A Melbourne woman has had enough of corporates sexualising children and has channeled her anger into activism. Whilst shopping for shoes for her little girl in Target she realised a range of the children's ballet flats had heels on them. She then went into Big W and noticed they too had similar heeled ballet flats for little girls.
From the Target website
From the Big W website starting from size 6 (for an 18 month old)
“It was ridiculous,” she told Kidspot. “Flats don’t have heels. Or if they have a small one it’s a flat, stable, horseshoe shape that goes across the whole sole. I don’t know why they think this is necessary for a one-year-old, who could ever have thought this was a good idea."
They looked, she said, “precarious” for a girl so young. “It even looks like they could roll their ankle,” she says.
“The culture that teaches our daughters to self-objectify is a drip, drip, drip,” she says. “These little things add up to learned behaviour and learned expectations.”
She went home and decided to take action by making up two signs. She then returned to the stores and placed them up on the display.
After we tweeted the image to Target they replied stating that they would like to look into it right away. Target have offered to speak to the mother who made the signs but she has declined. “They’ve got the message,” she said to Kidspot. “I’m not interested in having someone try to talk me round."
This isn't the first time Target and Big W have come under the spotlight for selling inappropriate products for children. You can see the history of sexploitative products on our brands page here.
We invite Target and Big W to sign our Corporate Social Responsibility Pledge and refuse to objectify women and sexualise girls.
Take action! The stores are still selling the products. Send them a quick message here: Target and Big W.
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