To think that the ELC should realise that some nurses are male. And some doctors are female. And some men dance ballet. And some women engage in piracy on the high seas. Etc.

[missedith01]

"For the little princess in the family we have great feminine outfits like Butterfly Fairy, Sleeping Beauty, Ballerina and Nurse?s uniform. Why not add a medical case for that extra touch of authenticity.

The boys are catered for too, with great Doctor, Policeman & Fireman uniforms, not to mention fantastic Pirate and Knight costumes. All these can be combined with a range of accessories so your child will really look the part."

www.elc.co.uk/children%27s-dressing-up-outfits/5540,default,sc.html

Reminds me of when I was in hospital as a 9yr old, awaiting surgery. I pressed the call button for a nurse and a male nurse came over - I said, "No, not you doctor, I want to see a nurse."

He said, "I am a nurse".

I then said, "But you can't be, men are doctors and women are nurses...".

I can still remember the evil look he gave me before mincing off!

LOL at Keira Knightly comment

This really annoys me. FFS its 2010. I'm amazed they're not selling corsets and balls and chains for the girls...

Great post from Beveridge - I have nothing more to add.

I visibly recoil from their prices, let alone the pinkness.

Just plough your own furrow. I made matching home-made Ben 10 outfits for my two girls recently (and no, not of the girly character) including yellow duster 'fireballs'. They were ace.

I don't object to girls being called princesses on their website, as long as they also call boys princes and have a full range of powder blue knickerbockers with silver trim, plus pageboy wigs and litte lord fauntleroy jackets.

I never go in ELC now.

"Some men dance ballet"

Very true but not many of them tend to wear a pink tutu

until recently, my 7 year old dd thought that all doctors were women. not sure why, as our gp is a man, and usually its a male doctor at the surgery.

YANBU I have complained to the ELC over their dressing up costumes and the pink globe (which has a mermaid in the sea! since when was a mermaid a real living creature!). Both times I got stock replies about how they try not to be sexist or gender specific. I replied to say they were quite obviously failing and should try harder!

I also complained to Sainsburys when I saw the boys dressing up was a doctor costume etc. At the other end were the girls outfits and I sighed when I saw what I thought was a pink doctors outfit. I really got annoyed when I got to that end of the aisle and saw it was actually a beautician's outfit. So boys could be a doctor, explorer etc. Girls could be a princess, fairy or a beautician. I didn't get very far with my complaint, but I feel obliged on DD's behalf to keep trying!

YANBU! I am that this exists in this day and age!

I remember at primary school having a maths book with a question of 'what do you want to be when you grow up'. You had to ask the class to pick a career from the ones given and then fill it in as a graph. Boys choices were Footballer, Doctor, Astronaut. Girls choices were Secretary, Teacher, Nurse. I got annoyed because I wanted to be a doctor - I have never forgotten how unfair it felt. This was the mid 70s and I have often thought since "Thank God no one would ever print that kind of crap now" - how wrong I was!

This old chestnut again. If the ELC offer a blue and a pink version, buy the blue. End of story. If there is a doctor's outfit in the 'boy' section, buy it for your dd if you want. They sell what people buy. If you didn't buy it, no one would sell it. Take some responsbility. And don't give me pester power as an excuse. It's not for the ELC to dictate what you buy your children.

what children dress up as doesnt influence career choice or futures.in that case id be a full time fairy

dont attribute too much significance to pretend dressing up costumes. you are the adult, you can talk about careers,choices

Rockbird - I'm sure most of us don't allow ourselves to be dictated to by a shop. I always buy the non pink version of things for my children, it's not difficult, and just because someone somewhere has decided that they need to categorise the items in their catalogue/website or whatever by gender doesn't mean I'm going to think "omg I can't buy the police outfit as my dd isn't a boy and it's a boy's outfit".

However, I get so cross with the subliminal messages, even unintentional, that boys like/do this and girls like/do that. In 2010 it is madness.

