These are the times that try men’s souls. Er … make that “persons’ souls.” And don’t forget to include “others.”
The latest effort to correct the sins of a sexually insensitive world comes at the hands of 13-year-old McKenna Pope. Pope, who lives in New Jersey, launched a petition to force toymaker Hasbro to make a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven.
The need arose, Gawker notes, when Pope’s 4-year-old brother announced he wants one of the ovens for Christmas. But when big sis went to the store to make his dream a reality, she found that Easy-Bakes come in only two colors — pink and purple. Those, as all the world knows, are “girl colors.”
As of Tuesday, the petition had 41,000 signatures. Among the signatories were several names that will be familiar to food/restaurant enthusiasts and TV cooking show aficionados, such as Bobby Flay and Top Chef’s Manuel Trevino. Another is Michael Lomonaco, who oversaw the kitchen at New York’s Windows on the World, a restaurant that occupied the 106th and 107th floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower until Sept. 11, 2001. He wrote, “We signed your petition McKenna! You get Hasbro to change that packaging! Little boys and little girls can all be chefs.”
One might expect in light of Lomonaco’s chosen profession that his inclusive statement about boys becoming chefs goes without saying. Little boys have grown up to pursue careers in the culinary arts since long before 1963, when Kenner introduced the first Easy-Bake Oven. It never occurred to anyone before that there was a need for a gender-neutral variation on the theme, but maybe that’s because there wasn’t and isn’t.
Whatever happened to the argument, made by some of the same people who now advocate gender-neutral colors in products, that the blue-for-boys/pink-for-girls distinction was stereotypical and should be discarded? Shouldn’t someone have told young McKenna Pope that she lives in the 21st century when enlightened people don’t assign colors to sex?
Finally, since when is purple a feminine color? And if it is, which of the chefs who came out in support of Pope’s position are going to tell Ray Lewis and his teammates on the Baltimore Ravens that their uniforms are sissy-colored?
Executives at Hasbro have agreed to meet with Pope next Monday.
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“Shouldn’t someone have told young McKenna Pope that she lives in the 21st century when enlightened people don’t assign colors to sex?”
But then she wouldn’t be getting this attention. I helped my daughter with her ez-bake oven and didn’t feel a bit unmanly. But then I do most of the cooking in our household…and take care of the armory.
About the pink color though, my daughter announced she doesn’t want a pink firearm. She wants a camouflaged one. That hurt, the only things I dislike more than brightly colored firearms are gaudy camouflaged firearms. Firearms come in black, blue, silver and maybe a little polished brass like on the Gatling gun. Anything else is “pimping” and worthy of laughter. Though Sig. does have a nice .22 with a hot pink frame…
won’t matter pretty soon…the bulbs needed to work an easy bake oven will soon be gone.
somebody could probably get some federal grants to convert the oven to solar I guess…let’s make it a condition of the grant that they all come in green…figure a few billion should be enough…
Actually, the ovens haven’t used bulbs since the early days. They now use a genuine heating element. Not to worry, though. The feds will soon be cracking down on heating elements because they contribute to global warming.
I thought purple was the middle ground anyway, the color of androgyny, used by lesbian and gay organizations the world over to say, “we aren’t pink, we aren’t blue, we’re both and neither! — woo hoo!” — That sort of thing. Yes I just invented a gay cheer. That’s not the point.
Here’s what I don’t get: what color is the new one supposed to be?
The linkage you made occurred to me as well. I just thought it was more fun to mention Ray Lewis in this context. As to your question about the neutral “color,” I’d say black.
Huh?
Goes and gets daughter’s EZ bake oven, purchased approximately 2006 but with a patent date of 1992, checks back about bulb replacement warning. Removes back just to be doubly sure. Yep, 100 watt utility bulb. Though utility bulbs are not subject to federal ban. They are the MOST efficient heaters for chicken coops and such.
I think you may be thinking the reverse. Mattel USED to have a neat vacuum forming machine that used a heating element (they also used it for something called the “Thing Maker”, or something like that. They switched from a heating element to a bulb and the toy sucked since then.
Yeah, I am an old hobbyist who still uses one of those old vacuum formers to make parts.
Oh, and this is the second time I tried to make the second reply and it wouldn’t take (button there but doesn’t work). Just something to put on the B list.
Sigh! Sometimes, despite the availability of a Reply button, you need to enter comments in the bottom-most field. I realize this is slightly misleading and apologize. In any case, thanks for letting me know.
cozmo…you are referring to the Mattel “VacuForm” I think…great concept to put a thin sheet of plastic over a hot plate until it melted enough to hand-pump it down onto a form to make something that as far as I can remember never got made into anything…
or are you referring to the “Creepy Crawlers”/”Fun Flowers”? some type of liquid GOO that went into a mold and got heated into rubber shapes.
” as far as I can remember never got made into anything…”
Not very creative as a kid were you.
-Gas masks, holsters, lone ranger masks for GI Joe
-flying saucers, boat hulls and custom pieces for the Aurora Nautilus and Seaview.
-blast shields for the tiny Apollo spacecraft.
I’m pretty sure I did all of those before I got good at it around the age of ten.
Nowdays, aircraft canopies, domes for the Valley Forge from Silent running, feet for Dewey, armor and bikinis for figures, hollow and clear parts to replace solid and opaque parts. There is a whole parts and improvement industry for that old toy. Honest, look it up on ebay.
Yeah, I think one of the names for the re-engineered heating plate was creepy critters. Fond memories whenever I see one of those at a garage sale, but never cared for the critter makers.
An old toy line that I would really like to see make a comeback are the scaled down power tools. Mini power saws drills and sanders that plugged into a battery pack. What I could do with some of those and a transformer power pack.
And I went to the work bench to check the name:
VAC-U-FORM by Mattel
My poor daughter had to suffer so much emotional harm from being forced to play with boy colored Leggo’s for years. / As soon as she was too old to play with them, they came out with a girly version. The sets I’ve seen are used to build a mall. Because nothing says gender neutral like a mall.