Brielle Ballantine
Editor-in-Chief

Toys to get little boys for the holidays usually include trucks, tools and action figures but now, 13-year-old activist, McKenna Pope is adding Hasbro’s Easy Bake Oven to the equation.

Pope has recently started a petition on Change.org against toy maker, Hasbro Inc. to stop the  company from promoting the toy only to young girls. She started the movement by her brothers attempt to cook over a light bulb and the petition already has over 40,000 signatures.

The Garfeild N.J eighth-grader writes on the petition about how she feels that the message Hasbro is sending children are based on social views that are completely out of date.

“I feel that this sends a clear message: women cook, men work,” wrote Pope. “Having grown up with toys produced by the Hasbro Corporation, it truly saddens me that such a successful business would resort to conforming to society’s views on what boys do and what girls do.”

She then continues to point out that the lack of advertisements featuring males is quite “appalling” and the company should use more neutral colors on the toys rather than the pink and purple selections that they offer.

“It would appeal to boys more if they had a unisex [Easy Bake Oven],” sophomore Robert Gebo said. “Boys could use it at a younger age and if they like it they can become a chef when they get older.”

Pope is going against all the social views that have been set up within in the country for centuries and she thinks it’s time for people to take a stand.

“I want my brother to know that it’s not ‘wrong’ for him to want to be a chef, that it’s okay to go against what society believes to be appropriate,” wrote Pope. “There are, as a matter of fact, a multitude of very talented and successful male culinary geniuses, i.e. Emeril, Gordon Ramsey, etc. Unfortunately, Hasbro has made going against the societal norm that girls are the ones in the kitchen even more difficult.”

Hasbro has finally responded to Pope, and has invited Pope and her family to meet on Monday at its Pawtucket headquarters and exchange ideas with the Easy-Bake team.

For the full petition, visit http://www.change.org/petitions/hasbro-feature-boys-in-the-packaging-of-the-easy-bake-oven