 |
| A cafe in Auckland introduced the gender neutral gingerbread people |
What if you are told that the Gingerbread Man is no longer a man? The Co-op group announced sometime in April this year that the company, which has diversity and inclusion embedded in its core values, that it is announcing the gender neutral gingerbread people to replace the famous Gingerbread Man.
Following that, a cafe in Auckland decided to introduce the gender neutral cookie this Christmas which has sparked a debate on social media.
Now, what is funny is the fact that the \”gender neutral\” cookie has one head, two hands and two legs, just like the traditional cookie from the 15th century. Well, probably the gender neutral one is a little darker, may be to support people with darker skin tone (well, I can\’t say people of colour or the blacks as that might trigger another controversy).
 |
| The traditional century-old cookie |
Gingerbread dates from the 15th century. Figural biscuit-making was practiced in the 16th century. The Gingerbread Man is also a fairy tale about a gingerbread man\’s escape from various pursuers and his eventual demise between the jaws of a fox. There are several movies and animated cartoons with featuring the same character as well.
When the human body has proven to be so complex, and if inclusion and diversity are something that we would genuinely like to uphold, shouldn\’t gingerbread man exist alongside with the other genders of the gingerbread?
The LGBTQIA community exists for a reason, and we stopped identifying them as \”gays\” in general starting from the mid 80\’s. It is also not right to call any of this community member as \”non-straight\” as that is a sign of being non-inclusive.
And that is what the Co-op is doing. It is being non-inclusive by creating a gender-neutral cookie, which clearly defies the whole purpose of it doing so.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
I welcome your thoughts and views ! 😀 Thank you for your feedback
Thoughts And Views That Matter! 
It is sad that \”man\” is used as a common term for everything though both genders have unique identities. But what can be done? The word human also has man in it : same as wo\”man\”. This could be a lot of fuss over nothing or could be something that needs to be discussed. My point is like Shakespeare said, \”What is in a name? \”
It is a cookie we all enjoy eating and I think people tend to get a little too sensitive just about everything and anything.