A 13 year-old girl in New Jersey named McKenna Pope wanted to buy her 4 year-old brother an Easy Bake oven. When she went to the store, however, she decided she couldn't, because all models were in pink or purple with boxes decorated entirely by girls. She wants Hasbro, makers of the product, to make it more gender neutral, an effort which is getting the attention of celebrity chefs.
There has been something distinctly old fashioned about Hasbro's insistence on making the Easy Bake a girl's product, even though cooking is hardly the exclusive domain of women. Ignoring the fact that everyone has to cook, whether they want to or not, actually enjoying cooking and being good at it is something that doesn't have anything to do with gender. Men and women are prominent chefs in various different styles of cooking, so it doesn't make sense to make a product like the Easy Bake heavily slanted to one gender.
If one looks at the list of chefs that have responded to Pope's petition, for example, they will see a large number of men's names, all chefs who have made a successful career through their cooking. There are also female chefs supporting the effort, and in general it just seems obvious to get all kids interested in cooking in an early age.
It goes further than that though, since the lines between genders have broken down a little bit more every year. There simply isn't a kitchen out there like my grandmothers', where men were simply not allowed at any point during meal preparation. Personally, that's a good thing, and the person making the meals should naturally be the person who is good at making meals, rather than drawing on gender lines. One could spill much ink about gender equality, but to keep it as simple as possible, work is generally best allocated based on who is best able to do it, rather than relying on arbitrary stereotypes. That means everyone gets to cook a little bit, and that plain makes sense.
So, if that's the way the world is going, why is the Easy Bake set so firmly in stereotypes that don't really apply anymore? Men and women enjoy cooking, it stands to reason that this trend continues down to making tiny cakes with a little oven. If a kid enjoys making food at a young age, it shouldn't really matter what gender they are, it should encouraged, even if the only kitchen they aspire to run is the one in their own house. The Easy Bake might not be the same as making an actual cake, but it's a start.
I'm not going to argue that all toys should be gender neutral, or that there are not differences between the sexes. I personally don't understand the appeal of most toys for little girls, but my niece seems to enjoy them so there's clearly some kind of innate gender difference. That's fine, but when it comes to some activities, there's just no reason for the split, and there's no need to pitch it heavily to one side just because that's the way it's always been done.
There are a ton of little boys out there that aspire to cook for a living, to be some kind of chef in a restaurant and feed people. They are being done a disservice by those who want to market cooking as a girls' thing. It's a human thing, and since we've all got to cook in order to stay alive, our toys should end up reflecting that reality.
