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Original poster

John Lewis removing gendered sections in kids clothing

572 replies

moutonfou · 02/09/2017 12:46

John Lewis has announced they are no longer having 'boys' and 'girls' clothing sections. Just kids clothing. Which to me sounds fair enough. I had to buy several football shirts from the boys section as a kid and always felt like they weren't 'for me' and that someone was going to notice and call me out on it.

On some of the news outlets' Facebook posts about this, there are the most OTT comments from people who seem to have interpreted this as an attempt to make all kids be 100% gender fluid, stop calling them boys and girls at all, make all boys wear dresses, etc etc.

AIBU to be frustrated that people can't see the value of just letting kids like what they like, and that it's not all some sinister agenda??

OP posts:
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Cantseethewoods · 02/09/2017 14:25

I agree that clothes are currently very gendered but I do think that by eliminating the girls and boys sections that there will be more clothing that appeals to both as they will want to get maximum sales out of every square foot. It's ridiculous at the moment that there are v few (e.g.) t-shirts that both my DC (1 boy 1 girl) will both agree to wear as they both immediately identify them as "for boys" or "for girls".

Pigoon · 02/09/2017 14:27

Good. It's about time we move away from this ever increasing division between boy and girl clothes.

yumyumpizza · 02/09/2017 14:27

Brilliant!! Will make shopping in my local store much much easier. At the moment if I want say t-shirts, I have to locate the girls t-shirts, browse, then locate the boys section, and browse that before decided what to buy. So much easier to have them all together!!!

And yes yes yes to the trans comments above. Maybe it'll start to help with all this ridiculous (and dangerous) "my daughter will only wear boys clothes and plays with trucks should I take her to the doctors" b**locks

TSSDNCOP · 02/09/2017 14:32

All this means is they won't have defined sections that simply emphasise how biased toward girl related stock they are.

MrsOverTheRoad · 02/09/2017 14:33

Thank God. Maybe others will follow!

YellowLawn · 02/09/2017 14:33

I think it's great.
like a pp I buy a t-shirt - go to t-shirt section.
esp when you have a school play coming up und you need a dpecific colour trousers/shirt...

BeyondLimitsAndWhatever · 02/09/2017 14:33

Would it be too much to hope for that I might finally be able to find a pair of jeans that fit my ds1 (very skinny) without them having butterflies on them ("girls" skinny jeans are much more of the right shape than even "boys" skinny jeans)?

Gileswithachainsaw · 02/09/2017 14:34

I don't see how removing lacked will help much when so many t shirts say things like "boys rule" or "fairy princess in training"

Having all clothes together and girls and boys being able to choose what ones they like without something saying it's a boys t shirt is a good thing though. And I.vertai my I'm favour of getting rid of gender specific slogans.

As long as it doesn't go so far as to make all clothes unisex in their cut /shape. We do have to acknowledge from when puberty can start there will need to be clothes that reflect the different body shapes that will require different cuts.

BlueberryPuffin · 02/09/2017 14:34

Some people just like to be deliberately difficult about this kind of thing, don't they?

"Clothing is still gendered" - Some is. For kids, plenty of clothing is the same though. T-shirts, jumpers, trousers, etc. all have no need to be split up into pink with flowers and blue with cars. Just put skirts on one rack, shorts on another, t-shirts on another, etc. How is that hard?

yumyumpizza · 02/09/2017 14:35

Luluuu could you just clarify what a little girl should look like please?? My four year old DD is wearing navy shorts, dinosaur pants and a mustard coloured unisex t-shirt today.....should I be alarmed that she is not looking adequately like a girl today?!? Grin She did wear a party dress and wellies yesterday...should I have taken a photo as evidence in case I need to prove she's a GIRL?!? WinkConfused

HostaFireAndIce · 02/09/2017 14:36

They're separated by sex, not gender. Or were.

I know it's apparently obligatory to come onto threads with gender in the title and say, "You mean 'sex', not 'gender'", but surely both apply here, don't they?

