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Waitrose under fire over 'sexist' girls and boys birthday cakes

Food for thought: Waitrose's gender-specific birthday cakes triggered an online row - waitrose.com
Food for thought: Waitrose's gender-specific birthday cakes triggered an online row - waitrose.com

Waitrose has been forced to apologize for offering “boys and girls” birthday cakes after a mother objected that they were sexist. The offending cakes were pink cupcakes which were labelled as being "for girls" and football-shaped treats "for boys".

Waitrose has now changed its website, which was previously displaying birthday cakes for girls featuring unicorns, fairies and stars. Comparatively, boys were given a choice between fire engines, ladybirds and footballs.

Waitrose has now removed the pages from its website. A spokesman said: "We apologise sincerely if we've caused offence, we'd never want to do that. "Our cakes are for everyone to enjoy and we've changed our website to make that clear.

The post attracted a flurry of comments from equally outraged consumers.

Eagle-eyed mother, Louise Dillon, implored Waitrose to "do better". The mum-of-two said she was inspired to speak out as she worried such marketing would be damaging to her sons.

She said: "I think it's so important that children are encouraged to like whatever they like. It seems madness that unicorns are for girls and football is for boys. It's teaching our children that things they love are 'not really made for them' for no sensible reason.

"I have two sons and want them to embrace as many things as possible - unicorns included - not dismiss half of them out of hand."

Waitrose cakes - Credit: Triangle News/waitrose.com
Pretty in pink: some of the supermarket's girls cakes Credit: Triangle News/waitrose.com

Campaigning body Let Toys Be Toys also slammed Waitrose for reinforcing damaging gender stereotypes. A spokeswoman said: "It seems very strange that Waitrose have decided to label birthday cakes in this way - boys and girls can have a range of interests that aren't limited to stereotypes.

"It takes parents twice as long to look for a cake if they need to look in two sections and has the potential to turn children away from their true interests."

It comes after Asda were similarly accused of reinforcing gender stereotypes last week. Mum Katherine Tierney said she was "shocked" to see sexist clothing descriptions for their children's clothing. Where boys were described as "active little men", girls were described as "cute as a button" and "princesses".

Last week Waitrose caused controversy over "racist" Easter ducks which caused customers to complain because the dark brown one was labelled as "ugly".  An £8 trio of white, milk and dark chocolate Easter ducklings caused offence among a "small number" of customers for being labelled as "fluffy", "crispy" and "ugly". 

A Waitrose spokesman said: "We apologise sincerely if we’ve caused offence, we’d never want to do that. Our cakes are for everyone to enjoy and we’ve changed our website to make that clear. "