Last month, the Raleigh Hills Fred Meyer segregated toy sections by gender.
Courtesy of Brie Stoianoff
Fred Meyer is changing its signage for a second time after staff at a Portland store segregated toys into boys' and girls' sections.
Last month, consultant Brie Stoianoff noticed the signs at the Raleigh Hills Fred Meyer.
“It just really bothered me," she said.
"I’ve got a 5-year-old daughter and she loves to play with 'boys' toys.' And I thought, what message are we sending if we’re segregating the toys by gender?”
Company spokeswoman Melinda Merrill says they don’t usually delineate boys' and girls' toys. But during the holidays, they put extra toys in lobbies and at the end of aisles — and those toys were signed specifically for boys or for girls.
“When the customers pointed out to us how insensitive and wrong that was, we went ahead and removed that signage,” she said.
Stoianoff returned to the store four days later.
“It really brought a smile to my face. So, I snapped a picture and sent it back up to Facebook right away, just to show my friends how excited we were,” she said.
Fred Meyer dealt with the same problem at the same store last Christmas.