LifeofClimb · 02/09/2017 14:39

Well, couldn't they just be categorised by colour within the apparel section? i.e. T shirts > White > styles

Wouldn't that be easier? Then, if you know you want a blue top... just look in the blue tshirt section. I'd rather they did this with a lot of basics tbh. For adults too... obviously it's a little bit more difficult when body shapes vary so much between the sexes in adults so I do understand that. I just prefer a lot of plainer men's styles, if only they were cut to accommodate the boobs...

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 02/09/2017 14:40

I think this is great. Dd is not at all a "tomboy". She is a very "girly girl" with long hair who likes wearing dresses, likes pink and yellow, loves dancing and gym and bickers with me about whether 7 is too young to wear lip gloss and have her ears pierced. (Errrrr - yes!)

She also has no desire whatsoever to shop in a boys section.

She is also mad on space and science and wants to be an astronaut. I think that this is a perfectly reasonable thing to want to do and does not even slightly make her a tomboy. It makes her a girl that likes space.

She wants clothes with space type things on. She doesn't want to wear boys clothes. There are loads of space clothes out there - they are all in the boys department. A couple of years ago John Lewis defined their "space pyjamas" as unisex. Father Christmas was very very happy that year. (As was Dd.)

lljkk · 02/09/2017 14:41

0-14 years, the news story says. But also says it's more a labelling thing than how the clothes are organised, maybe?

I tend to buy school uniform at M&S, thank goodness. I probably won't look in JL in future.
My first thought was school uniform: kids know the buttons are one side for girls, the other for boys. The blazers & trousers are cut differently. The shoe designs are very different, too. I hate shopping at best of times, don't put extra obstacles into the process.

megletthesecond · 02/09/2017 14:41

Good idea.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 02/09/2017 14:42

Why are we not allowed to have clothes that have been designed with BOYS in mind?

But there is pretty much zero difference between boys and girls at this age.

What specifically do you need to keep in mind when designing boys or girls clothes?

Pigoon · 02/09/2017 14:43

Surely they are separated by gender, as sex doesn't dictate that clothes should be pink and frilly? That's solely down to socially constructed gender.
Sex would dictate different cuts/shapes from early teen onwards, but wouldn't have anything to do with colour, pictures, frills or anything else.
Unless I'm misunderstanding sex vs gender.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 02/09/2017 14:43

Oh no wait. Just been on JL website. So it's all a load of noise. Just the label is changing. Who really cares! Still can go to 'Girls' 2+' and "Boys 2+' to pick what I'm looking for

I'm sure I read that the website will be changing too.

SpoonfulOfJam · 02/09/2017 14:43

Love this. Hopefully other shops will follow and tshirts and trousers will be available in a range of colours without any frills or bows so as to make them more appealing to patents of boys.

Slimthistime · 02/09/2017 14:47

I'm honestly confused by posters saying this will make shopping harder

this is for pre-pubescent clothes. So sections for T-shirts, Jeans, Dresses, Skirts - doesn't that make shopping easier?

I appreciate that once you start needing to fit breasts into T-shirts it gets more complicated but it's not that age group they are looking at?

PringlesPirate · 02/09/2017 14:48

I think what John Lewis are doing is amazing.

Chestervase1 · 02/09/2017 14:48

It has worked for years I wonder what the real agenda is. You never needed John Lewis's approval it pick up something for a girl in the boys department or vice versa. Ditto toys/games. I think there will be a backlash against this. The young mums I know buy really girly clothing for their girls and really boyish clothing for their girls. Almost as if they are rebelling against gender neutral.

Pigoon · 02/09/2017 14:52

I wonder why people will be confused by it? Will they forget whether their child is a boy or girl if they're not wearing the correct colour?

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 02/09/2017 14:53

I've just been on Twitter and it's really interesting - people seem to think that by selling gender neutral clothes in a gender neutral way John Lewis are going to be massively contributing to mental health issue like transgenderism / gender fluidity etc. So many people think that a girl wearing a dinosaur tshirt will make them think they are a boy, and a boy wearing a flowery t-shirt will make them think they are a boy - they are massively reinforcing the gender divide and they think they are opposing it (let girls be girls by wearing pink clothes)

CloudNinetyNine · 02/09/2017 14:58

mumoftwo - last week Gap had a really nice solar system t-shirt in, I assume, the girls section next to pink puppy t-shirts. May be worth a look for your DD.