Gendered brains

I do find this so interesting. And as PP said Gina Ripon is fascinating on the neuroscience perspective. I have a baby girl, I buy a lot of her clothes second hand on Vinted. Obviously babies all look like babies and you can’t tell girls from boys. I find unless I dress her in pink or obviously ‘girly’ stuff people just assume she is a boy. It’s so odd. E.g today green trousers and multicoloured jumper, everyone sees a little boy. But adult women don’t walk around only wearing pink, it’s strange it’s the norm just for children. Also interesting that historically pink was a colour for little boys, I’m not sure when it changed perhaps the Victorian era?

I think just provide choice. I went from being a 3-4 year old who loved ballet and dressing up as a fairy to a 8-10 year old who cut my hair short and only wore baggy jeans and hoodies (still went to ballet class). Parents always just let me do my thing which I think is the best way. And yes we can’t fully protect them from the ridiculousness of the world we live in!

I read anecdotally about retailers inventing the pink/blue binary in the early 20th century in order to sell more. Makes sense, in that why would a mother buy something new if they could easily re-use the first thing they bought for the first baby, regardless of sex?

Didn't really catch on until about the 80s though, as shown in that Lego advert where the girl is dressed in jeans that now would be considered cut for a boy (gives me the rage that even clothing cuts are different according to sex at preschool age - tight t-shirts and cap sleeves for girls, trousers tight on the thigh with a bootcut?! Standard straight jeans for boys. And what's with the fucking SHOULDERS all stupid and puffy for girls and normal for boys)

I would say that yes, if you dress your girl in a flowery frock and mostly pink, and do not do the same for your boy, they will both assume as they grow up that there are some things 'for girls' and some things 'for boys.' This in itself isn't harmful, though I personally find it tiresome at this level since it implies that girls are supposed to be (or have the default option) to be 'pretty' and boys are supposed to be handsome / manly in darker colours and hardwearing gear. When my two (one of each) were little babies I did dress him in pink and flowers sometimes, but when people said he was a girl I was forced to examine my reactions to that. I noticed the irrational feelings that it was somehow shameful for him to be mistaken for a female. And then I tried not to show those feelings to him.

When my girl was little I dressed her in her brother's hand me downs - some of which were pink and flowery. She was often mistaken for a boy, but by then I had trained myself not to give a shiny shit.

Raising kids as nonbinary is ridiculous however, since some things ARE for girls and some for boys - for example menstruation, and single sex spaces. I just wanted to show them both that in terms of how they presented they could do whatever they felt they wanted to and not be restricted by gender norms.

My boy is rugby mad, straight as a ruler, dresses like a roadman. But he didn't blink when I got him a pink toothbrush. Not sure what that proves haha

one things to consider is that if you dress your girl in pink frilly things and your boy in blue/grey, then other people are also more likely to treat them differently

watch this short video to see an example

(to begin with) I always dressed my girls in fairly neutral clothes (colorful, not strongly gendered) so as to reduce their exposure to stereotypes from others. But they did still get dresses for parties. Any by the time my youngest was 4, she went to parties in Disney princess dresses if she wanted to because I'd given up on being strict on this.

As KellieJaysLapdog says, gender stereotyping of clothes, and hairstyles, etc., took a turn for the worse after the 70s-80s.

I was looking recently at some old photos from the 70s, and honestly, you couldn't tell the teenage boys from the teenage girls - the same [awful!] hairstyles, the same short jumpers with round necklines, the same wide baggy trousers; and the teenage girls didn't have a screed of makeup on.
A photo of primary school kids was similar - lots of jogging tops and bottoms, pageboy haircuts and kicker boots.
Then there was a huge backlash [coinciding presumably with the backlash against whatever advances feminism had managed to make?] and the frilly pink princess butterfly fairy vibe came in with a vengeance.
So anybody who thinks 'I don't like the influence this wall-to-wall fairy princess mullarkey has on my little girl' is not unfairly resisting some inherent eternal girliness, they are resisting a relatively recent massive marketing campaign to sell a frilly pink 'lifestyle' to little girls.
Pink is a nice colour. Frills look nice on party outfits. Fancy little shoes are great on special occasions. No dogma

Expose them to as much as possible of everything within time and money constraints (music, dance, science, sport, languages, maths, arts). And read lots to them. Spend time with them and encourage questions. They are little for such a short time and I found it fascinating.

