That’s Maggie. Let’s just say she isn’t thrilled with the ridiculous gender-defining phrase “fun gifts for boys” on the label of some toys on the shelves of a Tesco in the United Kingdom. Maggie’s mom, Karen Cole, snapped a photo of her daughter’s displeasure and the photo immediately went viral with 11,000 retweets and 12,000 favorites. Maggie was featured on BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post and several other notable sites.
In a blog post about the sign, Karen writes that she and Maggie had discussed gendered toys before:
Last year she started coming home from school saying some of her friends were suggesting some toys were for girls and some for boys. I explained that they were wrong, if the toy looks fun to play with then anybody should be able to play with it. She could play with knights and dragons (her thing at the time) and boys could play with dolls and kitchens if they wanted to. We agreed that “everybody can like what they want to like.”
In her blog post she adds that children “believe what they’re told and if they’re constantly seeing signs telling them something is ‘for boys’ or ‘for girls’ they may start to believe it, particularly when their peers are also seeing these labels and parroting them at school.”
Amazingly, Karen says Tesco replied to her tweet, announcing plans to remove the sign from all of their stores — and they kept their promise.
Talk about a superhero! Way to go, Maggie!