Trying to be more gender-neutral with baby

OP, agreed that traditional women's roles have broken down in some ways, but as other posters have observed, we live in a more aggressively gendered world, especially for children, than ever before. Young women take the brunt of this, imo, taught to obsess over their bodies, the female image is relentlessly sexualised and openly mocked everywhere they turn. And all young people exist in a deafening whirlpool of advertising, where the message is that what matters is what you buy, you're supposed to express your personality and values through consuming (and yet castigated for not working or saving, but that's another thread...) with little in the way of creative, fulfilling work, education or training available.

It's complicated, is what I suppose I'm saying, but if I had to talk about all the problems young people today have (and I don't think that "very aggressive young women" are top of my list of concerns) I wouldn't be talking about either the breakdown of stereotypes or the value of the traditional female role, no. And if young people are angry, I think there's a lot to be angry about.

One of the few good things going on today in this country is that women have better legal rights than ever before - to own property, to leave their marriages and relationships, to be protected from sexual violence (did you know that rape within marriage was legal until the 1990s?), equal rights to work and pay. I say legal rights because I am all too aware that in practice, women's lives continue to lag men's - poorer, less employed, more vulnerable, less visible (another whole other thread...). None of that would sit particularly easily within the traditional female role, which I am not nostalgic for for a second.

ChunkyPickle your DS is still a baby of course he likes pretty things and playing my DS is a 6' 14 years old and is a young man you have to compare like with like

I don't think you need to worry about gender neutral or boy/girl characteristics.

I want my children to be kind, generous, ambitious, strong, confident - those aren't male or female traits.

I want them to be physical, wear bright, practical, fun clothing and be able to run, jump, climb and throw and kick a ball - those shouldn't be male or female traits either.

I think the thing with feminism is ensuring your child isn't disadvantaged or held back because they are female. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be female, should be more male, or shouldn't have a gender at all.

I suppose the question (for me) is: how can I give my children room to express themselves? They need to discover their own interests and persue their own goals etc without feeling the need to conform especially to what I want, and by extention, what society wants. We all rather have to conform as society is about compromising our liberties with those of others. Being competely unconstrained by societal norms is the definition of physcopathic behaviour.

Where am I going with this? That choice of clothes, jobs and interests should be areas where we should be having very little imput. Instilling socital norms, on the otherhand, along the lines of politeness, respecting others and so on, we should be having a lot more imput.

I don't believe girls don't go round bashing other girls because they are imitating boy behaviour. I don't believe dressing 2yo girls in boys clothes will encourage them to act like boys.

No wonder young boys grow up into confused men err, do they? Wan't aware of this myself. Can you give some examples?

Ridiculous sonlypuppyfat - I have a boy, and whilst he's always gravitated towards things with wheels (and zeroed in on cars in particular now), he couldn't care less about any of the other gender stuff BECAUSE HE'S 2 if he sees something pink and sparkly, he thinks it's pink and sparkly, not that it's something for a girl.

He's not confused about his gender, he's not confused about what he's supposed to be. He's praised for being kind when he shares, he's praised for being brave after his vaccinations, he's told he's pretty if he's playing dressup with necklaces, and strong when lifting up a 4 pinter of milk, and that feels liks the right thing to do.

DP is rubbish at traditional masculine stuff, so I do the majority of DIY, car stuff etc. and I'm barely adequate at housework (or perhaps I just don't care) and both of us are secure and unconfused about who we are.

DS is being raised as DS, not as a generic little boy. How can that be wrong or confusing.

Oh purlease

Its like people playing games with childrens gender just to seem right on and trendy

No, it's nothing to do with being right on and trendy. It's about not putting little ones into pre-determined boxes whether or not they fit.

How might anything mentioned here confuse boys?

No wonder young boys grow up into confused men, with no merit givern to traditional masculinity. Its like people playing games with childrens gender just to seem right on and trendy

Spirited, it's a lot easier to sell more stuff if you can convince people with mixed sex children that they can't just hand-me-down everything.

