to wish companies would stop making PINK toys

[frogsgoladidadidah]

This popped up in one of my FB groups today. I really feel the mothers pain. My DD loved green when she was little and trying to find green dresses was a nightmare. At least when the princess and the frog came out, I had the option of getting her a green dress up outfit.

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We haven't found loads of pink toys for our 2 year old. We are not fussy about what colours she has and has a vast range of colours. Same for clothes too, she has some pink clothes but loads in other colours. For some reason she seems to have more red clothes than anything else. Her play buggy is purple and we have the IKEA kitchen.

I think some people look for it (to have a moan) so see pink more than anything else. What about blue toys. Should we ban them too?

Children's cars, Google, top row of pictures - 11 cars, 1 was pink.

No blue though!

formerbabe i was going to say similar. If we're going to 'ban' pink then lets 'ban' blue as well. Could be interesting actually!

Although thinking about it i guess the 'girls' isle in ToysRus would be lilac and the 'boys' would be ... green?

No need to ban colours. Would be just nice to see it mixed it up a bit.

I don't think we need to ban colours just more of a range if you were to take pink away from my DD she would be heartbroken it's absolutely her favourite colour of her own choice not pushed on to her and my DS loves the usual blue, green ect but that's all of their own choosing we shouldn't ban colours just more variety

Although only on Mumsnet have I heard people have a problem with pink and blue toys my friends buys here little boy pink dolls and pink prams ect because that's what he wants so colours shouldn't be banned

My son had a yellow and silver kitchen

He also had a blue pram.

They aren't rare items.

I'm glad I can get stuff in pink as my sister is obsessed with the colour

The problem is that you walk into a toy shop and there's a whole wall of pink with toys often coming in pink and not pink versions. Tellingly, it's often the pink versions which end up in the brake, so I suspect the popularity doesn't entirely match up to its predominance.

In the sales

Having fairly recently been in an after school club where there was a sign saying 'girls' pink corner' I have to admit there is a problem. But there are plenty of solutions too. Banning a colour is probably not one of them, though. A whole rainbow of colour and design would be good.

Our son is happy to play with dds old pink buggy and babies and other toys. We have always told him you can like what colour you want to, there are no boys colours or girls colours.

I have also seen buggies, kitchens etc available in other colours too. I don't think there is a need to ban pink.

" What's wrong with with the multi-colour version for girls?"

Nothing, but while there are people who would go for the pink version (which there is nothing wrong with) then the companies will make them. They're in the business of making money after all.

YABVU. My 3yo loves pink. For the first two years of her life we bought her clothes in a variety of colours, a variety of toys etc. We bought the red cosy coupe, a green slide and generally tried not to overly influence her. Guess what? She still turned out super girly and loves pink and pretty dresses and tea sets and dolls. If you don't like pink then don't buy it but a lot of girls (and boys!) do.

Aderyn2016

That was not a gender thing, red and pink where mass produced as they are popular colors so are cheap to manufacture.

You said yourself you could have bought a more unusual color but it cost more and the reason is they don't sell as well so are not as mass produced so cost more.

Even then you where not forced into getting Pink you could have bought Red which is gender neutral.

Face facts if you want an unusual color which don't have the same mass market appeal you should realize you need to spend that bit extra for it.

Like it or not, pink is the most gendered colour by a wide margin. Blue is gendered as well but not to the same degree. Few would bat an eyelid at a girl wearing blue but most would notice a boy in pink.

I hate it when there is a choice of either blue or pink for items which have no requirement whatsoever to be gendered. It does drive me a bit mad that choice is so limited and so gender driven.

I meant the bike is red and pink, not that there was a choice of red or pink.

My point though, is whether pink is popular because we genuinely prefer it to other colours or whether we buy it because manufacturers don't give us much choice. I think that it is true that pink is sern as a girls colour and we have bern conditioned to then buy a 'boy' colour for our sons, this spending twice as much.

I hate it when there is a choice of either blue or pink for items which have no requirement whatsoever to be gendered. It does drive me a bit mad that choice is so limited and so gender driven.

^^This

Plenty of boys and men wear pink it extremely common, you don't notice as much as the clothes are still masculine like shirts or jumpers. It's not like they have to wear pink tutu's which people would be like OK that's a tad weird.

But my DH and DS wear pink all the time and so do their friends, hell one of my DH favorite dress shirts is pink.

