To think the anti-pink brigade can be a bit OTT

[NeedACleverNN]

I have noticed on here there are some people who refuse to allow their girls wear anything pink/sparkly/overly feminine. A lot of the reasoning seems to be because it sets women back 100 years etc etc and gender neutral stuff.

However the same people are eager to point out they don't care if their son wears it and in fact actively encourage them to do so.

AIBU to think pink is just a colour and if girls want to enjoy pink and princesses and babies and pushchairs they should be able to just as much as a boy can?

[greenbloom]

My mother would not let me wear pink or have anything other than gender neutral toys - I was finally allowed a tiny tears after several years of nagging. She scrapped my ballet lessons at a very early stage and refused to help me do my hair when I wanted it long.
As a naturally very feminine Sindy doll and pink loving girl it did my self-esteem no good at all. I loved sewing and baking and quiet things and grew up feeling I was a fairly worthless individual.
It sounds trivial, but parents should not railroad their preferences over those of their children, without good reasons.

[ijustwannadance]

I love bright colours. I stopped choosing my DD's clothes when she was 3yo as she has her own opinions. She loves dresses and all things pink and my little pony. I am happy for her to wear what she wants. They're just clothes.

And to the 'pink' lego haters who go on about lego friends being the devil's work. Look up scala or belville. Pink lego has been around for a long time. And before friends the choice was castle, pirates, police, fire, dinosaurs, space, monsters, atlantis, trains, chima, ninjago, more bloody police and fire, construction sites, coast guards, bionicle as well as the endless star wars. All with very few female minifigs. Gender neutral? Really?

All I see when I look at vintage primary colour lego is how bloody boring it is. Lego is a business. It's goal is to make money. My DD loves lego friends and disney princesses. They are toys.

If a child grows up with healthy role models and are encouraged to have their own opinions and be themselves then the toys they play with, and clothes they wear as toddlers don't matter at all.

I spent many happy hours as a child in the early 80's surrounded by pink plastic. Barbies, MLP's, dolls and prams, a cute wendy house with an iron and ironing board. Made no difference to my adult life choices at all.

[gandalf456]

I agree about railroading. I see a lot of very adult principles imposed on children who would never understand until much much older when the pink phase is gone anyway. My dd laughs about it now. She hates pink and is very tomboy ish now. At three she wanted to dress head to foot in pink..I went with it as I knew instinctively that it would do no harm in long run

[YolandiFuckinVisser]

In the olden days pink was a colour for boys. Posh boys also wore pretty frocks until they were 5.

My DD loved pink things until she was 8, then she decided her favourite colour is turquoise. My DS requested pink shorts when he was 2, he didn't get them because I buy clothes from charity shops & there weren't any that day. It was much easier to fulfil dd's pink requests. Before she was in school though she always had Clarkes shoes from the boys' range because they were suitable for walking, climbing trees, getting dirty & playing in (not pale pink with a strap and a delicate little butterfly motif)

[MoonriseKingdom]

ijustwanna - I just looked up Scala and Belville being unfamiliar with them. There was a range of Scala Lego jewellery in 1979 but otherwise these ranges appear to be mid 90s onwards. When I was a child (80s) most people I knew tended to have collections of bricks rather than themed sets (although we didn't have much money so maybe why). There is an argument that themed sets of any type place limits on children's ability to create (I am certainly not saying they shouldn't have them).

A range of themes is good. I like the ELC happy land stuff which has things to appeal to many different interests. I just find the Lego Friends seems to be so heavily pushed as a girl thing with a really narrow and stereotyped view of what girls should like. The 'Friends' have a rather glamorous fashion conscious look in the advertising. A few pink bricks in a set would be no problem but these are pink boxes and predominantly pink themed sets. Why so much pink?

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

fairycatavan

I've customised mine so all my posts are pink

How do you do that? This could revolutionise my mumsnetting. derails thread slightly

[MoonriseKingdom]

Apologies ijustwanna I will correct myself - the boxes are purple with pink accents. It does use a fairly narrow colour range of acceptable girly colours.

I think I just worry that this implies it this is the Lego for girls and therefore not for boys and that the other Lego is not for girls. I am probably just bitter that my friends wanted to play barbies all the time and I found it quite boring.

[ijustwannadance]

MoonriseKingdom lego friends is heavily pushed as a girl theme by a company who is making a killing from it. But by contrast the entire lego city range has always been blue and 'boy' themes yet no one attacks that.
As a child we just had basic bricks as yhe sets were expensive but my cousin had a stables and house that had white walls and a red roof but lego in general was much more basic then as a whole.
The lego friends sets are lovely with amazing, brightly coloured lego bricks and complex builds. My DD loves the dolls as they look more like proper people than yellow minifigs.
They are no different to barbies/equestia girls etc in regards to being glamorous.
She builds and plays with the friends like any other toy. Making up her own stories.

I guess I am biased because I love lego and friends has brought with it so much more variety in regards to colours and pieces with which to build.
Themed sets will only place limits on a child's ability to create if they lack imagination or have been told they can only build exactly what is on the box by an adult.

[ijustwannadance]

Also the bricks in the friends sets are many different colours. Greens, blues, yellows, purples, lots of white/beige. They only use the 2 shades of pink brick as accents.
The children that play with these sets imo are too young to care about the themes the adults viewing them see.

