Girl Toy or Boy Toy? Gender Assumptions at McDonalds

My seven year old daughter Anna loves Star Wars and hates Barbies. For her recent birthday the mom of one of the boys who was invited called the night before and asked my wife Hillary if Anna would want a Barbie. Hillary chuckled and told her that Anna wasn’t quite into Barbies. Anna got a Darth Vader mask and a light saber instead. She was so pumped!

Anna and I have our bi-weekly date after school at McDonald’s. Anna has given into the marketing and can’t get enough of Happy Meals. She gets most excited about the toys. Now that she has moved away from Barbies and anything pink, she has learned that she now has to ask for a “boy toy.” She would rather have the Transformer truck than the My Little Pony.

This time as Anna ate her Happy Meal it struck me that McDonald’s is making some big gender assumptions with their Happy Meal toys. They ask parents, “Would you like a boy toy or a girl toy?” They are assuming that girls will like My Little Pony and boys will like  Transformers. What if they are incorrect? With Anna she would much rather have the boy toy than the girl toy.

Couldn’t they just ask, “Would you like the Transformer toy or the My Little Pony toy?”

Not all girls like pink.

About Joel Newton

Husband to Hillary - father of two beautiful daughters - Apple addict - live in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains in Edgewater, Colorado

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  • http://twitter.com/wisholek Daniel Wisholek

    I think this goes beyond psychology of preference. It assumes that a McDonalds worker everywhere around the world or country could identify 2 different options by name. Transformers or My Little Pony might be an easy identification for us as observant parents(maybe not, my wife doesn’t know the names of the power rangers for instance), but not for the standardized McDonalds worker. Let’s look beyond the gender analysis, and label the toys option A and option B. This is far easier to offer than Power Rangers or Spongebob or Bubble Guppies or Octonauts or…. whatever. Far easier to train for as well. If customer orders Happy Meal offer A or B toy. I mean, getting your fast food order is hard enough sometimes. Now how the toys are selected into category A labeled “boys” or “girls” is how the toy manufacturers generally market their products as a focus group. It certainly doesn’t account for unique preferences outside the marketing that your daughter would fall within. Is McDonalds furthering gender marketing stereotypes? Yes. Should we try and eliminate gender identification in marketing? Impossible. To do so would to believe that we as a human race have the ability to look beyond gender as a perception and that is just not possible. Can we change the preferences and identification in products used and stereotypes associated with gender? Yes, but that takes massive societal change over time.

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  • Shawn

    I agree. The last time we were at McDonalds the toy options were monkey magnets or a sword wielding ‘action figure’. Violent toys aren’t an option for my children, so I before the person behind the counter could ask “boy toy or girl toy” I said “He’ll have the magnets.” I didn’t want my son to feel ‘degraded’ by the choice. We think we’ve come a long way, but have we?

  • Non-Stop Mom

    This is so awesome, and I have gone on the exact same rant before too! I am so tired of McDonalds pushing sexual stereotypes on our kids. A super easy solution would just be to offer ONE toy, like the majority of fast food restaurants already do.

    So glad that I’m not the only one who feels this way! Great post!

    http://non-stopmom.blogspot.com/2011/05/mad-at-mcdonalds.html

  • http://wise-life.com

    Where I live, Liverpool, England, the Macs I go to with my daughter don’t give you an option! “A” toy of whatever description will be dumped in the box with the meal, and handed over with a false smile and forced “have a nice day” type greeting. At least you guys are getting the option, lol.

  • http://twitter.com/jstnobdy Just Nobody

    I think it comes down to the child. I have four and each of my children are a little different. There are times when the “boy-toy” (which sounds horribly wrong) is really cool and all the kids love them. Then there are the times when the toys are more appropriate for the specific gender. A few months ago they were giving out car toys and dress-up kits (mirrors, hairbrushes, etc.)… my boys went all out for the cars and the girls went all out for the kits. Yet there are times when the girls look at me with the, “Seriously, Dad?” and we end up getting the “boy-toy”. To each his or her own.

  • Annnnnnie

    I stumbled upon this blog after a rare McDonald’s trip with my girls. The drive-through conversation went like this:

    “Is the Happy Meal for a boy or girl”

    (Of course I’m not going to call my child’s femininity into question or make her feel inferior since the “girl” toy offered was unquestionably less cool – over a stupid toy.)

    “We’d like the ‘Spy Gear’, please.”

    “Boy or Girl?”

    “SPY GEAR.”

    Now this exchange carried on a bit more, and by the time I got the (healthy! ha!) food, I was annoyed. My mom skills kinda flew out the window. I asked my children if the toys, like humans, had any body parts that gave them a gender, and if not, what kind of a pervy store would think about it and wish it so to the point of refusing to give us a toy without us naming a gender. They laughed. I reminded them that both boys and girls have the right to like anything they please – and took it as an opportunity to remind them not to tolerate teasing of boys who may have chosen the Barbie toy or whatever. This has happened before. I’ll probably just not go back. It’s not like it’s good for us, anyhow.
    Good for you for being sensitive to your child’s wants, and not closing any doors on her because of her gender.