The kids I know, both boys and girls, are often pestering the Mommy, and often to help Mommy clean or whatever, where they cause more interference than assistance. So this actually seems like a clever toy to keep the kids out of Mommy's hair. Of course the extremists at feminist sites, as well as Sociology101 professors, will take the position that the acts of cleaning and that of becoming an attorney are somehow mutually exclusive.

Dumb ass toy.
I can't get worked up about it being targeted for girls... because no one has to purchase it. Infact this would be the best opportunity to discuss the nonsense about it w/our children.

Point. Laugh. Mock the stupidity of it all.
Girls only are use to it.

It's not so much that those acts are mutually exclusive but that the representation in the ad of who's doing the cleaning, a female, reinforce stereotypes and typical gender roles that women should be the ones cleaning. The fact that one would teach this to their little girl subliminally reinforces the idea of, "Here, now you can become a productive member of a society that puts you on a lower rung!"

It also reinforces dominant/submissive roles in the male/female dynamic, assuming that the little girl would grow up straight (or not even, just taught to not ever be assertive in a male-dominated world).

If the girl grows up thinking cleaning is what women do, why would she strive to be a lawyer when her world has been programmed to accept her as just a cleaner?

unfortunately, many read into these advertisements things that are not necessarily so. i agree, by the way, that this is a stupid "toy" and i also agree that men and women all ought to have equal opportunities to achieve whatever it is they desire to achieve.

that being said, i don't believe that the parent who purchases such a silly (yes i said that) toy for a child - male or female - is therefore condemning that child to a lifetime of subservience.

it is the affirmative words, the encouraging words and the positive examples that we give to our children that will allow them to dream of bigger and better. if we give them these crappy toys and don't say anything else, then we've failed. if, however, such dreck can be seen as merely a plaything and not a career path, the opportunities for our children can be endless and inhibited only by their imaginations.

let's not make too much of what passes for toys these days. after all, i wanted to be Roy Rogers when i was a kid, and i'm sure there were plenty of Annie Oakleys out there, too.