Male clothes is just less showy so you don't notice it as much, a girl wearing a frozen dress draws attention as much a boy wearing a cowboy outfit to lunch.

So men do wear pink all the time you just don't notice it.

I took my grandsons aged 10&7 to see the film 'Trolls' on Friday. Every single pre film ad was for girly toys eg My Little Pony being played with by pretty little girls. There was an extended ad about how only one in eight engineers is female. It featured a range of little girls aying things like"I'm pretty creative", "I'm pretty strong" etc.
I felt quite embarrassed for the boys who asked me if it was just a girls' film and maybe we shouldn't be there. In the end they quite enjoyed the film but were still talking about whether it just for girls.

Aderyn2016

I worked in a place that made TV housings back in the day, we mass produced black and silver, the companies wanted to make some different colors so we produced yellow, white, purple, blue and pink.

The TV's inside where all the same but the non standard ones cost $400 more, except the pink that was only $200 more as there was more demand for that variant.

Now TV's are not a gendered item but the pink was the only one that got anywhere near enough orders after the first run to be considered in the next years line-up.

Usally to keep costs down you have to pick a color or two and mass produce, with TV's it was black and silver, toys are the same.

You can bet women do like pink as it was the only TV color that did mildly OK not even Blue sold enough to continue. But women loved the pink TV color.

What annoys me is my ds aged 3 wanting dolls pram, high chair, all accessories. Great, saw a set in mothercare. Pink. Looked for blue option- none. How gutted was my ds!?! 'Mummy my baby is a boy baby like my brother, I want him to have blue like him. Baby brother doesn't like pink, my baby doesn't either'
Needless to say, didn't buy it. The local store has it half price in the window and every time we pass ds says mummy is it in green? Yellow? Blue? I have to tell him no darling, not yet.
I buy him pink. I don't care. But he already doesn't want pink everything. Why is it gender stereotypes win out? So it's girls on the box advertising the baby care scene... I want to raise my son to be proud to be caring and potentially a father. Seeing this at a young age is imo damaging, sending out the wrong message. Companies need to offer more neutral colours. Black, white, yellow, green... Sales would increase I've no doubt.

In fact, just to prove the point, I was able to get a pram for ds, second hand. A silver cross one, black and white. He is so proud to take it everywhere like mummy pushing his brother! And mums of boys often ask where they can buy one, commiserating over the same colour issue...

Why is it gender stereotypes win out? So it's girls on the box advertising the baby care scene.

Because the market for you son is very small. It an economy of scale most girls do like pink so to produce it in one color is a lot cheaper, to make a blue for 1% of the market is cost prohibitive. They could make multicolored one if you where OK with the price increasing quite a bit.

People need to realize this is not a gender discrimination thing it's a cost effectiveness thing and if the item is cheaper they sell more and the main market for their product like Pink so it make sense to make them that color.

Like TV's they are mostly all black now as it a colors the market like and it's cost effective to produce just one color. Sure their is the odd outlier that want's a yellow TV but the cost to make for that small market is not cost effective.

Also why not buy the pink pram, remove the fabric, bleach then dye it blue, it the frame is pink spray it with a paint designed for plastic or metal. This is cost you a bit more but you will get the toy your DS really want's. It can be a fun project too, like when we used to tie dye clothes with my parents back in the day.

Never seen the militant anti gender stereotype til I came on here, nor the determined 'my child will wear a dress if he wants'. Fine, whatever, but the impression a newbie gets on here is that some posters are rabid antis. Very odd.

Plenty of boys and men wear pink it extremely common, you don't notice as much as the clothes are still masculine like shirts or jumpers. It's not like they have to wear pink tutu's which people would be like OK that's a tad weird.

True enough when you get into the realm of men's clothes. Equally when you look at women's clothes, pink is not especially prevalent (DH probably wears more pink than I do as he has a number of pink work shirts).

But when you look at clothes for babies and young children, the gendering of pink and blue is absolutely dominant. My two year old DS really likes pink (given a choice of something like a new toothbrush, he'll pick the pink one). I've looked for pink clothes for 2 year old boys, believe me it vanishingly rare to find any boys' clothes in pink.

Companies sell what people want to buy. If there wasn't a market, they wouldn't make it.

Just looked at toddler boys and girls clothes on the mothercare website - there are 170 pink items for girls, 1 pink item for boys (a pair of shorts).