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

Living, "better than" has nothing to do with it. It's the differentiating that's the problem.

Then that's the thinking/mentality of those individuals... not the definition, a few persons perception does not define the herd...

You cant describe a minority as a majority.

But MsJamieFraser boys are not blue-coloured and girls are not pink-coloured to look at. All your examples are not relevant because those things are the colours you give - the sun is yellow to our eyes, the sky blue, the grass green etc. Christmas colours are green and red because decorations were traditionally made from holly and similar. So, why are boys blue and girls pink?

Yes it could equally be that green and orange were picked for this stupid gender coding, and I'd have the same objections if they were.

I think I'll come back when the OP has found out the reason for the colour coding

neither is black people to look at black... white people are not white, etc....

The sun is not yellow to our eyes its white, we are led to perceive that its yellow... you would think the moon is black and white, guess what its not!!!

MsJamieFraser what is the relevance of that? The human eye sees the sun as yellow, are you saying your eyes perceive boys as blue?!

It's just a traditional view, blue is more widely associated with boys and pink more associated with girls? I don't see why a person of one gender wouldn't be allowed one of the opposite gender's colour, unless they were limited by numbers of course.

Perhaps there is a good reason. Don't ask the school "what the fuck" is going on, be more rational and perhaps ask slightly more politely!!!

"I think I'll come back when the OP has found out the reason for the colour coding"

I don't think it matters why, does it? There's nothing intrinsically wrong with segregating boys and girls- itnis simply the colour choice that's the issue.

The relevance is speak the human eye does not see the sun as yellow, scientifically we see the sun as white, we perceive it to be yellow.

Bertrand

Yes it does matter

This is an administrative aid, colour coded, for the use of the parents. Not a toy for the child.

I simply don't agree with you that this is an good example of harmful gender stereotyping; it's simply the allocation of a well-recognised code.

yES i KNOW i SAID i WAS GOING, AND i REALLY AM NOT

oops!

I really am going now!

Yes, we perceive the sun as yellow. Do you perceive boys to be blue when you use your eyes to see them, and if you do, do you think everyone else does too? (this has got quite odd...)

When DD1 started Nursery (school) she was told to choose a peg for her coat. No sooner had she hung it up on the peg with a picture of a tractor it was moved. Apparently that was a boy's peg. Because if she chose the tractor the only pictures left would be things like a flower, butterfly, rainbow etc. When I asked exactly why that was a problem the response was "because the boys won't like having a girl's picture."

And this is why the OP is right to ask.

(I did make a fuss. The tractor was reinstated the next day. However, extra 'boy' pictures were provided so they weren't tainted by the terrible girly pictures. I moved her a year later.)

The issue is that some boys/men see women/girls as inferior and therefore don't want to be associated with a colour usually associated with girls.
That is the problem, not the fact that a colour is associated with girls.

I think I have already answered this speak its a description, not a definition!!!

I perceive boys as blue and girls as pink and have to constantly challenge that perception and correct it to be pc. It is quite tiresome. I wonder what the point is - why is it so terrible to have a colour assigned to gender. Not that it is ONLY for that gender, but I don't understand the harm in that particular label.

I envy other people's problems sometimes someone in reprographica probably just had a load of pink and blue card going spare

Ugh, I hate this kind of shit. Please ask them wtaf?! Please.

I get that living but that is entirely a different issue completely.

That's ridiculous! I would expect more from a school, how ignorant.

"When I asked exactly why that was a problem the response was "because the boys won't like having a girl's picture.".

And this is the point. You can say til you're yellow in the face that they are just colours. But we live in a society where things associated with girls are given less value than things associate with boys. And all the little things like this add up to perpetuate that. "Unisex" children's clothes are basically boy's clothes that girls can wear. "Unisex" names are boy's names that people decide to give to girls- and once they become associated with girls, people stop using them for boys. And yes, they cards are just for some administrative reason. But every little thing just helps to maintain the stereotyping. And it's not as if it would be hard to have two other colours, for heaven's sake!

Still don't know what you're on about MsJamieFraser. I think you're saying that because our brains perceive the sun as yellow when our eyes see it as white, it's the same as the current social convention of using blue as a colour code for boys. I don't see how that follows or how the first point is connected in any way to the second.

Bertrand

If they assign two other colours, then it's not a code is it?

Everyone would be saying : "Now, which is boys and which is girls, yellow or purple, I can't remember"

I have no willpower

"Everyone would be saying : "Now, which is boys and which is girls, yellow or purple, I can't remember""

Really? Not sure I'd want my child taught by anyone who couldn't remember whether yellow cards were boys or not!