To be 'proud' of DD for her refusal to accept gender assignments for colours.

[Tallaween]

DD is 5 (nearly 6) she is a pretty girly girl in some ways - she likes dresses, and shoes, and sparkles - so she is not immune to gender stereotyping but I have done my best to convince her that there are no boy colours or girl colours. That if she likes something she can bloody well have it regardless of hue or location in store.

As a result her sparkly dresses are generally green, and accessorised with monsters inc headwear and wolf feet with claws (because she's very into monsters alongside her penchant for fairies) which she picks herself from the 'boys' section of the shop.

The other day I was evesdropping on her conversation with one of her little boyfriends and he told her that blue is a boy colour.

She got a touch of The Rage and told him "that's stupid!" Colours are for everyone"

I had a little rush of smug pride at her forthright behaviour and refusal to back down AIBU

Good for your DD, and good for you for teaching her. Casual sexism starts in these small, insidious ways: I do not want either of my kids to feel that they have to behave, dress, look or act in a certain way purely because of their gender.

Putting girls in pink is like that little rhyme: sugar and spice and all things nice. As in, dress sweetly, behave sweetly and be a "good girl". To which I say: bollocks. I am a person, not a gender. I'll behave well but other than that I will behave in any way I see fit.

That's what I am teaching my DD. Just as I teach my DS that "that's a girl's colour" (said disparagingly) is an unacceptable form of criticism. Which he has said, when he was just 4 years old. Why does a 4 year-old with a feminist for a mother say such things? Because we live in a society that is not equal, and where he picked up that pink was a) for girls and b) somehow inferior.

Anyone who can't see that the whole girls wear pink, boys wear blue is a bad thing is as blinkered as a 1950s Stepford wife.

I missed your sarcasm as you were crap at it

Nope, don't think I was, others got it

It'd be nice to think that MN = real world but in this instance it isn't. I have been buying DD's clothes from boys and girls sections since she was born because I'm sick of pink and purple - why do boys get all the other colours?

She's a toddler and looks completely adorable in dungarees and vests. Easy to find "boys'" dungarees but "girls'" either have skirts on the bottom or cost a fortune because only high-end shops cater for them. I still haven't worked out why one needs a penis to operate a pair of dungarees.

I asked this question in Sainsbury's when a green hat was labelled boys"