An update on the Easy-Bake Oven story

Unisex Easy-Bake oven on the way

Hasbro says it will soon reveal a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven after meeting with a New Jersey girl who started a campaign calling on the toy maker to make one that appeals to all kids.

McKenna Pope, 13, of Garfield, N.J., got more than 40,000 signatures on her online petition at Change.org and the support of celebrity chefs including Bobby Flay, who backed her call for Hasbro to make a gender-neutral oven and to include boys in the ads.

She was prompted to start the petition after shopping for an Easy-Bake as a Christmas present for her 4-year-old brother, Gavyn Boscio, and finding them only in purple and pink.

Good for her!

Indeed!

Teen: Boys want an Easy-Bake Oven, too

Or more precisely, what she said was:

"All they really told me is that boys play with their products. I already know boys do play with your products, so why are you only marketing them to girls?" she said. "I don't want them to make a boys' Easy-Bake Oven and girls' Easy-Bake Oven. I want them to make an Easy-Bake Oven for kids."

Of the three close male friends I have, two love cooking, and although I can't speak to Brandon, because I haven't had anything he's made, YKWIA is an excellent cook. Both tend to make things from scratch. I on the other hand, HAD an Easy-Bake Oven (it was blue, and it had the old-fashioned light bulb) and that, along with three years of home oeconomics and Future Homemakers of America, made me more of a baker than a cook. (I can follow a recipe, but I'm not a 'natural' cook.) But I definitely agree, we should encourage both genders to cook--it's a great life skill, and we should also be less gender-specific in how things are marketed to our children.

Thanks to Vanessa Irvin Morris for sharing the story.