How one dude shut down the haters of Target’s gender-neutral policy
Recently, Target ditched its gender-based signage in its kids department after the company took some major heat for a sign differentiating “building sets” from “girls’ building sets.” “[The sign] stood out to me as a good example of the way our culture tends to view boys and men as the default, normal option and girls and women as the specialized exception,” mom Abi Bechtel, who initially tweeted the sign, told CNN.
Now, Target is removing gender-based categories in their store. “. . . as guests have pointed out, in some departments like toys, home or entertainment, suggesting products by gender is unnecessary,” Target wrote in a statement on their website. “We heard you, and we agree. Right now, our teams are working across the store to identify areas where we can phase out gender-based signage to help strike a better balance.” Unfortunately, some did not agree with this decision, and have taken to Target’s Facebook to post some. . . erm. . . interesting complaints. That’s where Mike Melgaard comes in. Mike swooped in to Target’s defense by creating an obviously fake Facebook account under the name “Ask ForHelp” and a profile picture of the Target logo. He then started responding to the haters with pretty sarcastic replies, like this one:
Most of the responders didn’t pick up on the fact that Mike’s account was not *actually* a representative for Target, and they got pretty peeved. Mike managed to get away with it for several days before his account was shut down, getting in about 50 sharp-tongued responses. Still, he got screenshots of all of them and posted them in a public photo album entitled “Target trolling.” “People thought I was target [sic] and that’s all you need to know,” he captioned the album. The album has since been shared almost 42,000 times and liked over 13,000 times since posting it yesterday.
We at HelloGiggles don’t endorse trolling, but maybe Mike’s efforts raised some awareness about Target’s groundbreaking and awesome decision. Dolls aren’t only for girls, and building sets aren’t only for boys; it’s important to nip archaic gender roles in the bud, and that’s exactly what Target is doing.
Images via Facebook
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