Hey, did you know that applying a little feminism can help not only starving children (http://www.girleffect.org/video) but people with drug addiction (http://www.platform51.org/whatwedo/) too?
I hope this has addressed all your concerns, and I do hope I haven’t wasted too much of your precious time.
I completely understand where you are coming from, in that children should not be told what they can play with in terms of their gender. I don’t think it helps, particularly in the world we live in today. Might I suggest two pointers, however, in which you may need to consider.
1) Perhaps you are aiming this are the wrong people, in fact, you are. It isn’t toy shops that are ‘gender stereotyping’, it is the media, suppliers etc. As a result, if you would like to see some change on a retail level, I might suggest voicing your support for one of the many campaigns that are aimed at issues like the sexualization of young girls, and maybe also suppliers that aim packaging (for toys such as kitchen ware) at girls by making it pink and fluffy.
2) This is retail. It is forever changing. Which is a good thing, in the sense that one day- there may be a change to the categorisation in which you speak about. However, shops are always changing and re-merchandising their placement of goods. Not having a boys or girls section limits to where you can place something in store. Say, for instance, I decided Transformers wasn’t selling particularly well in the front area of the boys section, I couldn’t just pick it up and move it to the back area of the girls section. Although ideal, limiting stock to construction/musical/creative, limits where you can place it on the shop floor. You can’t just keep moving sections of the shop around either, or loyal customers would get fed up and not bother.
I understand you concerns, you are of obvious intelligence and your heart is in the right place- but it is down to practicalities, I am afraid.