Gingerbread Man becomes 'Ginger Person' at IMU

Both Betty Crocker and Mother Goose might be shocked if they took a stroll through The Market at the Indiana Memorial Union in search of one of their favorite cookies: the Gingerbread Man. \nThey'd find one all right, wrapped neatly in plastic with two red candy eyes peering back at them. But when they flipped the cookie over to find its price, they'd discover their man stripped of his gender, with a label reading "ginger person."\nAbout eight years ago, all the gingery treats supplied at the IMU were renamed to make the cookies more politically correct, said Mary Frohliger, an IMU employee of 23 years who works at both Sugar & Spice and Kiva.\n"I've had a lady come in and say she's glad it's called a 'person,'" said Steve Richards, retail operations director of food service in the IMU, the Wendell Wright Education building and the Herman B Wells Library. \nSome think the change is too much. \n"I thought they were kind of going overboard," said Frohliger. "And Mother Goose would not be happy. You can't go, 'Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm a gingerbread person.' That doesn't work; you can't do the rhyme without 'man."