The ELC have quite some form in this regard and it's definitely go worse since DD1 was small in 2003. Frankly I have stopped shopping there, and urge everyone to do the same!

rockbird makes a good point which is sort of what i was getting at earlier... it's not ignorance or sexism that makes them do this... it's just the knowledge that they will make more money this way. The benefits for them are always going outweigh the downsides (how many people, relatively speaking, will actually boycott?) - unless I guess the negative publicity gets very bad indeed.

Rockbird I agree with you in that this is the practical approach and what I do for my DD to avoid living in a world of pink (she is still too young to choose her own stuff atm!)

However, do you seriously not see something fundamentally wrong with the website SPECIFYING who wears what and being so sexist about it? Imagine if this was in racial terms...

"For the white child we have a lovely doctor outfit, for the black child we have a rapper outfit - so cool!"

It is JUST as offensive to do this with gender.

Of course you can teach your children differently and of course what they dress up as doesn't directly affect what they become, but this kind of thing does add to an overall social conditioning that is sexist and encourages girls to be passive and value prettiness, and boys to be active and value action and achievement. It's WRONG.

They have got worse, when my eldest was born in 2002 they were quite good at not stereotyping.

However, you have to bear in mind that it is the parents who do most of the choosing and buying of toys. It is the parents who read the website. Parents have their own minds and can choose to buy what they like for their children, regardless of what a website tells them is suitable.

I refuse to go in ELC these days, have sent so many complaints about the blatant sexism and undermining of females, two examples:

The Golf Set, on the side of the box it says 'play golf like your dad'

The farm couple are called 'The farmer and his wife'.

FFS!!

PMSL Carbonated and at sm's "I'd be a full time fairy" - do you know what the pay and conditions are like??

And the choice is so limited - how come my DCs can't dress up as a finance assistant or a computer programmer??

I totally agree with OP, but isn't this a question of marketing and profits rather than pushing any kind of agenda?

The unpalatable truth is that gender stereotyped merchandise obviously sells. If it made commercial sense to sell non-gendered outfits etc then they'd be doing it.

So is it the shop to blame, or the attitudes of customers? Angry MNers are a self selecting and relatively small group of the population at large.

I dare say that much as it grates, most parents out there in RL think that naturally, pink goes for girls and blue goes for boys etc.

good point MZ - also a big customer must be grandparents too
I know my mum & dad haved started talking about getting my dolls house out of the loft now DD is coming up to 1 - never mind that ds is 3!

Agree with OP.

But I also think the ELC should realise that they are far too expensive for what their toys are. They have cornered the market really as far as toys are concerned and their prices reflect that, so much so that I rarely shop there, prefer to look for the same stuff on-line, much cheaper.

SPB, my otherwise lovely MIL was heard saying of bikes for her DGCs 'oh it's great all the things you can get for boys, there isn't nearly as much for girls' etc etc. Meaning all the good bikes came in khaki which made them unusable by anybody with a vagina.

Absolutely, grand parents may be stuck in a pink/blue time warp. Not to mention all the hapless uncles and aunts stumbling in buying something 'for a five year old girl' etc etc.

There are loads of shops (in 'nicer' areas!) that do sell totally right-on and non gendered toys, books etc. But these aren't mega stores and they never will be. The mass market demands pink and blue.

God, this kind of thing makes me sooooo mad.

Yes, the stereotyped stuff sells. TBH, fairy outfits for boys is a niche market. But, WTF to a doctor being male and a nurse female.

It is not simply a question of choosing the doctor outfit for DD, it's the insidious cultural message we send to girls that 'some things are for boys'. That's part of the reason we have so many teenagers to who think page 3 girl is a career aspiration and why engineering has a dearth of women.

Cultural messages matter. As others have said, think about it if it was another form of discrimination. How about "for your Asian and White children, there is a fabulous doctor's outfit. For the black children, there is a wonderful security guard uniform." See how hideously bigoted that is. Why isn't there the same distaste for labelling real life outfits (not talking specifically about the princess/fairy/pirate stuff now) for sex.