A couple of weeks ago, this ad appeared at my U-Bahn station.
Egg loves pink! New and only for girls!
I was appalled. Why on earth did Kinder Surprise which for many, many years has provided non-gendered toys in its eggs feel the need to suddenly make girls only Kinder Surprises?
Last night, I found these girls only Kinder Surprises on sale at my local supermarket and I decided to buy one to see if it was as bad as I feared.
Here it is
And this is what was inside
One of the world’s most creepiest fairies
Why Kinder, why? You used to be a great example of your toys being for everyone – boys and girls, and now suddenly you bring out this crap. Are girls going to like them? Of course some of them are. Some girls like fairies and pink, but so do some boys. Why, if you wanted to bring out a fairy range, couldn’t it have gone in your normal Kinder eggs like the cars and planes do?
You disappoint me Kinder. I love your milky oversweet chocolate, but I feel that is the last Kinder Surprise I will ever buy. I can’t support a product that shamelessly promotes gender stereotyping.
It does come off as a giant step backwards. I wonder if the campaign is worldwide or only in Germany. What are your thoughts on the German outfits for the Olympics and Paralympics? I have to say, if I was a girl on the German team I’d demand a blue jacket on principle.
It would be interesting to see if the Girls only Kinder Surprise is introduced overseas. I think, at the moment, it is only in Germany.
As for the German Olympic and Paralympic uniform, I thought it was a giant leap back to the 1950s. Surely in 2012 we should have moved past blue for boys, pink for girls.
The “blue for boys, pink for girls” thing only seems to be getting worse, but in Kinder eggs- that is so disappointing. I hope they don’t keep it for long…
I saw the pink fairy thing at the local grocery store, and rolled my eyes. I’m glad I didn’t really care for the Kinder eggs in the first place.
Yuck, how appalling. And you know, something about that toy reminds me of an Elvis movie.. just retro and twee. GACK.
Having both a son and a daughter has changed my previous opinion that gender roles are largely a social construct to a belief that much of gender identity is innate, so I have ceased worrying about things such as the crappy toys used to sell chocolate.
Right! I also was not sucessfull with boyish toys for my two daughters. But that is not important. I think it is more important to allow boys to play with girl things, if they want to.
Honestly, I did not understand the post with the uniforms until today. I could not find out, what was wrong with them. In Germany clothing has been an issue of emanzipation only in the 80th. Nowadays girls and boys dress different, (means girls love dresses, boys not, only hard metal fans wear skirts), but nobody sees it as gender stereotyping.
Obviously that is different in the US? Same cultural difference as sueing, playgrounds and Biergarten?
These are now being sold in Brazil and I had pretty much the same reaction. A couple of college-aged friends of mine just brought two into the office — one pink, one blue — and opened them while I ranted about cars for boys and dolls for girls. Sure enough, they got a car and a doll. The worst part is that the doll doesn’t do anything (the hallmark of a boring Kinder toy). The car at least has mobile parts.