Australian Mint forced to rename 'Dad' and 'Mum' piggy banks

The Royal Australian Mint has been forced to defend its decision to market ‘Dad’ and ‘Mum’ piggy banks, amidst a social media storm speculating that it is a comment on the gender pay gap.

A Royal Australian Mint spokesperson said they were surprised by the recent negative public reaction to the naming of the money boxes and said that they “do not wish to cause offence”.

The Mint sells the pig-shaped money boxes in their official merchandise shop. Originally, the pigs came in three sizes, ‘Dad’, ‘Mum’ and ‘Baby’ in descending size order. However, a recent social media post has the public wondering if this is a cryptic comment on pay inequality between the genders.

Posted to Reddit, with the title ‘Australian Mint gender pay gap piggy banks’, the image shows two piggy banks. The piggy bank labelled ‘Dad’ is slightly larger and at $7, is more expensive than the smaller $5 ‘Mum’ piggy bank.

The price and size difference has sparked online discussion as to whether the Mint is covertly commenting on Australia’s gender pay gap. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Australia’s national gender pay gap is 15.3% with women earning an average of $253.70 less than men every week.

While the money boxes originally came in three sizes: ‘Dad’, ‘Mum’ and ‘Baby’, the Mint responded to the uproar by renaming the products as ‘large’, ‘medium’ and ‘small’ money boxes.

Users have also speculated that the Mint’s decision to make the ‘Mum’ pig cheaper than ‘Dad’ is a political comment on Australia’s gender pay gap.

One user said, “[t]he mans piggy bank is bigger because he earns more. Right?”.

Another user said, “Nah it’s offensive because females can be larger than males”.

“I’m actually kind of sad that the left bank doesn’t say “blokes” and the right bank doesn’t say “sheilas”,” said another user.

The Mint spokesperson denied suggestions that the original piggy bank names and pricing were a comment on pay inequity between the genders.

“The Mint has been selling these piggy banks for some time and this is the first instance of negative feedback we have received about their naming,” the spokesperson said.

“The terms ‘Dad’, ‘Mum’ and ‘Baby’ were chosen as the Royal Australian Mint has a large family following and these names resonate with children.”

“When the matter was brought to our attention, the Mint updated the names of the piggy banks to ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’ as we do not wish to cause offence,” said the spokesperson.