The Aldi Special Buys tables are often a great place to pick up cheap books, puzzles and educational resources for the kids.

But one such item on sale last week fell far short of expectations, with countless people flocking to complain.

The issue came from a pair of books – titled What Can He Be? and What Can She Be? respectively, Kidspot reports.

The children’s books each featured an alphabetical list of jobs alongside brightly coloured illustrations – to allow kids to dream of their future occupations.

But that was where the problem started.

For more stories like this, go to kidspot.com.au

According to users on Twitter, the two books offered up very different jobs – with the boys’ version featuring firefighters and engineers while the girls’ version had fashion designers and editors.

“Unnecessarily sexist children’s picture books! What will she be? Maybe a fashion designer, but not a firefighter like him,” one unimpressed woman shared.

“Bafflingly, apparently she can be a queen (never mind the born royal part). Does that mean he could be a king then? Nah, but he can be a manly man karate instructor (incidentally, the majority of my kids’ karate senseis are female) while the ladies teach the babies.”

Her tweets garnered an angry response from other Twitter users, with another woman questioning, “What if he wants to be an editor or fashion designer too?”

Someone else simply wrote, “Um what?!”

Another unimpressed commenter shared, “Why the difference? Girls can be astronauts and surgeons! How about What Can You Be? STOP the gender differentiation!”

Someone else added, “It’s time to move to a non-binary format.”

Another user wrote, “Sigh … no need for this.”

“I’m afraid this harmful gender stereotyping and effective misogyny is all-pervasive and internalised by the shopping public and, unfortunately, by many school teachers,” a sixth commenter shared.

“The question I always ask myself is, who is making money out of it? Answer – ALDI and other retail chains.”

Another person asked, “Why not change these (otherwise wonderful) #STEMeducation #kidsbooks to What Can You Be and include a diversity of children in each story?”

Aldi declined to comment.

This article originally appeared on Kidspot and was reproduced with permission

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