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

How can this be for room allocation purposes? Surely it's not difficult for them to work out which ones are the boys and which the girls because, y'know, they've been in the school for quite a long time and the teachers know the children in their classes?

Oh, calm down, ffs! I always buy a blue toothbrush for DH, and a pink one for me. Simply because it's instantly recognisable which is which, and stops him using mine because he's forgotten which of the orange/red, purple/white, or yellow/green combos is his.
Get over yourselves.

As for the suggestion that this is necessary because the staff at the venue won't know what gender the children are, these are payment cards. Why on earth would the staff running the venue ever see them? It would be incredibly easy for the school just to give them separate lists of boys and girls if they need them.

You misunderstand, Gamer

I wanted to hear more about this dangerous pink and blue colouring because my first initial reaction was to dismiss it as hysterical nonsense and I wouldn't want to risk the kids through ignorance.

Bizarre really: boys wore pink and girls wore blue many years ago. Perhaps the Victorians had a campaign...

It's lazy and I'd be a little bit disappointed with the school. Blue and pink are just colors and shouldn't be always associated with only one sex. Depending on how often the school does casually sexist things like this I might raise it gently with whichever member of staff is responsible.

Storm in a tea cup here...

"I always buy a blue toothbrush for DH, and a pink one for me. "

Clearly, Molly, you were brainwashed by the song all those years ago

Could it be for room allocations

That was my thought

Has anyone said "Havent you got anything else to worry about yet?" Or said that you are the sort of person who gives feminism a bad name? Or told you to "get over it- it's just a way of distinguishing boys and girls"? Or mentioned tradition? Or talked about their football playing, mud loving girl who dresses from head to toe in pink every day?

I agree with you, bookeatingboy. It's lazy stereotyping, and suggests a mindset we should always question.

Pink blue division is the very thin and seemingly inconsequential edge of a much bigger issue. So I don't think it's right for a school to set the example.

Everyone is free to choose what ever toothbrush they want! If that works at home, it's fine.

I don't think it's appropriate for schools to use given what their staff SHOULD be aware of in terms of gender stereotyping issues.

Oh dear, are the school in trouble now? Are there going to be parents complaining about the colour of the paper?

I thought a previous MN thread had confirmed that political correctness wasn't making people afraid to speak or do things, yet it seems that now we even have to worry about which colour paper is correct.

If you want your sons to have pink I'm sure the school would re-print them for you. Just ask.

www.star2.com/family/children/2016/12/02/challenging-stereotypes/

I work in nurseries. I've seen children 'unable' to play with certain toys because they're the wrong colour. Colour coding according to sex needs to be avoided.

Oh no! A completely arbitrary gender stereotype! Recall the cards immediately before the children become emotionally damaged.......

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/04/06/who-decided-that-girls-need-pink-toys-why-gender-marketing-is-a-bad-idea/?client=safari

tiggy I remember as a child in the 80s a little bit being teased for playing with the girls in the home corner. He was distraught. He started saying he wished he could be a girl.

I remember this as I gave him a big kiss and said "if you were a girl I couldn't do this!" (Oh how naive!) and it cheered him up. But it is heartbreaking to remember his sadness over this. I don't remember staff helping to sort it out.

*little boy

That would go over my head, I certainly wouldn't lose sleep over it.

In our house we have Green for Girls and Blue for Boys. Because they alliterate.

I find the use of blue/pink as identifiers of sex to be so much more prevalent today than it was when I was a child in the 70s and 80s. There's also a this weird reaction when it's pointed out, where people get amazingly hostile and insistent that it's not a problem.

The staff at the activity centre won't be involved in dorm allocation, that will have been sorted in school long before the kids go, by discussion between teachers and children, if my own DCs experience is anything to go by. There's no need for pink/blue payment cards

DD would be a bit as she grew out of pink at about 6, but she wouldn't be traumatised by it.

some people need to give their head a wobble... colours don't damage or traumatise children.

It's unlikely to be highly damaging in and of itself. It is likely to perpetuate gender stereotypes, which are highly damaging.

No, but stereotypically gendered expectations and enforcement of these expectations can. A lazy choice like this might be indicative of attitudes within the school that are going to potentially limit or restrict boys and girls. Then again it might not. The OP will presumably be able to decide if she thinks that's the case or not.