Please could someone help me articulate an email to Asda regarding these pyjamas?

Most of my sportswear is black or dark grey

When I got my running leggings about three years back, Asda and Tesco did not have them nor tops without pink on. I went online to get interesting cycling jerseys. If things have improved since then, great.

when a little boy wears pink he might be mistaken for a girl, and in the eyes of some that would be a very bad thing.

Imagine that, people being annoyed at being misgendered. Girls don't like getting mistaken for boys either.

Also perplexed at the claim that all sportswear for women is pink. That's news to all my running gear, which is mostly black with bits of other colours on - green or orange mostly - or hi viz.

It’s that or go “non-binary” for all childrenswear and we know that these boards won’t stand for that either.

I think you'll find the opposite is true. Most rational minded people, of either sex, believe there is no such thing as 'girl colours', 'boy colours', 'boy toys' or 'girl toys'. Most reasonable people think there should just be colours, clothes, toys etc and that a child choosing something not stereotypically associated with their sex is fine, and does not need any form of intervention.

It's also totally untrue that clothes for girls are all pink.

But many are, and I have yet to see Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirts in the girls' section. I also challenge you to compare the "dolls" and "action" toy sections of your local Tesco. Yes, the sections have been renamed away from "girls" and "boys" but the toys remain the same, and the difference between the colour schemes is striking when viewed en masse, for toys that are fundamentally actually the same! What do you with a Barbie? Dress it up and act out scenarios with it. What do you do with a GI Joe? Dress it up and act out scenarios with it. They are both dolls, but "boy dolls" aren't called that.

It's not just clothes that are pink and pastel, it's toys, running shoes, safety boots, razors, menstrual tracking apps, breast cancer information leaflets, boxes of painkillers that are identical to cheaper ones in formula but cost more and have a pink box because they are marked for period pains, waterproof hiking jackets. All in softer, lighter colours sending a 24/7 subliminal message to women and girls that they are not allowed to be as bold or strong (and I don't mean physically) or loud as men and boys.

I totally agree dividing clothes into boys and girls is rubbish and perpetuates sexism. As does dividing clothes into boys and girls and then putting "princess" and "gorgeous" on the girls and "rascal" and "action adventure" etc on the boys.

But it really doesn't help to pretend you can't get a range of colours in women's and girls' clothes. Of course you can.

I ended up hating pink because it's so hard to get sportswear etc in strong or dark colours instead of pastels and pink.

Really though? Most of my sportswear is black or dark grey, sometimes with some colour flashes which are mostly pink, green or orange but I could have chosen blue, purple, yellow etc too.

Not expensive either, this is from places like Asda and Gap.

Clothing for younger children probably should not be sold as boys and girls. Because it supports and reinforces an implied difference in personality between boys and girls which woild not exist in a none sexist society. Neither should toys. It’s not just pjs.

Only when things are designed to account for sex difference such body shape is differentiation useful

Basically, you want to tell them that you think it's ridiculous that christmas pyjamas need to be split by gender sex

Yes. And that the boys can have pink too and that pink should not be shoved down girl's throats. I ended up hating pink because it's so hard to get sportswear etc in strong or dark colours instead of pastels and pink. I would probably be a lot more amenable to it if I had more of a colour choice when buying outdoors clothes, you know, the kind of choice that men take for granted.

I don't think this is a problem because you can buy whatever pyjamas you like for either sex child. It's not like you have to buy pink, and IMO pink is for whoever likes it. Yes it's annoying that some shops act as if pink is just for the "girls" section, but that doesn't mean you have to. It's also totally untrue that clothes for girls are all pink. Go into any Asda or Sainsbury's etc and there are loads of colour options for both sexes. (Though of course to me it's just for anyone as I would just buy my child what they liked, boy or girl.)

I'm as feminist and GC as they come and I have pink Christmas pyjamas myself. I like pink and I am not impressed if someone says I can't have it because I'm female. That's madness.

@SinkGirl

Why can’t girls be Christmas puddings? It’s bizarre.

Because if a boy is a pudding it's cute. And if a girl is a pudding it implies she's fat and needs to be put on a stupidly ludicrous starvation diet that will ensure she's anorexic by the age of 7.

As for Asda selling pink Christmas pjs for girls - to all the idiots that say it's not important I hope you wake up soon and realise it is important. It's one little message to a young woman that she is a watered down version of a young man. Yes have pink, not red. Be a nurse, not a doctor. Give up your career and accumulate no pension and live in poverty while your ex husband has a big house where he houses his second family.

One small step....

You can get drills and other tools in pink too.

Yes because they make drilling soooo much more enjoyable and easier for us wimmin!

What would really make tool use easier for women would be smaller handles and grips. We have smaller hands and I have suffered several wrist and hand injuries because tools are too big to hold without straining tendons.

Female-specific safety shoes, when I finally found them, had sodding pink on them, why? They're going to be worn on a building site FFS.

