Asda launches gender-neutral children’s clothing range

You'd think we'd be able to cope with the idea of babies being able to wear all the stuff in all the colours. Not blue/pink based on their sex, or beige, green, yellow as "gender neutral". Just, lots of different colours and styles without people deciding that some colours/styles are only suitable for some children.

Oh come on, we all know what they are.

Blue dungarees with a little sailor on for boys

and

Pink flowery dresses with little matching socks for girls.

Clothes that, in the real world away from MN, most (well a lot) people choose for their babies/children without second thought.

I do agree, I'd like to see more frills and cuteness on boys' clothing. But you already have people on MN raging about men wearing women's clothing.

After all, males in ancient civilisations wore heels, jewellery, makeup and skirts! The "rules" only started from the Victorians. I personally think if you draw such strict, arbitrary, boundaries then people are more likely to believe they've got gender dysphoria or whatever, just because they like frilly or glam stuff.

I like the look of these clothes!

Christopher McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education — another conservative pressure group, feels that “gender-neutral clothing should be offered alongside gendered clothing including blue for boys and pink for girls”.

“Many parents will be alarmed that Asda has joined the bandwagon seeking to abolish gender,” McGovern added. “Babies and infants should not have to carry the burden of adult neuroses.”

Surely the whole girls = pink, boys = blue thing is another example of adult neuroses? It only started from the Victorian age or something.

In fact I'd argue that having such defined colours and clothing (and hobbies, careers, etc) for each gender is more likely to make someone think they're born in the wrong gender – when really no one said women can't wear blue, men can't wear pink, women can't play football, men can't do dance, etc.

As usual- unisex and gender neutral means boys stuff that girls are allowed to wear!

I could go on and on about gender-sterotyped clothes for children, such an early and basic form of stereotyping😠

Years ago I used to make a note of the slogans on boys'/girls' t-shirts and complain to the shop, but gave up after getting so many blank stares back..

Boys' saying Here Comes Trouble and girls' saying Daddy's Little Princess etc.
Boys' having pictures of tractors, girls' butterflies, that kind of thing.

I think the extreme stereotyping of children's clothes came as part of the backlash against 70s feminism. Pinkwashing/fairies/princesses took over and controlled little girls' imagery of what being a girl means.
Coming to think of it, it also seems to define what being a girl means for today's TWAWs!

With all of it: colouring books, bikes, umbrellas... When I was a child, the assumption was that parents would have two or three DC, and would want to be able to pass things down, so a lot of stuff was unisex.

This was in an era when I thought a bit eccentric owing to my passion for toy cars (boys' toys - I descend from engineers on the paternal side). Girls were supposed to play with dolls - but still got the same t-shirts, scooters and lunchboxes that their brothers did. It was probably easy to be a tomboy then than it is now. At least then everyone knew you were still a girl, even if you were assembling Lego whilst wearing stripy t-shirt and plain jeans. No one was fretting about your gender identity.

Great. Now I'd like to see it with children's birthday cards.

I agree with others. How is this being marketed as something special. Having neutral options should be fucking standard.

When my teen was an infant/toddler they wore a huge range of colours and characters. Why did baby/children’s clothes ever become so ‘gendered’? When I showed my teen what mermaids was pedaling as Barbie and GI Joe, they were fucking horrified.

Shopping for baby/toddler clothes shouldn’t be this hard.

They look a bit dull too be honest. I used to love the boys section in h&m for more neutral but fun stuff for both girls and boys. My daughter wore a lot of the clothes I'd saved from her brothers as they were bright and fairly neutral. She was far harder on her clothes than her siblings so girly pastels didn't last two minutes.

It's not a huge range. There's one dress and leggings set alongside dungarees, jumpers, trousers, baby gros etc

To me, these are totally run of the mill baby clothes in a range of normal bright colours. If Asda are claiming something special about them then that's a bit weird given how utterly standard these clothes are.

All retailers need to do is change their advertising and store layouts to make clothing ‘gender neutral’. Some girls want to wear navy t shirts with dinosaurs on whilst some boys want a sparkly pink t. Group all the clothing by item type and age then bobs yer uncle!

Yes, I think it's virtue signalling.

I used to love Mothercare's Little Bird range. Lots of red, white, yellow, blue and green. Just normal colours to suit any child.

And my younger child used to get his big sister's hand me downs, pink baby grows and all. He was a baby and cared not a jot! 😁

I used to dress them in unisex denim dungarees and matching red t-shirts.

She now gets his hand me down t-shirts, coats, trainers, swimming rash vests etc.

'Are these clothes for non-binary babies?'

Let me answer that one - no.

Obviously people can buy more neutral colours etc but I suppose it is nice for parents who want to avoid overly gendered baby clothes to know there is a selection where they can find that. But @spottedinthewilds does ask an interesting question as to whether it involves dresses or skirts... 'gender neutral' does tend to mean 'boy-coded' is presented as the neutral norm!

Used to be known simply as unisex...

Maybe I am wrong and they have gender neutral for older children too. I have only found the Little Angels one for babies so far.

It is most welcome.

I used to buy my kids a lot of clothes from Asda as babies and toddlers. Easy to find vaguely gender neutral clothes there. However now my eldest, DD is over 5 I find the clothes for that age are mostly rubbish in both boys and girls sections. Tops almost exclusively character pictures (loads of which she wouldn't even recognise) and girls sections almost every top is cropped. I just want some colours/patterned clothes in practical, normal lengths for my kids, I really don't think that's too much to expect. It's a shame the 'gender neutral' line won't do bigger sizes. I buy more of DD's clothes from Next nowadays instead as find they have a greater variety of nice and practical stuff in both boy and girl sections for over 5s.

Has anyone seen the whole range? are there any skirts or dresses or are we making everything masculine?

Unfortunately they seem to be only for babies. What a shame.

Usually these days, little boys get dinosaur or super hero /combat terrorist gear. Little girls get the sweet kittens and other nice animals,and too many pinks and purples.

It's usually about the quantity of fabric used, and the colours.

If you go to a random store and compare a t-shirt aimed at 4 year old boys with a t-shirt aimed at 4 year old girls, the girls' t-shirt is much more fitted.

Clothing for young female children is cut to make them look thinner and smaller. By contrast, boys' clothing is oversized, and cut to make the wearer look bigger.

What do you think they are?

I don’t see how they can claim to be the first supermarket to offer gender neutral kids clothes? Every supermarket sells basics like white babygrows, plain sweaters and jogging bottoms in black, navy, grey, cream, which are all gender neutral. Sorry but Asda is talking bollocks here.

What in the name are "boy and girl-specific” clothes?!

the clothes look fine
good to see the adapted range too
well done ASDA I say