New Zealand department store The Warehouse has been forced to apologise after a product description of a child's bike was dubbed "sexist" and shared widely online.
In the listing for the Milazo Boys' 20-inch bike - designed for children eight years and up - features and benefits included a loading weight of 100kg and an "always classical matte black design".
But the feature that really caught the attention of eagle-eyed commenters was a button-activated "very fast quick release brake", which was described as being "so easy even for a girl".
The listing went viral after being screenshotted and posted to the New Zealand subreddit, where commenters joked about the sexist description.
"As a girl, I'm ever so glad for these easy safety systems. I don't know how else I would've coped! Thank you Warehouse, my life safter!" one woman wrote.
"But what if the brakes aren't pink?!" another joked.
Others pointed out that the description appeared to have been translated to English from a supplier's listing in another language, and the translation was dubbed a "trainwreck".
"How does the Warehouse not have some sort of moderation for this?" one person questioned.
On Tuesday morning, The Warehouse issued a statement on its Facebook page apologising for the listing.
"We know boys and girls are equals, and can do anything," the statement reads.
"This language, which came from an overseas supplier, is unacceptable and isn't what we believe at all. It's not in our values.
"Because of this, we really appreciate that our customers called it out. We do our best to catch all the many thousands of product descriptions to make sure they meet our standards.
"We missed this one, and we truly apologise."
The description of the bike on the Warehouse website has since been deleted.
