Marks and Spencer announces all toys will be made gender neutral in 2014
Retail giant Marks and Spencer (M&S) is to make all its toys gender neutral by spring 2014, after customers complained that it used gender labels on some of its range.
Various customers contacted M&S to complain at a range of toys called ‘Boys Stuff’, which included planes, cars, dinosaurs, racing cars, cat toys, a marble run and a pop-up fire station.
The description on the latter said: “This pop up fire station is perfect for little fire men everywhere”, for a watch it read: “The perfect wrist accessory no boy should be without,” and a joke book read: “Boys know the best jokes and here are 500 crackers to keep you ahead of the girls.”
Tweets sent to M&S indicated that customers were disappointed at what they called an unnecessary gender label added to the range.
M&S today tweeted to say that from Spring 2014, all toys will be made gender neutral.
@annatreth Following on from customer feedback, from Spring 2014 all our toys will be gender neutral. Thanks
— M&S (@marksandspencer) December 17, 2013
The announcement also comes in response to a campaign from Let Toys Be Toys, pushing major retailers to remove gender labels from its toys.
Other retailers, including Toys ‘R’ Us, TK Maxx, Debenhams and Boots have already made their own toy ranges gender neutral.