[paxillin]

Yes, and he lego friends sets are pop star, hair salon, shopping mall and cupcake cafe. Set off by one camping set. No technique parts, no gears, no fiddly bits for building.

[KaosReigns]

I just hate the fact that the girls section seems to be a million shades of pink, maybe some purple if you're lucky, whereas the boys section is blue, green, red, grey, yellow etc.

Haven't even given birth yet but my house is full of pink clothes, to the point where DP and I seem to be buying solely boys clothes just to get some variety.

[Booboostwo]

I'm a feminist and my DD wears a lot of pink - her choice. She's been choosing her clothes since she was 2yo and has always had a preference for pink, sparkly, tutu-type things, again her choice. DS 18mo wears the clothes DD used to wear, everything but the odd dress, if he wants to wear a dress when he can choose that's also fine though.

I don't think it's about colours, it's about choice. Girls and boys should have choice in what clothes, games, hobbies, etc they like and where this choice is restricted by social attitudes, marketing ploys, or preconceptions of what is appropriate for each gender that should be addressed.

[RaisingSteam]

It is about choice. By colour theming every little thing right down to toy toasters (looking at you elc) there is a message easily picked up that girls territory is marked out only by pink, flower, butterfly, princesses. Children latch onto what helps them understand their identity. What goes wrong is when a kid wants to do something agains stereotyping and gets a conscious or unconscious push back "but that's only for girls/boys" . I think children need the message reinforcing they can use/play/ be anything. It's great to celebrate being feminine but very different to be restricted ONLY to what's deemed to be feminine.

[frumpet]

I remember about 25 years ago , flicking through a Mothercare catalogue and all their lovely little cotton clothes were in a variety of bright primary colours or pastel shades , I preferred the primary colours at the time as I thought that they would be more serviceable on small children . I didn't have children at the time , but would love to see any shop do that range now at a reasonable price , you can get them , you just have to pay designer prices !

[Muskateersmummy]

I really struggle to see this everything cooking/cleaning is pink thing. It is about choice. A quick look on elc for kitchen toys shows lots of primary colours, reds, yellows and yes pink and blue as well. There are options. But people still seem to believe that anything "girlie" is pink. I think that there is plenty of choice, and we frequently choose (dd and I) things that aren't pink.

[greenbloom]

The latest mothercare collection for girls has lots of different colours as well as pink - so maybe someone is listening?

[Waltermittythesequel]

The latest mothercare collection for girls has lots of different colours as well as pink - so maybe someone is listening?

Like I said upthread, I have NEVER struggled to find non-pink clothes for dd and she's 7 now.

[ijustwannadance]

Actually paxillin the friends pop star stage has technique parts, gears and fiddly bits.
Not many younger DC's will understand how to use these type of parts in self builds anyway and those that do will no doubt want or have access to more complex sets and parts.
Big deal that they have a shop and cafe etc. They are toys. Not life defining objects.

[maggiethemagpie]

It does annoy me sometimes when some of the 'ultra feminist' brigade won't allow any differences between the genders. For example not wanting a girl to be given a girl's happy meal.

I'm a feminist (in the sense that I belive in equality between the sexes) and I also love dressing up, doing my hair makeup etc and love dressing my daughter up and have done since the day she was born. I think there can be differences between the sexes in terms of appearance and clothes without this making women inferior.

Pink is just one of the colours she wears, it's not my favourite colour but I do like a bit of pink on occasion and her flowergirl dress for my forthcoming wedding is pink and sparkly and fab and I'd defy any feminist to say I'm anti feminist for choosing it!

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

WhenSheWasBad - in Customise, you have the option to highlight your posts in a choice of colours. Unfortunately, since the changes, I can't find customise, so hopefully someone else will be able to tell you where they've hidden it!!

You can also set it to highlight all the OP's posts in each thread - so you can pick their updates out more easily.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

[blobbityblob]

My dd decided she didn't like pink from about age 3. She just preferred blue/green for clothes and preferred animal characters to princess ones. I get frustrated by it sometimes. For example, there are no girl's slippers that aren't pink or with a princess on in Tesco at the moment. Which is the shop we're most in so I tend to have a look whilst I'm there. Yes I can shop elsewhere but why not just one pair that isn't pink or doesn't have Elsa on them?

I just find it irritating. Maybe that's what sells though. I don't know if dd is more drawn to people of the same tastes but she has several friends similar yet the shops don't seem to be representative of that.

[IJustLostTheGame]

I avoided pink for dd, now she's 3 and won't wear anything else.

The gender biased toys do annoy me. At toddlers I noticed the little boys would play with the toy prams, pushchairs, hoovers, kitchens as much as the girls.
Yet companies seem to be doing 'household' toys in pink, pink, pink with pictures of just girls on the boxes and catalogues. That really gets my goat.

It's not the colour that bugs me (although I'm not a pink lover) it's the implications behind it.

[KatharinaRosalie]

'ultra feminist' brigade won't allow any differences between the genders. For example not wanting a girl to be given a girl's happy meal.

So what exactly does make a meal 'girls'? Is the recipe specially adapted to suite x-chormosomes?

[merrymouse]

duh katherina, it's all about what hormones the cows have been fed!!!

[merrymouse]

maggie, the feminist point would be more that boys should get to enjoy the sparkly pink fun as well.