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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:

Sparklingbrook · 02/12/2016 12:10

Best send a strongly worded letter to the school asap.

Floggingmolly · 02/12/2016 12:17

But what colour paper would you use, Sparkling? It's a bloody minefield...

melj1213 · 02/12/2016 12:21

Or perhaps it's just what the school had available? Why do people have to assume ulterior motives so quickly?

People saying it'd be okay with different colours, why? Either way they're being segregated by gender, really does it matter what colours are being prescribed for a piece of plastic? And if all the problem is is the colour, surely there are bigger things to worry about?

Maybe there were 30 kids, 15 boys and 15 girls ... if they have 20 blue cards and 20 pink cards available because that was what was sent/they had left should they give 5 girls blue cards and the rest pink (or vice versa) or do they just do a straight split of blue for boys and pink for girls? Or maybe it was so that, if one gets found they can narrow down who it belongs to by immediately discounting half the kids. Or if one is missing they can see who it is because they should have X blue cards and Y pink and the numbers are out.

DixieWishbone · 02/12/2016 12:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SpeakNoWords · 02/12/2016 12:28

Oh please, it would be just as easy to use any colours they liked. Perhaps they have a real need to quickly separate the girls and boys payment cards, although I can't think of anything reasonable. If that's the case, you can just use any two colours, no need for specifically pink or blue.

Some people will never agree that small acts of thoughtless gender stereotyping matter.

BertrandRussell · 02/12/2016 12:35

Mumsnet- -a forum for the professional underthinker.

misson · 02/12/2016 12:39

It does matter.

I had a mortgage application form once. Filled in without thinking. Then had to ask for another one. I had naively put myself down as applicant two, because that column was highlighted in pink. Applicant one, to whom all correspondence would be addressed, was coloured blue.

I have a son who much to my would not sit in a pink car seat.

So it does matter, in the drip drip way that these things do.

redexpat · 02/12/2016 12:43

Id be tempted to pay 10/12 of the cost, since thats the gender pay gap.

Lorelei76 · 02/12/2016 12:44

Bertrand, lol.

The teachers don't need to see the cards as different surely? They are payment cards, not dorm key cards?

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 02/12/2016 12:58

Yanbu

These little things do matter

Not life and death but a steady drip drip

Ruprecthepanbasher · 02/12/2016 12:59

Nothing to clutch your tits about - Quote of the year!

I honestly can't see what the issue is here but there are clearly lots of people who can...

Sparklingbrook · 02/12/2016 13:08

Mumsnet- -a forum for the professional underthinker.

And some overthinkers, and some people just in the middle.

Eolian · 02/12/2016 13:11

Oh fgs! Almost nobody thinks the kids will suffer lifelong problems from this one particular incidence of utterly pointless 'colours have a gender' nonsense.

But why on earth would we not want to get rid of pointless gender stereotypes like this if we can?! No, it's not top of the list of awful examples of damaging sexist shite, but it's so easy to avoid doing it, because the pink/blue cards serve no function whatsoever. Schools should be at the forefront of getting rid of stupid gender stereotypes, not lagging behind.

BertrandRussell · 02/12/2016 13:21

Yes of course there are bigger things to worry about. And nobody is losing sleep about this issue.

But we live in a world where a lot of children see pink as for girls and blue for boys. Where a lot of boys won't play with a pink toy or wear a pink top.

Where a lot of push chairs are so gender specific that people feel they have to buy a new one if their next child is the opposite sex. (Well done, big business!)

Where boys and girls are limited in their choices by gender stereotype.

And of course the pink and blue cards are unimportant in themselves. But when the children bring them home, it's adding just a tiny little bit more gender bias to their world view. And, more importantly, it means that somebody at the school, who may have charge of other, more important things, has a pink for girls, blue for boys mindset. And it's not a huge step from that to trains are for boys, dolls are for girls. And that is not a lesson we want schools to be teaching.

BertrandRussell · 02/12/2016 13:23

And could I respectfully suggest that if you think it isn't a problem, you might like to wonder whether it's become so normalized for you that you accept the stereotypes?

JorahsMissus · 02/12/2016 13:31

DS told me yesterday that the boys in his classed are all annoyed that next week the girls are getting to leave the school for the day to go see Annie yet the boys are not! I think that's completely unfair. He said one of the boys asked could he go too as he really wanted to see it and was told no, it's just for girls.

akkakk · 02/12/2016 13:33

www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/pink-used-common-color-boys-blue-girls/

everyone does know that pink used to be boys and blue girls if you go back c. 100 years? current way is far more recent...

LivingOnTheDancefloor · 02/12/2016 13:37

I don't see the issue.
It is not as if one colour is considered "better" than the other one. They are just traditionally used for boy and girl.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 02/12/2016 13:38

Either way they're being segregated by gender, really does it matter what colours are being prescribed for a piece of plastic? And if all the problem is is the colour, surely there are bigger things to worry about?

They are not (I sincerely hope) being segregated by gender, but by sex. However the use of pink and blue cards does suggest the school is pandering towards gender stereotypes.

Sparklingbrook · 02/12/2016 13:40

I wonder whether the dormitories on the trip will be painted pink and blue?

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 02/12/2016 13:41

It is not as if one colour is considered "better" than the other one. They are just traditionally used for boy and girl

In the same way that doctors dress up is for boys and nurses for girls.
In the same way that women stay at home and cook and clean, while men hunt and gather.
In the same way that boys are boisterous and girls are demure.
In the same way that men get paid more, and women get paid less...

youngestisapsycho · 02/12/2016 13:47

Mumsnet always makes boring day at work more enjoyable!

Eolian · 02/12/2016 13:48

It is not as if one colour is considered "better" than the other one. They are just traditionally used for boy and girl.

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? The fact that the so-called boys' colour is fine for girls, but the 'girls' colour would very likely cause teasing and mockery if a boy wears it?

cjt110 · 02/12/2016 13:50

So, what is the reason?

sirfredfredgeorge · 02/12/2016 13:51

That is a seriously schoolboy error grin

Poor schoolboy's always getting lumbered with being the crap ones, when are we going to have schoolgirl errors!

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