To wonder what's wrong with dressing girls as girls

[sparklymarmite]

I've name changed but really hoping someone can explain why you wouldn't dress a little girl in girly clothes if that's what they want? There is a little girl in my daughters class always dressed in gender neutral or boyish clothes - I feel so sad for her because she is always looking at the other girls in pretty things. If she visits other people's houses she always wants to wear their dresses and gets upset when it's time to take them off. It's probably made worse because her best friend is very girly and her mum always dresses her beautifully. Her mum seems obsessed about avoiding anything revealing but they're only 6. If anyone else is like this please help me to understand why you would do this. I'm not particularly close to this family but it makes me feel sad to see.

[5moreminutes]

Pink has certainly been pushed more in recent years, but I was certainly made to wear dresses as a child in the 70s for any formal occasion - often quite uncomfortable party dresses (the one etched on my memory is a white one with small pink and blue flowers all over it and a pink sash - my sister had a matching one - it was itchy and uncomfortable and I remember it being of no importance what so ever to my parents whether I wanted to wear it. I was 4 and it is among my earliest memories).

Most of the times we wore cloth kids clothes in primary colours, and my parents didn't speak to me for almost a week when I managed to hand in my options form choosing geography instead of physics, and sent us to a girls school citing repeatedly that girls achieve best in a single sex environment. They were not old fashioned "a woman's place is in the home" types at all, but it was non negotiable that girls had to wear dresses for smart occasions whether they wanted to or not.

So although there was less pink, and "play clothes" were brightly coloured, I'm not sure that clothing was necessarily not gendered in the 70s and 80s (not sure how old others are and whether they mean 60s, in which case I have no idea).

[Rugbyplayersarehot]

Same age group as you 5mins and yes agree.

[Coulibri]

Those of us who grew up in the seventies, boys and girls alike, lived in brown, orange and varieties of sludge. Seriously, if you look at DH and my childhood photos, we're in identical colour schemes half the time.

OP, I think you're projecting and assuming all over the place. You don't know the family, yet you somehow know what the daughter thinks, how she behaves at other people's houses, that she apparently compares herself to her 'girly' best friend (and I have news for you, what you wear doesn't make you any more or less female ) - and you make a very odd remark about how the 'beautifully dressed' mother is 'obsessed about avoiding anything revealing' - what on earth do you mean? Are you talking about swimsuits, or are you - surely not, given that the child is six -- equating 'girliness' with wearing 'revealing' clothes?

In other news, I was at an after-school soft play birthday party for reception children yesterday evening. Out of the little girls I noticed, who were sitting closest to my end of the party table, one was wearing shorts dungarees with stripy tights, one was wearing jeans and a stripy teeshirt with an owl on it, one was wearing the local football club strip, one was still in her school uniform, and one was wearing some kind of princess fancy dress with fairy wings. And I have been to about a million whole-class parties all this year, and haven't noticed a pethora of little girls wearing elaborate party dresses. Isn't that a bit passé?

[Rugbyplayersarehot]

Also Disney films now have a huge influence over clothes and styles which didn't happen in the 70s.

[ArcheryAnnie]

seafoodeatit what nonsense.

[Rugbyplayersarehot]

Ah yes the browns, tans yellow and general home made knit wear of the 70s.

[PineapplePolly]

Mine (similar age daughter) has many dresses to choose from, but for day to day she wears practical, probably gender neutral (some from shops that claim to sell gender neutral and don't have girls and boys sections) and that's also because she's straight to her sport/dance most days, and nobody wears dresses and skirts on the way to training because it's just not sensible or practical.

Pink isn't avoided, though she doesn't have much, but I think people miss the point when they consciously avoid all pink because they have a girl.

[WorraLiberty]

Any thoughts on the replies so far OP?

[tinymeteor]

Ok, leaving aside the specifics of what this child wants to wear, you asked why, in principle, some parents might not want to 'dress girls as girls'.

I have no problem putting DD in pink as well as in any other colour. But I do avoid super girly stuff, I.e frilly, sparkly, hyper pink and princessy, as well as cutesey slogans, because:

• those clothes are less practical and can hinder some kinds of play. Clothes are for doing stuff in, not just being looked at
• adults respond to those sorts of clothes by constantly saying how pretty they are, which teaches girls (and yes it's basically just girls) that the quickest way to gain approval is through looking pretty
• dressing as a girl doesn't have to mean dressing like a mini woman. I dress her like a child first, a girl second.
• they project a particular kind of girlyness which doesn't appeal to me, and while she's small I get to dress her to my taste.

No doubt she'll have a pink phase at some point, and that's fine, but it won't be at my instigation.

[ChrisYoungFuckingRocks]

I have 8-year old DTDs. The one loves dresses, ruffles and ribbons, and the other one can sometimes be battled into a dress at Christmas, but otherwise lives in jeans (she won't even wear a school dress). She hates 'girly' clothes.

I'd rather have a happy child wearing what she wants than a sulky child ruining her clothes because she didn't want to wear it.

Perhaps these parents are dressing her in the only things they can afford, perhaps it's her own choice - who knows. But you really can't judge unless you know the family pretty well.

[flippinada]

OP you seem oddly over-invested in this family which, by your own admittance, you don't know very well. You're making a lot of assumptions about what this little girl thinks and feels on the basis of not very much at all.

Rugby and Coulibri I remember the horrible, itchy "smart" dresses of the 70s too. I hated them and much preferred practical comfy clothes.

[Ordinarily]

All girls are "dressed as girls".

[flippinada]

Yes, if a girl is wearing it, it's girls clothing.

[splendide]

If you look at my family photos (I was born in '79) it appears my mum and all her sisters shared one pair of mustard dungarees affords all of their 10 (between them) children.

[splendide]

Across I think I was trying to say!

[heron98]

One of my friends is obsessed with avoiding pink. She refuses to even wear it herself.

I don't get it. I like pink. I also like blue, and red, and green. Whatever.

I don't see why it's so bad to be feminine and girly. It's as though my actively avoiding it she is seeing these traits as inferior.

I am certainly not opressed by society.

[splendide]

Maybe she just doesn't like pink?

I don't think I have any pink clothes now I think about it - that doesn't mean anything other than I'm not wildly keen on the colour.

[Lweji]

All girls are "dressed as girls".

Well, strictly, however girls dress, they dress like girls because they are girls. Even if they decide to dress in space suits.

[splendide]

I don't think I need to wear pink to be feminine by the way.

[Lweji]

Not all kids can be brain-washed

Yes to a previous comment on this.

It's society that brain washes kids. There's nothing in their genes or their hormones, or their genitals, that makes girls like pink or dresses or glitter.

[Lweji]

As long as the clothes are able to cover up the genitals then absolutely nothing!

In some cultures, that's not even a requirement.

[BarbarianMum]

Maybe not heron But by linking how you measure femininity with how you dress, you are certainly helping to oppress those of us who don't conform.

[Spudlet]

I have red hair, pink is not my friend. Pretty sure I'm still a woman though, and quite feminine also. As and when appropriate.

[Lweji]

you are certainly helping to oppress those of us who don't conform.

Yes, both girls and boys.

[Lweji]

I don't see why it's so bad to be feminine and girly.

Define being feminine.