I took this photo back in 2010 I think, in a toy store. Like you probably know I’m a feminist against oppressive gender roles. Like this oh so funny toy cleaning wagon. On the box it says “let the kids help out with the cleaning in the house in a fun way”. By “kids” they of course means girls, judging by the girl in the photo, the pink colour and the fact that it says “4-girlz” on the box.

Now you might say it’s only toys and shouldn’t be taken so seriously but I think it should. What kind of message does this type of toy send out to kids? Why isn’t there a cleaning wagon “4-boyz”? Because the old gender roles tells us that women do the cleaning while men do things like fix cars and build furniture. Of course there’s nothing wrong with women cleaning and men fixing cars if that’s what they like doing but teaching kids that those are the roles they should take on in life, that’s wrong.

Does this one have to be “4-girlz”? Couldn’t it just be “4-kidz”, with both a boy and a girl on the box? This box looks like something straight out of an ad from the 50s. You know one of those ads with a smiling housewife holding some kitchen appliance. Only this is the 21st century and this is a toy. It’s disturbing.