to be totally fed up with all this gendered talk?

[AGCG]

Why is it that nearly every mum I meet wants to neatly categorise all the babies into two groups: boys, who all behave in this way, and girls, who all behave in that way - even when the sentence includes the phrase 'oh except for so-and-so' - that is, in the face of completely contradictory evidence, this baby behaves in this way because he is a boy, and this baby behaves in that way because she is a girl. They're not even three months old yet!

It's driving me insane - I currently know 10 baby boys (including mine) and 7 baby girls and, guess what? They are ALL DIFFERENT. No wonder we bring up little gender sterotypes when, from the moment they are born, we are looking at their behaviour in this way, reinforcing everything the little one does as 'just like a boy/girl'?

When I was little, I hated dresses and all I wanted to do was run around and get muddy and then play with lego; other girls wanted to wear pink dresses and play with barbies - isn't this evidence of the diversity of children's likes, dislikes etc? Why do we have to narrow them down to just one choice of colour (pink or blue), one set of toys (dolls or cars), a prescribed set of behaviours?

Grrrr.

It's nuts for babies and toddlers, I think. Babies behave like babies.

When they are older, I think that certain generalisations are true for certain boys, and others for certain girls. However, the overlap is huge, and exceptions are many.

It annoys me with internet shopping when boys' and girls' clothing is separate, even for tiny babies. Why can't they have it all together, at least until a certain age so that I can decide what would look nice on my child?

Because that's traditionally what's done and society runs on most people acting in a certain way. Doesn't mean you have to like it, or that it's right. But I really don't understand the outrage and sheer shock of these posts, like it's only just occurred to you.

Clearly, you only hated the dresses and barbies prehistoric women evolved to like because you had crazy lefty feminist parents who used you as a social experiment. If you do things properly, like dressing girls in only pink and boys in either blue or camo, letting girls' hair grow long and cutting boys' short, not making eye contact with male babies, not disciplining young boys for being too rowdy, then they grow up to be proper, natural men and women who have vast and totally natural differences. It's science, it's to do with berries and hunting and stuff, I read it somewhere.

What I've noticed in browsing shops is that the trousers and t-shirts for even 1-2 year olds are totally differently cut. It's madness. Claiming they have hard-wired evolutionary berry-influence brain differences is one thing, claiming they are differently-shaped is a whole new layer of stupidity.

I don't think it is traditional, though. When I was a baby and child, not everything was pink and glittery. There was a certain seperation of toys, but not to the extent we see now. Same with expected behaviour.

When I was a child, girls dresses were often pink and glittery, and by and large dresses or skirts was what they wore. Girls had dollies while their brothers got train sets. (I'm 2 weeks and a day from being 50)

I think its actually less 'gendered' now than then, it just appears worse because theres so much more of everything, you get whole pink aisles in Toys R Us, bigger than the entire toyshop of yesteryear.

If you prefer blue clothes/thicker T shirts for your DDs, buy them from the 'boys' aisle. If it happens to be in Next you'll find a lot of pink jumpers and shirts there too, as it happens!

Traditional for say the last 50 years. Expected behaviour was worse when I was a kid in the 70's, there really was a gender divide then. I know we're talking about babies and toddlers primarily but I remember the stink caused when I wanted to do woodwork instead of needlework.

All that's happened is it's a bit more glittery. The way people treat boys and girls hasn't got any worse. Generally I don't buy these arguments as I find it extremely easy to dress DD and entertain her in a fairly neutral way. I think people are too quick to blame someone else.

But I will concede on the T shirts! One of the supermarkets has Timmy Time and Chuggington t shirts in the boys section. Great says I, I'll get a couple for DD since the only choice for girls is Minnie Mouse and Hello Tossing Kitty. But they are cut completely differently and looked odd and baggy on her. Try getting an Igglepiggle t shirt for a girl, it's impossible.

agree grimma. Mum rebelled and played with Dinky Cars. my wardrobe bears the scars....

'Hello Tossing Kitty.'

