Aldi are reconsidering the packaging of children’s pens after a customer complained that they were “gendered for no reason”.
The supermarket giant said they were “treating seriously” Emma Ward’s complaint over them selling pens labelled for boys or girls despite them appearing to be the same product.
The 48-year-old, who has worked with children for 30 years, says it “hit a nerve” when she spotted the gendered pens in the middle aisle of her local Aldi store.
The kids club worker says the packs of multicoloured blow pens appeared to be the exact same product in the same packaging, but one was labelled with “boys” and the other “girls”.
Aldi are reconsidering the packaging of kids’ pens – after a customer complained that they were ‘gendered for no reason’. (Image: Kennedy News & Media)
Emma says that separating the product into genders “goes against everything” she tries to teach children in her job.
Emma believes labelling the stationary could be potentially “damaging” for children, who she tries to encourage to “play with and do anything that they wish without prejudice”.
Aldi claimed they take customer feedback ‘very seriously’ and said they will take Emma’s complaint about the gendered pens ‘into account when planning future ranges and product specifications’.
Emma, from Bourne, said: “We spend our life telling the children that they can do whatever they want to do and play with whatever they want to.
“Gendering something as simple as pens just hit a nerve – it goes against everything that I’ve told the children.
“Why do it? It’s just silly really that they’re stereotyping pens to be for one gender or the other.
“It’s the exact same product, the exact same packaging and everything.
“It’s about opening possibilities for children and not closing doors on them and saying look, you can’t use this product because it’s for boys or girls.
“I think it really can be damaging, obviously when children see them, they’ll think boys and girls are different.”
Emma believes that Aldi should pull the product from their shelves – and it has made her reconsider shopping with them in the future.
An Aldi spokesperson said: “We take customer feedback very seriously and will take this into account when planning future ranges and product specifications.”