High heel shoes/provocative clothing

[thejanuarys]

Just been watching Sex Education show on C4 and founder of MN was on. Essentially, consensus is that it is inappropriate for young primary aged girls to wear high heeled shoes/girly-adult clothing. I agree. However, my contention is that it starts before primary age. My four yr old is begging me for princess dresses and disney character high heeled plastic shoes. Other mums I know allow their children to 'play' in these items, providing disney/high street shop versions of make-up, nail varnish etc for girls. And my kid goes to a good nursery! So far I have playfully/skillfully said 'no'. I will continue to do so until she is 14 at least! But it is my/our responsibility to say 'no' to children. Yet, if articulate, intelligent parents are allowing children to dress up, wear make-up and dress in princess dresses, then of course girls will begin to covet them. On the rare occasions I allow my daughter to dress in this way at playdate etc, she is invariably greeted with 'what a lovely/pretty princess' type comments. The shops are to blame (I rarely take my child shopping with me, so temptation/exposure is limited) for being opportunist, but parents are the ones who are ultimately responsible for indulging;/allowing their children to be seduced by the disney marketing machine which will lead girls to believe that being 'girly' is as, or more important than being funny, clever, kind, capable. It is way too late at primary school age. I am very concerned because these girls, whose parents do not have the skill to impose boundaries, will be the ones exerting peer pressure on my daughter, making my job a lot harder.

I'd love to know who "YOU" is, but in case its me - my DD is't dressed in "gender neutral brown cord and a pudding bowl hair cut"
I am no more trying to modify my child's choices as are the many great multinational corporations who will sell her the "pink is good, pink is weak" story. The fatuous idea that Disney Princesses DONT fall into the gender trap is simply ludicrous. Disney has been selling a message since the 1930s. That they may, in the last couple of years, have introduced slightly more bolshy girls, doesn't mean that the "disney princess" magazine isn't a complete copout from mother to daughter,

As I keep being told by the feminists on here feminism is about equality of opportunity so surely both boys and girls should have access to all dress up clothes - sparkly and pink and bob the builder and ben 10? Dress up evolves with age anyway. My DC's dressing up and/or imaginative games are not the same as they were when they were toddlers, or pre schoolers, they've gone from character based to career and role model based play. Don't stress.

Sausage, you will never see a female ballroom or latin dancer in flat shoes. It has nothing to do with orgasms, or looking good for a man, it is all related to movement.

If my child wanted a dress that was pink and sparkly, and speficially asked for it, I would buy it because it is her choice. However, I wouldn't make a fuss of it like it was something amazing because it's just a dress.

She picks her clothes, she has a fair bit of say in what she wants to wear and so far she like purples and yellows. No browns, brown is a bugger to get actually.

tethers I'd love to know what "pink" and "girly" things ARE of value, and what that value is. Seriously.

CareyFakes, thank goodness no brown cords! I guess I was trying to make the point that however much you try to keep children away from societal influences, it's really hard, and doing so can make the things 'banned' more tempting than they would be otherwise. I still remember asking for a Girl's World two years in a row for Christmas, and the disappointment at being told I would never never get one. Ditto, Barbies, I just wanted one. I now wear make-up every day of my life, but have a good career not in any shape or form based on looks. Is that a success on my mum's part or a failure?

I only limit music in this house (it's a flat really but I wanted to big it up).

I have 4 sons and they all had dolls to play with as children - was their choice of play - my eldest 2 sons had a penchant for ladies hats and handbags (or flowerpots worn on the head) but it didn't make them gay

My 2 daughters are not very girly - my youngest (5) refuses to wear a skirt (apart from school skirt) and is far happier wearing jeans ....with bum crack showing like a builder and if she is made to wear a skirt, she wants shorts underneath

I just don't 'get' the whole gender issue because it is a non issue unless the parents make it so

The value of pink and girly is a happy child. Would you stop a boy from wearing blue and stomping around in bovver boots? CareyFakes way of buying clothes sounds similar to myself where DC have a fair amount of free will where colours and style is concerned and sometimes gender specific clothing does sneak into the pile of clothes shocking as it is DC like them!

sausage, to be angry with the colour pink is to spectacularly miss the point.