Maybe some people like pink? I would buy either pair for my daughter. It's just another colour option. Calm down.

but when a little boy wears pink he might be mistaken for a girl, and in the eyes of some that would be a very bad thing.

You know, there may be something in this, but is it necessarily a terrible thing? It's true that boys and girls can more easily be mistaken for each other. Many don't care, but at some ages or with some kids it does bother them. generally speaking they will grow out of that kind of thinking.

I sometimes find with these discussions that people seem worried about behaviour that is just a normal developmental stage. For example many kids go through a stage of being very concrete about gender norms, they over-generalise and think the "rules" are hard and fast.

Sometimes they totally misinterpret things too like my son who thought that only women were doctors at one point, because all the doctors he saw were women. When I was the same age, I thought that women got curly hair when they got old, like many men have male pattern baldness.

But that's not sexism, that's just the normal process of trying to discern complex social patterns and take them in, which typically is a very rough approximation, which is then winnowed down and becomes more flexible. Kids do it with all kinds of things, its the only real way to get enough information to begin to make connections and live in society very quickly.

Sometimes it seems like parents worry over these stages which are just part of development, and are necessary to get to the next step of thinking and probably can't really be skipped.

FFS, who cares?!

My hunch there is that when a man wears a pink shirt there is no risk of being mistaken for a woman, but when a little boy wears pink he might be mistaken for a girl, and in the eyes of some that would be a very bad thing.

I like pink shirts on men (and women). I just don't like to see little girls in nothing but pink and other pastel colours. So boring to have so little choice!

Why do you think the pink option is "insipid"?

Interesting question.
A few years ago it seems pink shirts for men became popular.
Almost all the office-working men I knew started wearing pale pink shirts.
I think pale pink (as well as pale yellow) is insipid, but it struck me as odd that men were happily wearing what is often thought of as a feminine (or iffeminate) colour.

OP I agree that it is irritating. I hate the pinkification of everything. Christmas pyjamas are red because red is associated with Christmas. Girls don't need their own special version. If contact asda through their twitter feed and call it out to a wider audience.

On the other hand, I'm not keen on the Americization of everything either and the Christmas eve/day pyjamas 'tradition' comes from there. Do people's kids really get the wear out of Christmas patterned pyjamas or do they end up in the landfill outgrown and barely worn?

@NKFell

But is the battle with Asda or society generally. I’d say the latter, so the solution is to just buy what you want regardless of department. It’s not like the boys and girls sections are miles apart

@bd67th

Was a cross post, hadn’t seen your suggestion and actually I agree with it entirely, seems a simple solution all around.

However, it’s not a feminism bashing straw man. You cannot honestly say that if every major retailer changed its childrenswear section to “all children” that there wouldn’t be a backlash from some parts of this site - and that’s not to say they are wrong either. My point was Asda are damned if they do damned if they don’t

Asda do this all the time. They put grey bing top I the boys section I still got it for my bing obsessed girl. And they have Harry Potter outfits I'd class as neutral but always go in the boys bit. It is annoying I always check the boys section now as well.

It's just pyjamas op. I mean . Think of all the poverty and homelessness in Britain and kids going to school hungry etc

Someone has too much time on their hands, just buy the bloody red ones lol

Why do you think the pink option is "insipid"?

Yes, that's the question isn't it. Often when parents rebel against gendered clothing they end up inadvertently giving a much more destructive message, for little girls it's that things associated with femininity or expressing their femininity are lame.

For boys it's less of a problem, or at least it was when I was growing up, now I do see a lot of boys whose parents want to reject gender norms who are getting a message that expressing masculinity is toxic. It's not necessarily a strong message, but it's there and I think a lot more destructive than the message that males and females have somewhat different clothing customs.

Christ. Just buy the red ones. I and my DCs just shop all areas. We don’t care about labels. I’ve been buying boys jeans since I was 12!

I follow Let Toys be Toys and Let Clothes be Clothes on Twitter. This stuff is going on all the time.

So many examples like this:

Little girl: I like the green bike best.
Parent: Great, it looks like a good bike, it's a reasonable price, that's the one we'll get.
Staff member at till: Oh, but this is a boy's bike. The pink ones are over there.

Little boy: I want the t-shirt with a puppy on it!
Parent: Yes, he looks like Nana's puppy, doesn't he? Let's go and pay.
Other child at school: Your t-shirt says 'Girls' on the label! You're [insert homophobic/sexist insult of choice here].

Even when a parent does their darnedest to avoid gender stereotyping, other adults undermine their efforts, directly or by what they tell their own children. It's sad.

Boys who like things for girls learn very young that they are demeaning themselves - it's a sign of weakness that has to be stamped on hard.

Girls who dare to like things for boys get slapped down because it's important to keep them in their place, at the bottom of the hierarchy, being soft and kind and putting boys and men first.