Retail giant Toys R Us has agreed to drop sexist marketing and gender stereotyping of its products to girls and boys.
The toy store has bowed to pressure from campaign group Let Toys Be Toys, who represent thousands of shoppers concerned with sexism in the toy industry and the impact it's having on children.
After meeting with campaigners, the chain have said they will now ensure their marketing is more inclusive, as well as removing explicit references to gender in store.
The toy giant's adverts will show boys and girls playing with the same toys, such as kitchens, toy guns and Lego, and they have promised to review the way toys are represented in their upcoming Christmas catalogue.
Some headway was made last year when the Swedish branch unveiled a gender neutral advertising campaign showing girls shooting a toy gun and boys and girls playing together in a kitchen in response to complaints in Sweden.
Managing Director Roger McLaughlan said they will take further steps after meeting with representatives from Let Toys Be Toys.
'We very much enjoyed meeting Let Toys Be Toys. We will work with the Let Toys Be Toys team to ensure we develop the best plan for our customers,' he said.
Megan Perryman, a Let Toys Be Toys campaigner, said: 'We’re delighted to be working so closely with a major toy retailer and believe that there is much common ground here.
'Even in 2013, boys and girls are still growing up being told that certain toys are "for" them, while others are not. This is not only confusing but extremely limiting, as it strongly shapes their ideas about who they are and who they can go on to become.'
Let Toys Be Toys states on their website that the changes promised by Toys R Us follow in the footsteps of similar commitments they have had from several other major retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Boots, The Entertainer and TK Maxx.
One of the campaign's founders, Tricia Lowther, 44, a self-employed copywriter from Durham, who has a five-year-old daughter, told the MailOnline in June: 'It does bother a lot of parents, we seem to have tapped in to a huge and growing sense of frustration with the way toys are promoted according to outdated, illogical and sexist stereotypes.
'I can't speak for any of the others but what pushed me to make a stand was the realisation, after my daughter was born, that gender stereotyping in children's products had become worse than when I was a child myself back in the Seventies. It's something that has become almost impossible to escape and is very limiting for children.'
More than 7,500 people have signed the Let Toys Be Toys petition so far on change.org, asking retailers in the UK and Ireland to remove gender labels, and organise toys by theme and function instead of by gender.
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