"Clintons Cards axed Virgin Mary from Nativity scene after fears of poor card sales, says graphic designer"

From The Guardian:

Shane Black, Christmas card designer, has said he was forced to change the gender of Jesus' mother from female to male after pressure from Clinton's Cards, which feared cards would not sell as well.

In an interview with Uproxx, Black said his original sketches featured Virgin Mary, a traditionally female character.

“We had finished the design and we were given a no holds barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that cards won’t sell as well if there's a prominent female character. So, we had to change the entire design because of card sales. Now, that’s corporate.”

Black said in the original draft he had hoped audiences would assume the character was male, before her true gender was revealed. “I liked the idea, like 'Junior', you think a man has given birth but at the end, it turns out that it was a woman. They just said: ‘No way.’ ”