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In this screen shot of an Easy-Bake promotional video, the oven is shown in its purple and pink design. (Hasbro) |
What to get a little boy for Christmas that isn’t the usual toy car set, video game or sports item? One fresh-faced activist suggests an Easy-Bake Oven.
McKenna, 13, is petitioning toy maker Hasbro to stop marketing the kitchen set only to young girls, asking for images of boys to also be placed on Easy-Bake boxes.
The Garfield, N.J., eighth-grader, moved to action by her 4-year-old brother’s attempts to cook on top of a lamp’s light bulb, has already scored nearly 18,000 signatures on her petition on Change.org.
On the petition, McKenna writes that she found the lack of packaging or promotional materials featuring boys to be “quite appalling.” The girlie purple and pink colors used on Easy-Bake Ovens didn’t help either.
“I feel that this sends a clear message: women cook, men work,” she wrote. “I want my brother to know that it’s not ‘wrong’ for him to want to be a chef.”
As McKenna points out, many of the top figures in the culinary industry are men -- behemoths such as Emeril Lagasse, Gordon Ramsay, Wolfgang Puck and many more. On Hasbro’s website, the Easy-Bake brand is included under Cooking & Baking Games for Girls.
To really pound her point home, McKenna uploaded an adorable video where she goads her brother into explaining the trouble with wanting an Easy-Bake Oven (he also hopes for a dinosaur).
“Only girls play with it,” he says, while attempting to bake cookies.
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