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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask the school... WTF

458 replies

bookeatingboy · 01/12/2016 22:55

DS came home yesterday with a payment card for his first residential trip next year. The cards were blue and apparently all the girls got pink cards!

Some of the girls asked for blue cards and were told that blue is for the boys and pink for the girls

OP posts:

WouldHave · 04/12/2016 08:46

So is challenging or avoiding gender stereotyping always the least important thing on a school's agenda, NotYoda?

Yes, the use of a figure in a skirt to label women's loos is also potentially stereotyping. However, the original question referred to ladies' and men's sign, not those that use symbols.

NotYoda · 04/12/2016 08:48

WouldHave

Nope. But pink and blue cards are.

yellowpostitnote · 04/12/2016 08:48

Yes you're right Yoda.

I think I was just working at the base level of colour I did think about that!

All hail Richard Scarry, late on its grandma pig who is running the farm!

WouldHave · 04/12/2016 08:48

toldmywreath, sexual assault arises from stereotyping because it causes a perception that women are inferior, less intelligent and weaker beings whose wishes are irrelevant when a man wants sex or wants to grope them.

WouldHave · 04/12/2016 08:50

NotYoda, logically if time in schools is so short they should just use the same colour card for every child. Ordering separate pink and blue cards, ensuring you have enough of each, allocating them, and dealing with children's requests for cards of the other colour takes up unnecessary time.

NotYoda · 04/12/2016 08:51

GravyAndShite · 04/12/2016 08:53

This is a matter of not wanting them to regress.

How is continuing to label girls a blue and boys as pink a regression?

yellowpostitnote · 04/12/2016 09:01

Actually I think in way the colour is more difficult. The female skirt symbol isn't plastered on toys. The colour is. And those toys are very different.

Culturally and traditionally in recent times (when toilets were invented) women mostly wore skirts. They don't now, that is equal, though men tend not to wear skirts - as actually they're less practical if you really look at it. So yes, the symbols could be seen to be a gender stereotype, but it could also be a visual comment on their biology, save an actual vulva or a penis. Better that it says M or F ideally.

Because industry makes separate toys for boys and girls, and tends to divide and assign by colour, the pink blue is the issue.

But this isn't something I've though of a great deal before and I'd be glad to explore it further.

Lorelei76 · 04/12/2016 09:01

Vox....you didn't tell them to code pink and blue...? You're kidding?

Surferbabe · 04/12/2016 09:14

"Very much a first, second and third world problem. An equality problem." Succinct and very true.

voxnihili · 04/12/2016 09:59

Yes I did. I'm trying to prepare my students for exams and using any method I can to help them. They were the colours I used - a couple of students find colours don't help them and wrote M and F instead - that is fine and I wasn't going to force the issue. Likewise, if any of them wanted to use different colours - as long as they meant something to them and they would remember I wouldn't have minded.

FWIW, I'm female and grew up as a complete tomboy. I spend a lot of my spare time working with girls challenging gender stereotypes. I do not however see the issue with a colour.

yellowpostitnote · 04/12/2016 10:02

told

If you aren't keen to educate yourself as to why this potentially is an issue to question, why bother engaging in a debate about it?

And you clearly do need to educate yourself as you then ask a question about the links to sexual assault.

Bumpadaisy · 04/12/2016 10:42

I would LOVE you to be my boys' teacher. I would also be livid with this. Who says blue is for boys and pink is for girls? It is really damaging.

I have two boys and one of them loves pink, he is also a long haired boy who loves to wear braids for school. His classmates have never known him any other way so they accept him for who he is. His twin brother is a stereotypical boy, bolshy with a 'boys' haircut and loves green/blue. They are who they are and are happy. If their school had insisted on both of my boys taking a blue card simply because of what gender they are that would have ended in a meltdown for my two as one would have been able to get his preferred colour while the other didn't.

Children are children and it is adults that tell them they can/can't like certain things based on their gender. It is things like this that adults thing nothing of that impresses on our children that they must 'fit in' and adhere to stereotypes. This is when they start to hide who they really are and start to be embarrassed about being different. School is such a crucial time for our children and it's so important to just let them explore and discover and be whoever they are and discover their own likes and dislikes, whatever they may be.

Moustacheriri · 04/12/2016 10:47

Don't worry OP. A friend of mine used to be really girly, everything pink when she was a little girl but she's lesbian. it's just a card.

