Svensk katalog för leksaker visar ombytta roller

One of the largest toy chains in Sweden published a gender-neutral Christmas catalogue, which pictured boys playing with dolls and girls holding toy machine guns. The move has reignited a debate in Sweden over the proper place of gender roles.

Top Toy has produced children’s Christmas catalogues in Denmark and Sweden for both Toys R Us and BR. Though the catalogues' page layouts are the same in both countries, the gender of the pictured kids is reversed in the Swedish edition.

"With the new gender thinking, there is nothing that is right or wrong. It's not a boy or a girl thing, it's a toy for children," Top Toy director of sales Jan Nyberg told TT news agency.

The Danish catalogue showed a boy wielding a toy machine gun, which was replaced by a girl in the Swedish version. The "Hello Kitty" page of the Swedish catalogue also replaced a girl with a boy, and a one girl's pink t-shirt was turned into light blue.

It is difficult to be surprised. Sweden's anti-discrimination laws are as bizarre as they are magical. Hairdressers are not allowed to vary their prices based on gender, putting up the price of a short-back-and-sides towards the £50 mark. Taxis which used to offer special rates to single women going home late at night have been told to stop. Women can swim topless in public pools unless there is a law to require men cover their nipples. Stockholm District Court recently ruled that pregnancy was an illness. Activists are pushing to end gender specific pronouns in the language. More men than women now complain to the discrimination ombudsman.

Sweden's largest toy chain has been forced to become ‘gender neutral’ by picturing boys holding baby dolls and girls brandishing toy guns in the pages of its Christmas catalogue.

Top Toy - which holds the franchise for Toys R Us - made the move after being reprimanded by the country’s advertising watchdog for ‘gender discrimination’ in a previous catalogue, which featured boys dressed as superheroes and girls playing princess.

A comparison between this year’s Toys R Us catalogues in Sweden and Denmark, where Top Toy is also the franchisee, showed that a boy wielding a toy machine gun in the Danish edition had been replaced by a girl in Sweden.

”Fler surrealistiska nyheter från det ockuperade Sverige. Den mest vansinnigt socialistiska, vaksamma, omhändertagande och helt enkelt paranoida samhälle i världen har nått sin bottenpunkt”, skriver John i Dublin på brittiska Daily Mails webbsajt.