To ask the school... WTF

[bookeatingboy]

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

Lazy and disappointing. I'd definitely ask why.

It wouldn't bother me at all. But having payment cards is a bit archaic. The school need Parentpay.

I think it's fairly obvious why. Someone thought it would be 'nice' to give the boys blue and the girls pink because so many people dress their boys in blue and their girls in pink! Not everyone thinks particularly analytically about these things. That doesn't make it right but it's more worth seeking assurances that this won't happen and explaining why you believe it to be important, than it is to demand explanations of the bleeding obvious imo.

I meant ask why to make a point and open up a discussion.

Being disingenuous isn't necessary though, surely? You don't have to act all FBI every time you want to make a point. Just explain why you believe this is a bad idea.

any other colours than pink and blue fine - the stereotyping of pink and blue is the bit that is wrong for me. I can see a need for e.g. where its not easy to know if a name is male of female and it is a large school and or new admin staff etc for dorm sorting

Gosh, I'm really worried now that I occasionally dressed my daughter in 'dangerous' pink clothes thirty odd years ago! Oh ok, no problem, just remembered, she also did wear some of her older brothers hand me downs, so hopefully she hasn't been scarred for life!

I would ave a word with the school tbh and ask them if they usually treat boys and girls in a such a separate way and are keen on stereotypes too.

It might well be a genuine mistakes but the fact the person who thought that one out didn't think it was an issue is .

As for the dorms... do you mean that they know the children so little that they cant tell from the names???

Get a white card and copy everything on the b/p card onto it. Then return that one.

user the issue isn't about whether your dd was wearing pink when she was little.
The issue is

• they felt the need to treat boys and girls differently (and make that difference obvious) in a situation that didn't require to make a difference between boy and girl (It's a payment slip not a pass for the dorm or the changing rooms!!)
• they have used a very stereotyped way to segregate boys and girls which leads me to wonder if this is a common thing happening in that school (It does in my dcs school btw. The stereotype of the boisterous noisy boy but the calm and demure girl is rife amongst teachers for example)

If they were treating them the same, then they should have had a same colour card for everyone though.

Why the need to make it different, apart from the fact that in someone's mind, bys and girls are different and that needs to be highlighted?

Surely the teachers know the children and therefore know what sex they are so colour coding for sleeping arrangements is unnecessary?

and if it is for room allocation then just tell the kids that but I very much doubt this is the reason

*Today 08:58 Tanith

*I've seen first hand the damage the pink blue gender assigning does and it's really dangerous. "

I think you'll need to elaborate a bit on that*

Oh god really? We really don't.

It's for dorm allocation as has been said. Unless you don't give a toss whether she shares with the boys? It's just a simple quick system for the staff. Nothing to clutch your tits about.

"I've seen first hand the damage the pink blue gender assigning does and it's really dangerous. "

Damage and dangerous. Oh please stop with the ridiculous drama. What danger will the kids be in then?

Nothing to clutch your tits about.

Gamer

Emotional danger, damage to self esteem.

I didn't get it myself till quite recently. And through reading an awful lot.

It's not the colour pink that's the issue, it's the assignment to gender.

What has the payment card got to do with dorm allocation? Weird system. Presumably they'd be checking who'd paid and who hadn't long before they went firm on the numbers to the venue.

I can't believe anyone would think that the colours of the payment cards has anything to do with dorm allocation!!

Do you honestly think a school doesn't know whether students are male or female? What kind of records do you think they have?

Bollocks is it anything other than ridiculous and outdated gender stereotyping. Very tiresome.

I'm withdrawing my post as I feel it's too identifying.

But children can become seriously confused by gender stereotyping which is what I have witnessed, to the point of wanting/ believing they must change sex. To later with support realise they don't need to change sex to enjoy gender stereotyped pursuits/images/colours.