Hasbro Easy Bake Petition: Teen Girl Asks Company to Advertise For Boys

McKenna Pope, a 13-year-old eight-grader from The Garfield, New Jersey, is petitioning toy maker Hasbro Inc. to stop marketing the popular Easy Bake kitchen set toy only to girls — reported LA Times. 

Pope wants Hasbro to include pictures of boys both on the Easy Bake boxes and advertisements, and to reclassify the popular toy, which is currently listed under "Cooking & Baking Games for Girls" on the company's website. 

According to the Times, Pope's Change.org petition has already racked up north of 18,000 signatures. The teenager was motivated by her little 4-year-old brother's attempt to play chef by cooking on top of a lamp's light bulb.

"I feel that this sends a clear message: women cook, men work," Pope wrote on her petition. "I want my brother to know that it's not 'wrong' for him to want to be a chef," she added. The teenager also wrote that she finds the lack of packaging or promotional materials featuring boys to be "quite appalling" and that the "girlie purple and pink colors used on Easy Bake ovens didn't help either."

In her defense, Pope pointed out that many of the top figures in the culinary industry are men — including Emeril Lagasse, Gordon Ramsay and Wolfgang Puck among others.