Mumsnet Talk

I am 30 in December.

When I was that age, I had a tshirt that read "Anything boys can do, girls can do better" and it was one of my favourite tops, according to my parents, who thought it was cute. And I've seen that slogan (that GIRLS can do better) around many, many times while growing up. IME it has the status of a common saying, regardless of any sexism.

I think YABU to be so shocked by it, it's not a slap in the face for feminism, in fact I would take it as some kind of tongue-in-cheek retort to the girl-orientated older saying.

(Forgive me if I haven't worded this well, I'm still struggling with baby brain and not remembering words that should be on the tip of my tongue...)

DD would have read that by 4 or 5 and told him straight.
"Oh no they're not, girls rule!"

I have better things to be about therefore yabu.

I wouldn't want anything to do with a family where a kid was wearing a tshirt like this. Not least because they probably read the daily fail

Really? You are going to judge an entire family based on a one childs t-shirt. That's far more unreasonable than the t-shirt.

"You are going to judge an entire family based on a one childs t-shirt"

I certainly would.

And I'd give this one a wide berth.

He also has one that says hazardous to sisters, he doesn't have any sisters which shows how much attention I pay to slogans on shirts

*Any t-shirt that makes wholesale and derogatory comments about a group of people based on their gender/race/whatever is stupid and pathetic. *

^^ This

Try substituting the genders with race and see how 'ironic' or 'harmless' it sounds then.

"Anything black people can do white people can do better"

Girls may outperform boys in primary education, but seeing as they still suffer a 15% pay gap, are disproportionately represented among those living in poverty (65% of which are women), it doesn't seem to be helping them much.

BTW, this wouldn't work me up - if I got worked up about every instance of casual sexism I came across I'd be frothing on a daily basis several times over. Life's too short and this would barely register on my radar.

But that doesn't make it ok, and I would judge the intelligence and values who thought that this was an appropriate or 'fun' T-shirt for a 2 year old.

Hmm some interesting points.

Bastard do fuck off, there's a dear.

I would still have been very if the genders were reversed. I've already said that I don't like the whole 'boys are stupid, throw rocks at them'.

To me this top is similar to 'anything black kids can do, white kids can do better'. There would rightly be outrage if such a shitty top exsisted so why should this be different?

Oh and what Dahlen said.

Again what Dahlen said. I wouldn't put my son in this unless it had been bought my a fond relative in which case you have to put it on at least once for a visit or photo!
HOwever
I dislike all slogan (and ostentatiously branded logo )clothes, and have since I was about 12. My MIL gave us a relatively inoffensive one (If you think I'm handsome wait till you see my daddy) and I ...... just don't like it.

I find the "lock up your daughters" ones particularly annoying at the moment.

I wouldn't buy it but I most certainly wouldn't get cross over it. I have seen a T shirt that says "Girls rock, boys suck". Stupid tshirt but I'm not worried that it will damage my boys self esteem.

Some of those t-shirts on that website did make me wince.
YANBU - people need to take more responsibility. They are parents, not teenagers.

The slogan is stupid, not funny, and part of a whole mindless jokey dialogue that adds to the whole world in which boys and girls grow up in, "girls are like this and have pink clothes and toys, boys are like that and have dark clothes and violent toys, girls need to be prettty and then sexy, boys will be boys, aka boistrous, and then earn 10% more money"

Naff at best, insidious at worst.

Why would anyone actually buy this for a child to wear? It would be so much cheaper without the stooopid comment.

Why do we have to encourage this antipathy between girls and boys? Girls are better / boys suck / throw rocks....

Let them see each other as ordinary and children, just ike them. Why make a dichotomy out of it?

One of the t-shirts I have seen on a 3-year old child that I hated was "Father Christmas doesn't exist but I can't read so I don't know that." Grrrr.
I don't like it, but it anything written on the clothes of children too young to have chosen it irritates me. I don't think you should have slogans unless the person wearing them understands the implications of it. Much as I wanted to put DS in cute AC/DC baby vests, I didn't because that's my taste not his and he has a personality of his own.

YANBU, I don't like slogan stuff like that either.

I wouldn't buy it. But I wouldn't think much of it tbh other than it was naff.

A lot of things rattle my cage..something that is supposed to be a bit of fun isn't one of them!

If you think that's offensive, then what about when I was on holiday as a kid when I was about 8, we were at the clubhouse or wherever one evening..there was this northern family there. I was all dressed up sweet in my pink dress with daisies on it and knee length socks and pretty sandles, (typical 80's style), and this poor unfortunate little girl of the same age, to my mother's horror, was wearing a baseball cap with a plastic dogs turd on it, with the word "SHITHEAD" written on it! My mum never forgets the way I was just sat there staring at this other kid! Priceless. One I shall never forget