As the mother of two girls I honestly have never had any trouble buying them clothes that are not pink. There is a massive variety out there! I also have no problem buying them pink clothes- after all I sometimes wear pink myself, just as I sometimes wear blue, yellow, green etc. It's just another colour.

What I don't really understand is why the lines between boy and girl stuff has got shaper and less flexible than it used to at a time when girls and women are meant to have the same opportunities as boys/men and homosexuality is more accepted (so you'd think sticking to gender norms would be less, not more, important). Mind you, things are still difficult for transgendered people.

My DS has some clothes from Next and ASDA George. Both do have the usual pink and blue things, but also have a lot of bright animal things which are unisex.

A couple I know are refusing to tell anyone whether their baby is a boy or girl, until the kid turns 2 or asks. Given the ridiculous amount of stereotyping that I swear has got worse in the last few years (or maybe I didn't notice so much with ds, but 4 years later with dd I notice the contrast in expectations and interactions?), I rather wish I'd done the same, but there weren't any gender-neutral names I liked.

I told my mum I wanted bright colours for ds and later dd, not blue/sludge nor pastel pink+sparkles. She's told me repeatedly she thought I was just being fussy at first, until she first went into the children's sections of various stores and was horrified. I understand she has written to John Lewis to express her disappointment. :)

It's the really subtle stuff that must have a huge influence over a decade or so - like ds goes to stay+play and workers will offer him animals or blocks or cars. He quite likes the last two but animals are his real obsession. Dd gets offered animals or dolls or kitchen play - nothing stopping her playing with the blocks and sand and cars, which she likes, but over time, she's going to wonder if she's really supposed to because she's always asked if she wants to play with a doll. And the staff all swear blind they encourage all kids to play with everything, but without keeping a tally of every word out of their mouths and confronting them with it, which would make me look like a terrifying stalker (I've blogged it instead), it's very hard.

Ha.. Tea and Kittens @ Daily Fail Link :)

This is a really interesting discussion.

We also decided not to find out the sex of our child before birth, partially to avoid the blue/pink divisionary stuff and give ourselves and our unborn child a chance to be thought of in an ungendered way - rather than through the eyes of we're having a son/daughter and the assumptions that brings. I was rather preoccupied with feminist/gender issues whilst I was pregnant.

We had a boy. He's now 10 months old (and lovely). We still favour brightly coloured, practical clothes with as little gender overtones as possible - with the practical goal in mind of being able to pass them down to younger siblings of either sex. When we bought him balls (ball pit style) to go in his travel cot, we bought the traditional primary colour sort and we bought the colour selection that had pinks in it. Then we mixed them together. I intend to do the same with duplo and lego when he's older. As far as I'm concerned, both boys and girls should be free to play with all the colours. We will also try to have a range of toys - dolls, trains, animals, food, sporty, crafty things, dress up etc.

I had a real mix of things to play with as a girl and had a variety of interests that weren't either typical or totally untypical of my gender. I'd like my children to have the same choices. I also try to be openminded about what future interests/hobbies/career my child will have, and delibrately keep my mind (and those of people around me) by throwing out suggestions that aren't typically male to balance out the stuff society will expect of him.

I saw a lot of that 'pinkstinks' type of thing when I was pregnant and I can understand where it comes from as I was never a girlygirl and I'm sure it is well intentioned. I agree that only trying to steer girls away from all that pink, glittery stuff is a problematic solution. For instance, I think you have to be very clear that the reason you think some of the pink stuff is bad (early sexualisation/objectification, lowering of female aspiration, limiting interests to a few, approved female ones etc) is different than why boys and some grown men think it is bad (eugh, girly stuff!). The last thing you want little girls to think is that being a little girl is a terrible thing that you want her to have nothing to do with being a girl and the only way to be worth something is to be a boy.

What I want to happen is for girls to have a huge variety of things that being a girl encompasses, in fact pretty much all the same things that boys have (except penises, I suppose). It should be about children all having access to the same opportunities/interests/hobbies, not just the few things that boys aren't into (or are socialised not to be into) and which are packaged in pink. The idea that girls aren't into sciencey stuff, unless they are told they can be with a pink box and a make-up theme is extremely insulting. The default shouldn't be that other stuff is for boys.