Pink has come to signify 'girliness' and 'girliness' has come to signify weakness. It is the signified which needs challenging, not the signifier, the colour itself.

Pink was originally a boys' colour.

Would you feel any differently about a blue princess dress? Of course not! (I hope)

Why don't the male dancers wear heels then? If it's "all related to movement" (and not just making the women look taller) then wouldn't the men need heels?

spiderslegs: "Try not having a TV. Really. They don't ask."

Seriously? Wow!

I am now questioning whether my commitment to my kids' wellbeing stretches as far as giving up our telly...conflict conflict, arrrgh! What will DH and I do in the evenings? Talk??

By the way, I was the girl in the gender neutral clothing with the pudding bowl haircut. I wore only neutral colours (brown, beige, green) and given tools and building stuff from an early age. Trying to break down gender roles isn't a new thing. It didn't make any difference to me I don't think, if anything it told me that appearance was very very important, so important my mummy actively didn't want me to care about it like other children. I still secretly wanted to be the pretty one at school, the one with blonde hair and the pink dress (I wasn't blonde and was wearing more cord by this stage). Perhaps I still do.

Melpomene, the men do different movements to the women. :)

I thought some male dancers wore Cuban heels?

I wear heels everyday (because I'm a shortarse) and I wear make up everyday too because I look like a corpse without it but I wouldn't encourage my children to do the same

My mother never wore make up and neither did my dad

I just like to make myself look the best I can - doesn't make me a bad person and it doesn't make me feel like I am doing it for the benefit of men either - I have been married long enough to know that my husband loves me warts and all

tether, of course my issue is not with Pantone 255, 192, 203 - it is what it stands for. What it stands for NOW. It may be the case that little boys will always want to stomp around in mud and little girls will want to be prissy in pink but I am going to try my damnedest to ensure that my daughter doesn't have role models who believe that the way to happiness is dressing up beautifully so that one day a bloke will come and "rescue" them, and thereafter always do the plumbing/carpentry etc and be the breadwinner.
Whether she chooses to go down the route or not, I want my daughter to grow up in the full belief that it doesn't matter whether its her or her partner who can bring home the bacon, but that she is equally capable on a practical, intellectual and logical scale of doing either the parenting, or the breadwinning or both.

I know a little girl who at 4 insisted on wearing her princess dresses everywhere, even had knock down drag it out scream fests about having to wear sport shorts instead of a skirt/dress at school.

She is almost 8 now and wouldn't be caught dead in a dress, jeans and trainers the whole way.

DS1 had a couple of princess dresses at 3, he liked them, I saw no reason why not.

Being 'girly' isn't automatically a bad thing, the problem IMO is that women are considered less than men so in order to be successful/taken seriously women need to dress as men do.

How come when women wear traditionally male clothes they are taken more seriously but if a man wears traditional women's clothes (i.e. a skirt or a dress, or something pink) he opens himself to being mocked?

DD's role model is me, she doesn't have a father. I wear mascara, have the odd dress, like jewellery (cheap tat, can't afford the good stuff, student and all that), hve tonnes of makeup as I love it but rarely wear it all, adore shoes higher the better, but I also have self worth, value myself, have confidence, strive to better myself and LOVE DIY. I will let her know that although equality is far off and I won't see it in my lifetime, she might and she is able to do anything she puts her mind to, regardless of gender.

Being girly isn't a bad thing, but I wouldn't instill in my child that wearing dresses is girly and pink is girly. It's a colour, a colour should not have an undercurrent of gender specifics.

DD has lots of dress up outfits ranging from dresses to camel.

