Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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 Confused

OP posts:
Trifleorbust · 02/12/2016 13:52

The issue with the colours is that they remind the viewer of stereotypical attributes when they are used as symbols for 'girl' and 'boy'. The implication of using pink and blue is that that girls and boys are different in innate ways that require you to recognise them in a colour difference. People (the children) may think when you do this that you support the stereotype of girls as 'feminine' (meaning in the worst interpretations: frivolous, emotional, passive, weaker) and boys as 'masculine' (sporty, rational, less sensitive). It's about the pigeonholing.

misson · 02/12/2016 14:01

Yy trifle

Pink currently tends to go with princesses, frills, sparkles, blonde, well behaved and demure.

Blue currently goes with physical play, loud, active.

Nothing inherently wrong with either. Except when girl=pink and boy=blue.

LivingOnTheDancefloor · 02/12/2016 14:01

ItsAllGoingToBeFine
But in your examples one can be considered better: more years to study to become a doctor than a nurse (no judgement against nurses though!), being paid more/less etc
However I see pink and blue as being of equal "value".

Eolian
I agree with your example. Though men have started wearing pink shirts/jumpers. But I agree, not many would wear a pink coat for ex.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 02/12/2016 14:06

^But in your examples one can be considered better: more years to study to become a doctor than a nurse (no judgement against nurses though!), being paid more/less etc
However I see pink and blue as being of equal "value"^

But they are all things that are ascribed to a particular sex for no reason other than sex.

FlyingFergusFan · 02/12/2016 14:07

Well, it wasn't just the school handing out random colours (that happen to be highly gendered), it was ALSO the school/teacher/whoever telling the girls they can't have the thing the boys got. Like girls asking to wear the same clothes as boys (trousers) but being told no (as happens in many schools).

Yes I do think these little things like colours can be harmful when added up with all the other little things. On all the recent trans threads lots of people keep saying 'but a boy who likes pink is just that, a boy who likes pink. Liking pink doesn't make him a girl/trans.' And yet very many posters think it is a non-issue to say to a child 'pink is for girls' (as happened in the situation described by the OP). So take a boy child who really, really likes pink, but constantly gets told he can't have pink, that pink is for girls, that only girls can like/can have pink. What other conclusion can he draw than 'I guess I am really a girl?' - possibly after a lengthy period of trying to fit in, trying to not like pink, suppressing his genuine likes and dislikes, because they are somehow wrong. And ending up pretty confused.

It hasn't gone that far, but my DS' favourite colours were pink and purple. Up until reception summer term. E.g. he would rather have no new bike than one that wasn't bright pink like his old one.
He had quite a lot of comments from his peers, but we dealt with that with some pre-prepared phrases such as 'colours are for everyone'.
He also experienced that teachers divided the children into blue and pink groups (yes, divided by gender) and he had to go with blue. Had to make blue cards rather than pink ones etc.

At some point in summer term he decided from one day to the other that he hates pink and purple, and that pink and purple are for girls. Since then he refuses even to drink from a pink cup.
Except if he thinks no-one is watching.

I think he has genuinely found a new favourite colour, but I also believe he does not actually hate pink and purple, that he actually still quite likes those colours, but he would never admit it. I hate that he feels the need to suppress his genuine likes. We keep on passing on the message that colours are for everyone, so I don't think our child is in danger of becoming confused regarding his identity, but other children may not have that support. And I hate that it is such an uphill battle, with 98% of the messages he gets being that pink is for girls.

LivingOnTheDancefloor · 02/12/2016 14:09

mission
I would say Girls tends to go with princesses, frills... / Boys with physical play, loud... more than Pink/Blue.
In fact there is a whole range of colours usually associated with girls/boys: girls get the pastels, boys the bright ones.
Very few brown or orange or bright yellow girls clothes. Very few pastel clothes for boys.

Just saying, I see pink/blue almost as a symbol for girl/boy, maybe it is why it doesn't bother me.

LivingOnTheDancefloor · 02/12/2016 14:14

FlyingFergusFan
Interesting perspective, thank you

littlesallyracket · 02/12/2016 14:15

Blue IS for boys and pink IS for girls, isn't it?

Yeah, because we all know your precious little man's cock will drop off if he has to handle a pink piece of card and little girls who prefer blue will immediately grow a beard and develop a voice like Brian Blessed's.

They are colours. They aren't 'for' anybody. It's this crap that sees kids getting bullied every day because they don't fit a completely arbitrary standard that makes zero sense whatsoever, and which puts kids off being interested in things they really like because they only come in gendered packaging. My nephew loved dogs when he was little and wanted to get himself a toy one that came with a brush, lead and accessories when he was given a Toys R Us voucher. But all those sorts of toys were in pink boxes, and he was worried that because it was in a pink box he couldn't have one because it meant they were 'for girls'. Similar situation in reverse with my friend's little girl who loves dinosaurs but gets worried because she can only find them in the 'blue aisle' where everything is 'for boys'. When she wanted Star Wars trainers when she was about five or six and they were all blue, she was bullied at school for having 'boy's shoes'.

