Mumsnet Talk

Boys will continue in old (not pink) strip.

Can someone please articulate for me why this is wrong. (I know it is)

Because it reinforces the recent stereotype that pink is a girl's colour. There have been plenty of pink threads on there. This is a recent phenomenon. There are plenty of instances of males wearing pink clothes, and of men's sports teams playing in pink - football and rugby are cases in point. Why not tell the team's coach that you think it more sensible for all teams in the same club to wear the same strip?

Won't that be incredibly confusing?

Where did the idea come from - did girls on the team/the girls team insist they couldn't play not wearing pink, or what?

It is "othering". Boys get to play in the regular sports kit. Girls get to play in pink.

Depends on who chose it. If the girls themselves picked it, fine. If not, unfair to force a stereotype upon them which sets them apart from male footballers.

Hang-on, is this a separate girls' team? Or a few girls within a mixed team? Because if the latter, won't that make games really confusing?

It is a separate girls' team, aged 14 and under.

I think it may have come from some of the girls, my daughter is very upset about it though.

I feel that having different kits for girls and boys sends out the wrong message across the whole football club.

But are they all the same club, e.g. Mumsnet Utd? Or are they different team names? I have never heard of any club at amateur level having different kits for different age groups/squads.

I have also never heard of the players being consulted about the club colours. These are usually based on colours chosen when the club was founded.

Namechangeguy, yes they are all Mumsnet Utd.

So you think there should have been some consultation about changing colours?

I think it devalues the girls' team to play in pink, the rest of the club has played in blue for 25 years.

Blueness, I'd be asking the coach and the chairman why every team/squad does not play in the same kit. It is nonsense. Ask them why no other squad gets to pick it's own kit.

Blueness all the teams at our club wear the same kit. All the girls wanted to change to pink but the club wouldn't let them (that is - the men who make all the fucking decisions and do not listen to women).

I have sent an email to coach saying that the girls should feel proud to wear the team colours, I wanted to gauge feelings on here as to what the salient points were first.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks all.

If they changed the entire kit to pink across the board then it wouldn't be a problem. But of course that wouldn't even be a possiblity would it... partly for the reasons FlyOverTheMistletoe says.

I am not surely devalue is the right word though as that implies pink is a lesser colour (which of course it would be seen as lesser hence why the whole club is unlikely to change). But it does single them out from all the other teams and again highlights differences that really shouldn't be highlighted. Hence my "othering" statement.

Good luck with your email, but I can assure you the coach of our girls team doesn't care what they wear, he's too busy trying to find a ref or praying that the ground will be fit to play on.

Flyoverthe mistloetoe - 'all the teams at our club wear the same kit. All the girls wanted to change to pink but the club wouldn't let them (that is - the men who make all the fucking decisions and do not listen to women).'

I am a bit lost here. Are you saying that the girls' request should have been granted? Why?

That's interesting FlyovertheMistletoe, you don't think the boys and girls should wear the same?

How depressing. As Abigail said, it is the 'othering' that would bother me. Fine if every team in the club pick their own kit (though blooming expensive as you move ages). But if the rest of the club wear blue and the girls wear pink, it is marking them out as different. As other. As sometheing which isn't the main club.

It's wrong because it says very loadly "look we are girls playing football" as if that's something unusual and special.

Well flyoverthemistltoe, in that case it sounds like your coach would have had more important things to do than arbitrarily change the color of your teams kit in the first place?

Do you now have to buy a new kit OP?

No I wont have to pay for the kit.

That seems to be the case Startail.

Exactly DoingIt - our coach wouldn't change it, I don't care what colour they wear, and I don't think it should be changed just because they asked, but I do think someone at the club could have acknowledged them, and I see no reason why the boys can't wear pink.

So the boys have to play in blue?

That's stereotypical.