ROckinRobin - why does DD need to wear close fitting clothes, though? You could get her t-shirts from the 'boys' range - presumably they don't look 'odd and baggy' on boys, so why should they be seen as such on a girl?

My daughter sometimes wears dresses, sometimes a t-shirt and jeans or tracksuit from the boys section (which are often much better for active play)

I do agree that it's silly to have different cuts though. Kids' clothes should be cut for maximum movement and comfort regardless of gender.

I really really hate that sickly pink colour girls seem to be expected to wear. Why does everything have to be that colour?
And boys stuff is all so dull and macho, but still better than what the girls are stuck with.
It did used to be different. I remember wearing my brother's hand-me-downs which were usually those early eighties tracksuits.

The thing is, it's about more than just clothes-it infiltrates everything. Boys are encouraged to be "pirates" girls "princesses".
Boys are encouraged to do things, the focus on girls seems to be very much about how pretty they look, from a scarily young age.

Also people say things like "boys have no concentration" which pisses me right off, as my son has excellent concentration. And he is good at tidying up. And he thinks about other people's feelings.
But then I am a crazy feminist performing a social experiment on him and I am sure he will be gay.

Is it just me or does 'Hello Kitty' seem not quite appropriate to anyone else? I think it looks kinda like the playboy bunny but with a soundtrack of Sean Connery saying 'Pooosy' to Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.

OK, its just my mind... but DD wouldn't be seen dead in them anyhow so doesn't matter

I agree. I do pick people up on this.

I have two boys(who are very different in interests and behaviour). I think that having two of the same sex puts you in the position to see that some things are down to birth order, or personality, rather than gender (which I might have assumed if one had been a boy and one a girl)

I agree NorthernRock.
Don't care about pink particularly, but I hate the Pretty vs Playful thing.
We are passing our body-image obsession onto babies ffs. Causes so much harm as they grow up.

It's not close fitting that's the problem. I like her to look reasonably neat, as much as a grubby toddler can, but they hang funny and look odd and consequently look scruffy. As far as I'm aware, the body of a 3yo boy and a 3yo girl are fairly similar from the waist up so I don't know why there needs to be a difference in cut.

I do agree that there may be some gebral difference, but with a great deal of overlap in the middle.

I also know that whilst girls academic achievement and ambition has been encouraged, compared to when I grew up in the '70s and '80s, there has also been more "pinkification" and "pornification" of girls. I can't help wondering if this is no coincidence ie "reach high but society will still slap you down by objectifying and trivialising girls"

If I were a mother of girls I know I would worry about the greater pressure on them now to be brilliant, beautiful and sexy

gebral = general

It's not the pink that really pisses me off (although it was when I was pregnant but now I know more and am a whole new level of angry) it's the fact that girls' clothes aren't made for running/crawling/squirming around the way boys' clothes are. Tights and dresses?she's only 7 months and they still end up as a scarf.

Any dresses dd gets this Christmas are going right back and I'm getting the stripy fleecy joggy bottoms I've seen in Gap and some tank tops. And I don't give a shit if she looks butch.

yanbu, AG.

And it's nearly always women who spout the biggest amount of claptrap on this subject.

DD is 16 months and I'm seeing gender expectations creeping in in a big way. Of our NCT group, we've got one dad who won't let his son have a toy kitchen, and when we were round at another's and DD was playing with their toy garage - I said "we should get DD some toy cars" and DH looked exactly like this but a bit less yellow.

Butch is cool Unrulysun. And trakkie bottoms are God's work.

YANBU. I love the notion too that when they are babies there's not a difference but then when they are older the 'natural' differences are evident. Cos of course we all know how children grow up in a vacuum

You know about this organisation? (seeing as SGM has already posted my other link )

It's all a massive scam to make parents buy 2 of everything. When I was younger I had my brother's hand-me-downs (and a couple of dresses) and we played with the same toys. Now, stupid parents are persuaded that if they have 2 children of different sexes then they need to buy new clothes, new toys etc.