I know what you mean about socialising boys to be more nurturing, and some of the other things that girls are traditionally expected to be. I want my son to be caring, just as I want any daughters I have to be strong and clever.

You have to be careful about the whole Thatcher/Rebecca Brooks thing. They were women. They weren't particuarly nice. But a lot of men aren't particuarly nice either. I think a lot of the nastiness in the press directed at them, isn't particuarly because they aren't nice people. It's because they aren't nice women - which is sexist. Ruthless, unsympathetic men are often applauded for being single-minded, strong, and unemotional. Brooks wasn't really any 'worse' than the Murdochs or past male editors of the paper/or sister papers but a lot of hate was directed at her. David Cameron and his cabinet have some pretty Thatcherite policies, but again, the hate extended towards Thatcher is stronger.

It happens that I don't feel these traits (to the exclusion of empathy, compassion, etc) aren't appealing in men or women, though as a feminist, I don't think women should be punished for them more than men. But yes, I believe in encouraging boys to be kind, gentle, thoughtful, creative etc, just as much as girls. But I don't think that encouraing girls to be strong, atheletic, clever, ambitious etc is a problem. They won't all turn out like the women you dislike.

Get thee to H&M, wjere they have a great selection of unisex stuff in nice bright block colours. DD has items from.both the boys and girls sections. A lot of her clothes are being kept for dc2, regardless of whether they are boys or girls.

I dont buy anything pink, but thats because she gets these from relatives so I dilute it with other coloured items.

Haha, same here UniqueandAmazing. In fact I still have it somewhere because XP insisted on stealing it from the hospital

All hospital blankets are usually the same colour under the NHS at least, because it would be silly to be constrained by gender. What would they do if they ran out of blue and some hormonal new mother got all offended? Easier to stick with white or that hospital green.

"It's easy to spot the newborn girls from the newborn boys in any hospital nursery - the pink and blue blankets are a dead giveaway."

my dd's was mint green.

Sorry this is a Daily Fail link but pertinent to the thread.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337814/The-death-gender-neutral-clothing-New-book-details-history-blue-pink-gender-synonymous.html

It bears out what I said about much more colourful and gender neuter clothing being available in the 60s and 70s.

I grew up a bit of a Tom boy (on a farm) and am now a biomedical scientist. In my line of work there is very few 'girly girls'. The only girly girls (or rather women) are the medical secretaries. The contrast is quite staggering. Not sure whether this is coincidental or the way people where brought up but it is noticable.

DH was born at the beginning of the 60s, and I've just seen a picture of him at 15 months.
he's wearing floral, baggy shorts with straps.
you can't tell if he's a boy or a girl.

I understand where you are coming from but you are probably over-thinking this. Just buy clothes that are comfortable and practical, and when your child is old enough to have a view, let them have some choice.

I have a DD (2.3) and personally, I dislike both the pink/sparkly way of dressing girls and the self-consciously non-conformist style of dressing 'gender- neutral', which generally means mostly boys' clothes. There is nothing wrong in dressing a girl in girls' clothes, because there is nothing wrong in being identifiable as a girl.

As far as toys go, I think it is a good idea to have a wide variety of toys that encourage creative play. My DD's favourites are her duplo, her toy kitchen and her doll and buggy. All of these things seem to be popular with boys too.

I suppose it's that, in times gone by, children were just that - children. There wasn't a massive difference between girls and boys because all children were children. It was only once they got old enough to start thinking about a future career/adult life that girls were steered towards housework, childcare and typing and boys were steered towards woodwork and engineering.

Now we are so very consumer-based, everybody is a consumer and that applies even from the earliest age. Children would never have been seen as consumers in the 1960s as parents (probably mothers) did all of the decision making and buying (or making) of toys, clothes etc. Now there is so much over commercialisation it makes economic sense for retailers to create a divide and hence create a "need" or desire in children for this in pink or that in camoflage, not only so that the children themselves want and demand things that are advertised directly to them, but to create the feeling in parents that there are "boy things" and "girl things" and that the two are discretely separate.