Unhappy Meals: McDonald's Fun Discrimination
We just came across a study by scholars at Yale University entitled: Unhappy Meals: Sex Discrimination in Toy Choice at McDonald's. For those who don't have time to read it, in short, the study found out that in 92.9% of their visits to McDonald's, employees gave toys to children without asking the child about his/her toy preference--only to give them toys that McDonald's designated for their sex. They also found out that 42.8% of stores refused to offer the opposite-sex toys even after a child re-approached them asking for an exchange of an unopened toy. There was also a situation in which a girl asked twice for the “boy’s toy,” and "was told there were only “girl’s toys” (even though the store, a moment later, gave a “boy’s toy” to a male customer)" (quoted from study).
Here at Woozy Moo, we are always saying there is fun discrimination in the toy industry, but as we all know, growing up to be who we want to be can be a trying exercise, and there are many out there there that make it challenging. We challenge McDonald's and others to be more mindful in their actions and train their employees accordingly. This situation saddens us, and we are not that naive to think it is only isolated to the toy industry and McDonald's. We hope all industries are proactive on this issue and take the conscious step towards reforming their practices. Fun should be fun and not leave anyone out.