Swedish Nanny - Gender Reversal

As loyal readers know, I am oft to spread my tentacles abroad to search out and highlight foreign Nanny's doings. This time I would like to highlight the doings of Swedish Nanny (a country I used to live and work in).

Step forward Top Toy, which produces children's Christmas catalogues in Sweden and Denmark for Toys R Us and BR.

So far so good.

However, RT reports that although the catalogues' page layouts are the same in both countries, the gender of children shown playing with the toys is reversed in the Swedish edition; eg a girl is shown playing with a machine gun in the Swedish edition.

Top Toy director of sales Jan Nyberg is quoted:

"With the new gender thinking, there is nothing that is right or wrong. It's not a boy or a girl thing, it's a toy for children." 

Top Toy is clearly running scared, in 2008, the company was criticised by Swedish Nanny's advertising watchdog Reklamombudsmannen (RO) for encouraging outdated gender roles with catalogues that featured boys dressed as superheroes and girls as princesses.

It is of course "ironic" that a country that eschews the machismo of "gun culture" should be happy to promote images of girls wielding machine guns. However, so long as it is "gender" neutral who cares?!

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Play Nice Now - All Hail Our European Overlords

As Europe descends into anarchy, chaos and financial ruin it is "heartening" to see that our European overlords have found the time and money to produce two "jolly" little films explaining to kids how they should play with toys that only have the CE label.

BTW, as austerity bites on the continent, it is "reassuring" to know that our EU overlords have managed to protect their gravy train (eg MEPs are entitled to an annual - unreceipted - entertainment allowance of around £90K).

All Hail Our European Overlords!



Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.

Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.

Show your contempt for Nanny by buying a T shirt or thong from Nanny's Store.

www.nannyknowsbest.com is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Visit Oh So Swedish Swedish arts and handicrafts

Why not really indulge yourself, by doing all the things that Nanny really hates? Click on the relevant link to indulge yourselves; Food, Bonking, Gifts and Flowers, Groceries

Nanny Bullies Hamleys

Beware the single issue obsessives, who seek to impose their agendas on others by incessant nagging and bullying.

Alas that bastion of the toy world, Hamleys, may have fallen victim to a single issue obsessive.

Dr Laura Nelson, who blogs under the the name "Delilah", has had something of an obsession with Hamleys' rather quaint shop layout (wherein "boys toys" are on one floor - colour coded blue- and girls toys are on another - colour coded pink).

Well, for Dr Nelson, this "blatant sexism" became something of a bete noir and she devoted much time and effort (outwith her paid public sector job) to campaigning for Hamleys to change this.

It might have occurred to her that the reason for this layout was to help parents quickly locate where to buy stuff for their kids, rather than it being a sinister plot to gender stereotype kids. However, she is of the view that Hamleys contributes to society's inequalities.

Anyhoo, Dr Nelson claims to have won and toys have now been reorganised by type.

Dr Nelson trumpeted her victory thusly (Hamleys deny she had anything to do with it):

“In response to the campaign against categorisation of toys by gender and sexist stereotypes, Hamleys has changed its signage.”

Warming to her self inflated view of her "victory" she said

 “Congratulations everyone! 
We still have work to do on the nature of the toys themselves, and the gender stereotyping of their marketing - but we have come to a milestone. 

Great work!”

Nice to see that Dr Nelson has such self belief and confidence in her own powers and importance in the universe! That's always such an "endearing" trait in a person!

A spokesperson for Hamleys said:

“The changes to our signage were not due to any campaign. 

It was made clear to us from consultants’ and customer surveys that our store directional signage was confusing. As a result we commenced changing all our signage in October of this year in order to improve customer flow.”

I am always gemused when I read about certain people's views that playing with dolls or guns predetermines how people turn out.

Maggie Thatcher, Elizabeth I, Golda Meir, Boudicca et al all played with dolls of some sort; yet they were not exactly shy in coming forward when it came to going to war/starting a war.

Whilst chaps such as myself played with Action Man; which of course is in fact a doll!

Gosh, that's confusing isn't it?

Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.

Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.

Show your contempt for Nanny by buying a T shirt or thong from Nanny's Store.

www.nannyknowsbest.com is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Visit Oh So Swedish Swedish arts and handicrafts

Why not really indulge yourself, by doing all the things that Nanny really hates? Click on the relevant link to indulge yourselves; Food, Bonking, Gifts and Flowers, Groceries