This stuff is harmful.

misson · 02/12/2016 14:53

The symbol of blue or pink being for a boy or girl isn't the problem. It's attaching limits that is the problem. That some things are for boys (because they are blue) and some things are for girls ( because they are pink.

That it's ok for a girl to aspire to 'blue things'. After all, those are aspirational things. As long as she doesn't aspire higher than the boys.

But it's not ok for a boy to aspire to ' pink things'. Because they are for girls and why would a boy want that? Because they are inferior (and therefore only girls and gays want them).

It's horrible. In a steady drip drip way. I think if you colour code in this way, it's difficult to separate things out and stereotyping becomes more ingrained.

OnTheTurningAway · 02/12/2016 15:30

It's a shame it's a payment card and not cash. Otherwise you could pay in Monopoly £5's and say "Oh, I thought I had to use pink money too"...

OnTheTurningAway · 02/12/2016 15:33

... oops, you have boys - Monopoly £10s then I guess...

Lorelei76 · 02/12/2016 15:35

Jorah, that's outrageous, have you complained?

I just remembered, my friend's son got bullied at primary because of having a red bag.

Lorelei76 · 02/12/2016 15:39

Living, you sound like you believe in some of the stereotypes
Which in turn makes me wonder if you think a girl who likes science, wears trousers etc should be trans and made into a boy..but my guess is of the colours don't bother you then you might not be aware of current trans issues?

cathf · 02/12/2016 15:42

What's wrong with pink anyway?
Not my kind of colour, but I don;'t get all the MN angst about it.
I think some people need to validate themselves by making a fuss over nothing.

corythatwas · 02/12/2016 16:00

I know I've told this one before but dd, who works in catering, was shouted at and threatened by a customer for putting pink marshmallows on the hot chocolate intended for his son.

Not that blue marshmallows actually exist, but that mustn't be allowed to get in the way of our fear of The Gay, must it?

FurryLittleTwerp · 02/12/2016 16:10

They ought to have given the blue cards to the girls & the pink to the boys just for a laugh & seen what the response was.

Lorelei76 · 02/12/2016 16:11

cath, there's nothing wrong with pink so why don't we see boys wear it more? Or give them the pink cards? You'd be okay with that, right?

misson · 02/12/2016 16:21

furry do you think there would have been a thread to complain or a thread to applaud?

Pigflewpast · 02/12/2016 16:22

One of our local primary schools has blue or pink sweatshirts as uniform. Most of the girls start in pink but swap to blue around yr 2. I've never seen a boy in the pink. I've always found it strange that this choice is offered, why isn't it just blue, or just pink? Or just sky blue pink with yellow spots on?
ontheturning love the Monopoly money idea

Sparklingbrook · 02/12/2016 16:23

Massive applause probably. If anyone even noticed.

rollinghedgehog · 02/12/2016 16:37

Are we sure it's not a lesson that gets followed up the next day with "why did you get different coloured cards yesterday?" A lead in to a lesson on stereotypes? I'm overthinking it...

PacificDogwod · 02/12/2016 16:39

If the the colours had been, say, yellow and green it would still be wrong - why would there be gendered activities or whatever?!

It's not that long ago that pink was the 'boy' colour btw Grin

LivingOnTheDancefloor · 02/12/2016 16:39

Lorelei
Living, you sound like you believe in some of the stereotypes
Which in turn makes me wonder if you think a girl who likes science, wears trousers etc should be trans and made into a boy..

Well I am a woman, I have a scientific degree (students were 10% girls/90% boys at the time) and I wear trousers, but never questioned my sexual identity or my gender Smile

Maybe my posts didn't came across as intended.
I definitely don't think girls or women should be limited to certain careers, sports, hobbies. I don't think women should earn less for the same job as a man.
My DS has a doll and a pushchair, my DD has trucks.

However, when I have to buy them say a water bottle, DD usually gets a pink one and DS a blue one. There is no other meaning to me than one is code for girl the other one for blue. Sometimes the DC want to switch, I don't mind at all.

PacificDogwod · 02/12/2016 16:41

cathf, there's absolutely nothing wrong with pink. Or with blue. Or with any other colour, for that matter.
What is very wrong is the gendering of almost every aspect of our children's lives. The actual colour is just an indication for how deep this division runs.

AND I would like to have choice in kids' clothes rather than the tyranny of pink and blue!

BertrandRussell · 02/12/2016 16:42

"They ought to have given the blue cards to the girls & the pink to the boys just for a laugh & seen what the response was."

I am prepared to bet that a significant number of the children would have objected. Which rather makes the point..........