Target marketing execs? Are you reading this blog. Awww, that's so sweet of you. On behalf of the others here at Strollerderby, I'd like you to know we're flattered. Flattered and pleased! Pleased that you read us ... AND that you respond, so to speak, with changes ... for the better! For the good of young girls and boys and their Target-shopping families and picky, picky mamas.

Target, you know what I'm talking about. But a bit of background for the readers.

A couple of months ago when I got worked up into a lather over the spring Target circular that showed up in the mail. Every picture of every product was paired with a kid along such predictable and stringent gender lines that even Phyllis Schlafly might have felt uneasy.  

Here's the crux:

The message is this: boys play, girls watch, unless boys aren't around, then girls play -- but only with soft, sparkly purple/pink things they can nurture, beautify or use to tidy up the house.

Hey, I'm not saying girls don't play with dolls. Or boys don't like power tools. But does it have to be to the exclusion of everything else? Can't Target just pretend to placate moms like me? Can't they even try? Maybe a girl holding a train and a boy watching a girl swing a pink tennis racket? Out of 51 pages, just one such picture will do.

But this month, with the freshly minted summer circular, there's good news! Girls ride flamed emblazoned fake ATVs! (Alone! No boys in sight!) Boys play in the fake kitchen and do sidewalk art right alongside girls. Sure, boys still get all the squirt guns (and remote control toys) and girls still stand in protest of being squirted. But girls are in it, acting, begging for Star Wars Legos and featured in color themes other than purple and pink. 

Target, is this a coincidence or did you listen to Mama?

In any case, you've come a long way, baby. 

Image: SFgate