A little gender stereotyping with your meal?

Poster promoting McDonald's Happy Meal toys, Vancouver, BC (Photo taken April 22, 2015)

Is the world that cut and dried? Do all of the boys want Transformers? Is it only girls who like My Little Pony?

Would it be too hard to just have a simple toy with the meals? Or perhaps not have toys with the meals and put the cost of the toy towards better ingredients.

But, we live in a pigeon-holing world. Everyone must fit into a particular slot. And everyone has acceptable types of stuff to play with.

Things do seem to be changing. The rigid gender roles are bending if not breaking. When I was in grade 7 I wanted to do "Home Economics", but that was a course for girls. I had to do metal shop. Evidently it was more likely that after school I'd have access to a 2000 kilo metal lathe than a stove or a sewing machine.

My daughter likes Barbie, Bratz, LEGO, and Playmobil. I hope that she, and the other kids she knows, will continue to play with the toys that they find to be fun, not just the ones that the marketers have decided are correct for someone with their chromosomes.