Beewaldorf · 04/12/2016 10:54

If their school had insisted on both of my boys taking a blue card simply because of what gender they are that would have ended in a meltdown for my two as one would have been able to get his preferred colour while the other didn't.

Really? My DS detests grey but I don't think he would have a meltdown if he received a grey card. If one day your son that loves blue needs to wear a green/grey/pink uniform would he have a tantrum too?

blissfullyaware · 04/12/2016 11:00

"If that were true, how come boys often react with horror to the idea of having something pink, but blue is usually fine for girls? How come if you walk through the boys' clothes department you'll see no pink, but there's plenty of blue in the girls' department? "

Just an observation - by the time they (boys) have grown up, pink is quite a nice colour for mens shirts and men wear them all the time for work etc. So the colour stereotyping doesn't appear to affect /damage grown men then??

Some hilarious posts. Especially "Nothing to clutch your tits about !!!" Gamer

mumofone1234 · 04/12/2016 11:05

Busy, from your latest post it is clear that you do not even know what 'gender' or 'stereotyping' mean. I think you're on the wrong thread. Go and find one with bigger things to worry about

NotYoda · 04/12/2016 11:09

blissfully

Good point.

voxnihili · 04/12/2016 11:13

Bumpadaisy - I'm assuming that comment was to me. I typed out a rather long reply but then decided against posting it.

I still think that it is just a colour (my view is probably clouded by me completely not conforming to my traditional gender stereotypes and not caring what colour something is - I'll still use something if it is pink). If they'd used purple and orange, some students who'd got purple may have preferred orange. If they've then said anyone with a pink card can only do 'girly' activities while anyone with a blue card can do the adventurous stuff that would be wrong.

I think whoever suggested that it is a way of ensuring an equal number of boys and girls going is probably right - the pink and blue was probably a way of ensuring no one was given the wrong card.

I will change what I do and rather than suggesting the colours I'll get them to pick. I'm sure a lot will still choose pink and blue as it is easier for them to remember but at least I won't get the complaints. I only used pink and blue for factual statements (e.g. males produce sperm) and nothing that is a stereotype.

blissfullyaware · 04/12/2016 11:46

ooo another observation- in my daughters school - the boys are taught rugby and football in winter/spring terms and then cricket and athletics in summer term.

Whereas the girls play hockey and netball and then gymnastics and athletics. With a bit of rounders thrown in. They all go swimming.

So is this gender stereotyping?

blissfullyaware · 04/12/2016 11:56

and another one - the girls have to wear a specific school skirt in winter and dress in summer and the boys have to wear trousers - is this gender stereotyping aswell?

they also have different PE Kits reflecting the different requirements of the sports. And the tradition such as whites for cricket (boys).

All the kids and parents love the school, it has fantastic results and the kids are well rounded, keen, enthusiastic, polite and inspired individuals.

Will they end up damaged ?

bangingmyheadoffabrickwall · 04/12/2016 11:58

WTF?
You are really that bothered by coloured cards????

BertrandRussell · 04/12/2016 12:13

It would be nice if people just did the bare nminimum of finding out what gender stereotyping means before joining in a discussion about it. Would you join a discussion about existentialism, or the best way to bake a Victoria sandwich or Italian politics or binomial theorem or off road vehicles or King Lear's fatal flaw without at least doing a quick google?

MysticTwat · 04/12/2016 12:16

ooo another observation- in my daughters school - the boys are taught rugby and football in winter/spring terms and then cricket and athletics in summer term

Whereas the girls play hockey and netball and then gymnastics and athletics. With a bit of rounders thrown in. They all go swimming.

and another one - the girls have to wear a specific school skirt in winter and dress in summer and the boys have to wear trousers - is this gender stereotyping aswell?

So is this gender stereotyping?

Yes

Well I'd call it old fashioned sexism.
Why can't the girls play football/cricket rugby. Why can't the boys play rounders/netball/hockey?

Did you miss out on the years of campaigning so girls could wear trousers at school? Why can't girls wear trousers for school. Why can't a boy wear a skirt?

BertrandRussell · 04/12/2016 12:33

"ooo another observation- in my daughters school - the boys are taught rugby and football in winter/spring terms and then cricket and athletics in summer term.

Whereas the girls play hockey and netball and then gymnastics and athletics. With a bit of rounders thrown in. They all go swimming.

So is this gender stereotyping?"

Just straight sexism. As is girls not being allowed to wear trousers. Or boys skirts, should they wish to.

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