McKenna Pope–Child Activist: Haters Gonna Hate
I feel so proud of this young lady, though I don’t know her and I never even heard of her cause until seeing this video early morning on Sunday. She sends a powerful message though – that we have it in all of us to effect change. When we make a stand–specially on a potentially controversial issue-it’s inevitable that not everyone will agree with us, but so what? Take a stand anyway.
Haters will hate.
So what did she campaign about? She had a younger brother who was really interested in cooking and so the family thought it would be great to give him an Easy Bake Oven. Now we don’t have those locally, so not everyone may know what it is, but I believe it’s a toy that allows kids to actually bake something. I would have loved one as a kid!
Photo credit: http://www.thecookinginn.com/easybake/easybakerecall.html
The problem was that McKenna’s brother was hesitant about getting an Easy Bake because it was “for girls.” All the marketing for the toy was aimed at girls.The colors were pink and purple, and the commercials always had girls. It was as if they were perpetuating the stereotype that the place for girls and women is at home and in the kitchen.
So she started a petition to ask Hasbro, the makers of this toy, to use gender-neutral colors for producing and marketing the Easy Bake.
Listen and watch her TED Talk here:
February 10, 2014 @ 6:28 am
That’s a good a idea to have some other color besides pink and purple coz boys don’t like to use those kind of colors coz they think its only for girls, but cooking is for everybody not only for women so it make sense to me.
February 10, 2014 @ 10:40 am
I too support that there should be different colors and that cooking is both for boys and girls. In fact at the moment am teaching my boys who are 7 and 9 too cook 🙂
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February 10, 2014 @ 2:20 pm
I think she got a point. Such toys must have a neutral color.
Let’s see if she will grow as an activist. hehehe
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February 10, 2014 @ 11:20 pm
I love TED talks. Thanks for the link. Good job, McKenna
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February 11, 2014 @ 12:38 pm
Absolutely agree, my 6 year old son who has dreams of being a driver, while watching Chef Boy Logro would oftentimes look at me and say I want to be a chef too.
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February 11, 2014 @ 12:40 pm
He’d love an oven that doesn’t look like it’s for just girls.
Mys´s last [post] ..Good Job Maegan and Angelo!
February 11, 2014 @ 4:02 pm
I think she has a point, cooking nowadays is not only for women, some great chefs are boys! So it is possible that there are young boys who dream to be a great chef one day.
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February 11, 2014 @ 11:02 pm
Unfair! Why didn’t we have toys like that before, huh? Hehe. I would’ve begged my parents to have one. But really, she has a point and I hope Hasbro would take notice as well.
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February 12, 2014 @ 9:06 am
Ang galing naman! Me too, although I acknowledge we have Biblical gender-specific roles, activities like these should be gender-neutral, especially for children!
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February 12, 2014 @ 10:59 pm
I agree baking is not only for girls so toys should be in neutral colors.
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February 14, 2014 @ 7:33 am
She’s one brave girl. And I agree, too. There are certain toys which are also suited for boys but are marketed for girls only, and I guess vice versa. Dapat talaga these toys should be in neutral colors.
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February 26, 2014 @ 11:22 am
There’s one time Matt enjoyed the cooking toy set of his cousin. Though there’s a connotation that cooking toy sets are for girls, I just allowed him to play. We even bought a set for him. So this little girl is right. Marketers should also consider producing neutral color toys like those.
March 16, 2014 @ 8:59 am
its good of her to do that. Toy companies should consider making gender neutral colors like red or yellow
March 19, 2014 @ 11:51 am
I’d love to get this oven to myself. Kahit for kids, I’m sure it’ll work like the real one and I too can try baking the goodies I only hear about.
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August 26, 2015 @ 3:48 am
A powerful share, I’ve just given this along a colleague who was doing a little similar review on this. He in turn purchased me dinner because I found it for him, smile!
August 28, 2015 @ 5:47 pm
Would you open to writing guest posts?
September 12, 2015 @ 2:31 am
I wanted to send a little note just to thank you for your splendid concepts you’ve documented here!