Point things out. I was very much against pink but didn’t try and stop if they were practical. More against the impractical clothes. I remember complaining to a clothes manufacturer that they boasted about the reinforced knees on a pair of boys trousers being good for tree climbing. There was a photo of a boy up a tree, next to a girl with a short skirt on. I remember chatting to the children about that. I asked the children if they thought the manufacturer didn’t care so much about girls’ knees or that girls should be very careful compared to boys. They said she was tougher! I fed this all back to the manufacturer and then told them about their grovelling reply.

The brain thing forget about - you provide the strong role models until they are secondary school age. Just make sure they have some good sleep and down time to process everything.

I think just giving them the available options to do/wear what they might be interested in is fine. My kids have a very strong message from us that there's no such thing as 'boys' things' or 'girls' things' but other people think that there are.

(Edited to sound less like I'm telling the OP off!)

Of course it's natural to contrast your two children, because they are different sex. What is actually interesting (I find) is if you have two the same sex - then imagine one is actually the opposite sex - would you find things in their nature that you would then attribute to being the opposite sex?

E.g. if you have two girls, one is more sensitive the other more boisterous but both into pink, bunnies etc (as lots of boys are in my experience!).

You can say one is sensitive and shy in a girly way, one is a bossy diva in a girly way. Yet if the sensitive one was a boy you might say 'typical nerdy boy' or the other one 'boisterous boy'.

Or two boys, one 'aggressive' and shouty you might say was, if a girl, emotional. My primary school nephew is super organised and remembers every appointment - if he was a girl this would definitely be attributed to a girly thing!

The thing to remember is unless the correlation between sex and a cluster of traits is really high, it's not particularly helpful. You can't say 'we need to hire a member of staff who's good with kids - women are on average 20% better with kids across the entire population therefore we can only hire a woman'.

Clothes, just wear what they want, ultimately it doesn't matter. It's the stereotyping of behaviours that is really harmful.

No matter what you do it'll be forced on them at school because of the other children. If they are confident in their own likes and dislikes and you support them they should get through it. For instance I have always derided designer items - why should I pay a fortune to advertise the company that is selling me the item, eg. Adidas? That rubbed off on my kids.
My son wore his sister's hand- me- downs at primary school - I used to get comments from other mums about his pink anorak etc., but he loved pink and the garments were in good condition, so why not? (DH loves bright colours too, and has long hair so I suppose their male role model wasn't conventional)
And we've never discouraged them from particular toys or interests. DS is in his thirties and has a lovely collection of My Little Pony plushies 😁

We were all dressed in orange and brown corduroy with identical bowl haircuts in the 70s, society still ended up with a pink toy aisle and a blue toy aisle by the time we had our own kids 😬

Dress your children in whatever you like, as long as it’s, comfortable, non restrictive and non-harmful (and don’t get cross if the frill gets ripped off the pretty dress while your daughter is climbing a tree).

When your children start to show their own preferences for haircuts and clothing support them to choose within your ordinary budget and within sensible health and safety rules.

I’ve always gone for a combo of an expansive dressing up box plus comfy messy clothes at home but closely sticking to the uniform rules at school, which echoes the reality of work life and home life for most people.

The only non-negotiable in the growing years has been properly fitted footwear (youngest is now in the pubertal growth spurt so my Clarks shoes era is almost over, thank fuck!)

Being "a girly girl" cannot be because of DNA, because "girly girl" is a set of behaviours that are culturally defined.

I would say not to get too hung up on avoiding stereotypes; fashions and trends will always exist, and it is always a choice to follow them or avoid them by treading our own paths.

For your kids, you should reassure them that however they wish to dress, or toys they wish to play with, or if they want to play roughly or calmly that is okay, and perfectly normal.

At the same time you can remind them that some people take these issues very seriously, and around the world they are enforced less or more strictly depending on the culture surrounding them.

But I don't think it's helpful to raise a "genderless" child. By giving a girl pink stuff to wear it is equally likely that they will reject it purely because it comes from their parents. Some kids are just like that.

Gina Ripon’s ‘The Gendered Brain’ is worth looking up on this subject, OP.