Online retailer Amazon has changed the name of its family discount programme in the US from Amazon Mom to Amazon Family. The move follows pressure from a petition of more than 13,000 signatures, which urged Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to reconsider the original name, claiming it reinforced gender stereotypes.
Stay-at-home-dad Jeffrey Harrington from Kansas launched the protest three years ago, but it received a major boost in March when a group of fathers latched onto the cause in memory of Oren Miller, founder of the Dad Bloggers network. Miller passed away in February and was a passionate supporter of Harrington’s petition.
Harrington pointed out that the equivalent scheme in countries like the UK, Japan, Canada, Germany and France had all been branded with the gender-neutral Amazon Family moniker, urging Bezos to allow the US to follow suit. He added “there are plenty of other dads like me: according to the 2010 U.S. Census, almost a third of fathers with a spouse in the workforce take care of their kids at least one day a week. And of those with kids under the age of 5, 20% of dads are the primary caretaker.”
There has been no official word from Amazon on the change, other than a note on the Help page of the website explaining that Amazon Mom would now be known under its new branding.
For more anti-dad attitudes at major corporations, read the Heinz letter.
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