While the company has rejected reports that it would no longer sell individual sex-specific Mr and Mrs Potato Head dolls, a company executive has told a progressive business leaders’ magazine that the brand’s tradition is “limiting” because of how it presents gender identity and family structure.
 
“Culture has evolved,” Kimberly Boyd, a senior vice president and general manager at Hasbro, told Fast Company magazine on the 25th of February. “Kids want to be able to represent their own experiences. The way the brand currently exists—with the ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’—is limiting when it comes to both gender identity and family structure.”

“The sweet spot for the toy is two to three years old,” Boyd said. “Kids like dressing up the toy, then playing out scenarios from their life. This often takes the form of creating little potato families, because they’re learning what it means to be in a family.”

A box for the gender-neutral family set shows pictures of a baby potato head in three different images: one where the potato head parents appear as a man and a woman, another where they appear as a woman and a woman, and a third where they appear as a man and a man.

Source: CNA

Photo: AP news