(Sweden)  “For several years, we have found that the gender debate has grown so strong in the Swedish market that we … have had to adjust,” Jan Nyberg, director of sales at Top Toy, franchise-holder for US toy chain Toys R Us, said.

The country’s advertising watchdog reprimanded the company for gender discrimination three years ago following complaints over outdated gender roles in the 2008 Christmas catalogue, which featured boys dressed as superheroes and girls playing princess.

A comparison between this year’s Toys R Us catalogues in Sweden and Denmark, where Top Toy is also the franchisee, showed that a boy wielding a toy machine gun in the Danish edition had been replaced by a girl in Sweden.

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Elsewhere, a girl was Photoshopped out of the “Hello Kitty” page, a girl holding a baby doll was replaced by a boy, and, in sister chain BR’s catalogue, a young girl’s pink T-shirt was turned light blue.

Top Toy, Sweden’s largest toy retailer by number of stores, said it had received “training and guidance” from the Swedish advertising watchdog, which is a self-regulatory agency.

“We have produced the catalogues for both BR and Toys R Us in a completely different way this year,” Nyberg said.

“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.”

Elsewhere, a girl was Photoshopped out of the “Hello Kitty” page, a girl holding a baby doll was replaced by a boy, and, in sister chain BR’s catalogue, a young girl’s pink T-shirt was turned light blue.

Top Toy, Sweden’s largest toy retailer by number of stores, said it had received “training and guidance” from the Swedish advertising watchdog, which is a self-regulatory agency.

“We have produced the catalogues for both BR and Toys R Us in a completely different way this year,” Nyberg said.

“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.”  (read more)

Another Perspective – Genders are to some extent social inventions. Men and women invest each other  with what Edmund Burke described as “the wardrobe” of our imagination. We see  each other through social and esthetic lenses, and this may influence the power  of erotic attraction as much as our hormones do. If our caring-sharing  government or unisexual social elites aim at making genders indistinguishable,  this would probably make women less desirable sexually.   In Burke’s phrase they  have been “stripped” of the identity that had been attached to them.  (continue reading)

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