I hate this. One of my dds is very 'girly' and loves clothes the way my ds1 loved Thomas the tank engine. She 'designs' clothes, dresses a little eccentrically and has been known to drag my across a shop to marvel at a neck/collar/hem/pattern on an item of clothing the way that ds would try to make me look at trains. She has recently started to wear trousers after a 3+year absence. She asked for fabric for her 5th birthday so she could make dresses for her dolls and herself. She did love the disney dresses etc but she is a bit past that now (almost 6) but she hadn't seen a disney film at that age.

I am very aware of the negative comments she gets relating to how everything she likes is shallow and worthless and she won't amount to a hill of beans. My son got nothing but praise when he went through his gender stereotypical totally normal Thomas phase but she just gets a load of tosh about how mummy won't want her to get her clothes messy (mummy doesn't give a shit and dd knows this) and how she can't climb trees in a dress (she can, she can also ride horses, bikes and do everything else she wants) and even from one woman, loudly to me but (imo) meant for dd "My dd hates wearing dresses, she wants to do everything the boys do, she even loves maths!" wtf!. DD is actually quite bright, in the top groups (if that means anything in Y1) and has some numeracy sessions with the Y2s (one of 3 in her class who get this) she is also funny, hard working and ambitious and interested in lots of things but so many people just see her as a one dimensional 'creation' with no ideas or personality of her own with her 'girlyness' being something bad that has been 'done' to her rather than her inherent nature.

We didn't have a telly when dd was little, but she still wanted to dress up as a princess. At 14 her ambition is not to marry a sleb, but to audition for RADA. It was the dressing up that mattered, not the princess.

Hey sausageremodel it's a beautiful day here and at 27 years of age I am making the most of it in a mini skirt, vest top and pink sparkly wedge heels.

Guess what I'm planning to do today once DS takes his nap?

Get under the car, change the oil out, weld the suspension brackets and re-gap the spark plugs. I then need to get on with writing a presentation for work (financial analyst).

What a person chooses to wear has no bearing on intelligence or principles. I'd be more concerned that by actively refusing to allow your daughters the oppurtunity to dress how they want to you will be putting ideas about how it is bad to be a girl in their heads.

Actually, rather pissed off with you OP. My little sister is 11, loves all things pink and girly, wears skirts and little dresses, is begging for high heels for next years school shoes.

She has been accepted onto the gifted and talented programme in four subjects. She recently decided she didn't want a boyfriend as they are distracting.

Oh, and you can't run or fight in heels? You are a captive are you? Tell that to the bloke who tried to rape my best friend. He got a stiletto heel in the groin.

My DD (3) loves all things pink and girly. After dressing her in leggings and muted colours for two years, she simply decided one day that she just wanted dresses and pink things. Fine by me. She knows her mind - I am encouraging this (even if I am sick of the sight of pink). I am not going to tell her that pink is negative, that pink signifies weakness - these are patriarchal constructs which tell us that anything feminine is worthless and feeble.

She watches Barbie films and she likes to pretend she is a princess. She also pretends she is a jaguar, a baby, a dog, a doctor and a builder. When she is a princess, she pretends to meet her prince. When she is a doctor, she makes people feel better. These are roles that she is trying on.

I can let her wear all the pink in the world, play dress up and pretend to be a princess and it does not mean that she believes this is her only choice in the future. I am her primary female role model, not Barbie. She sees that I can be a parent, a breadwinner, a wife, someone who looks after the home and that these are all choices I make.

I talk to her about Barbie and about how she is sometimes a bit silly and can rescue herself and how being kind is the most important thing in the world. I talk to her about how lucky I am to have all the choices I do because of having a good education and working hard at school.

I want my daughter to have a strong character, to know her own mind, to treat people kindly and to be confident in her choices. Patriarchal structures are unfortunately unavoidable - avoiding pink is like facing a machine gun but feeling pleased you are not wearing sandals.