Science is ‘for boys’ apparently

I will be on BBC Breakfast Time tomorrow morning as spokeswoman (at least for the day) for an insta-campaign called Let Toys Be Toys.

It started on a parenting website that I spend too much time on, where a group of mothers were talking about the division of toy shops, and the toy departments of supermarkets and department stores into sections.

On one side you have construction toys like Lego and Knex, adventure games, cars, chemistry sets and superheroes, on the other side baby dolls, play kitchens, make-up sets, princesses and crafts. Sometimes there are signs spelling out that this arrangement is meant to keep the ‘boys toys’  and  ‘girls toys’ apart. If not,  pink and blue colour coding usualy makes it clear even to pre-reading children.
You can read more about the campaign on our facebook page, and sign the petition here. It is one of those ‘here comes everybody’ campaigns made possible by social networks; organised without an organisation and in three weeks and zero budget going from first musings to being on national television.

Hopefully it won’t fade as quickly as it sparked into life, but will continue to gather momentum. We are carrying out a ‘mystery shopper’ survey to see which stores do worst a limiting children’s imagination and who do best at allowing them free choice.