John Lewis removing gendered sections in kids clothing

[moutonfou]

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??

Great, about time Hopefully other shops will follow.

About bloody time. I couldn't believe that John Lewis red wellies were labelled "girls". I bought a pair for DS anyway.

Whilst I agree that girls can like dinosaurs and boys can like princesses etc etc I just think this is not necessary and that we should also encourage boys and girls to celebrate themselves and if that means through a girl wearing a beautiful dress and feeling like a princess Then great. If a boy wants to do it then great too but in 90% of cases it will likely be a girl. This just seems like a pain in the arse to me to sift through everything and JL jumping on a bandwagon. fell very cynical about it and am surprised by the OTT responses to how great it is, if my girls wanted a traditional boy item I'd get them it but I don't see the need to morph everything.

@fivefour3twoone haha me too!

Brilliant. We should not be defining people by what they choose to wear.

Nothing's being morphed. They're just changing the layout of the shop. Arranging by clothing type instead of by gender. It's not complicated or sinister.

I really cant see the problem

One assumes dresses in one section

Trousers in another and t shirts in a third

Really dont get why some people are struggling with it

But I suppose we are all different

If the clothes all stay the same but they are grouped by type (t-shirts, skirts, jeans, jumpers, etc.) instead of by boys on one side of the shop and girls on the other, then what's the problem?

The problem I foresee is that if the t-shirts stay just the same, you'll still only have the option to choose between fairy princesses and monster trucks.

The way people describe it, it sounds like children in the UK nowadays aren't allowed to have their own personalities and individual interests - they're just allowed to choose one of two gender stereotype options, if their parents consider themselves progressive.

People are conditioned to buy blue for boys and pink for girls already, you can take away the signs, the blue-pink system will tell conservative mothers were to shop for which child, anyway.

I don't think it'll make shopping more difficult, it's logical. I bought a load of stuff from Next today, there were obvious boy and girl sections, with a load of monochrome stuff in the middle. I still had to go through all the 'boy' stuff to find a onsie I liked (grey with dinosaur spikes, aimed at neither gender yet placed with boy stuff). Would be a lot more logical if stuff was together e.g. Onesies given their body shapes etc are the same.

It's a good start.

Sad. Why is it that everything has to be forced into a particular view of society? It is not harmful to say boy or girl on a sign.

An economists once wrote:

'It is slow encroachment of ides that changes society.'

This is just another attempt to push an agenda. Equality is not achieved by making everything the same.

Sad. Why is it that everything has to be forced into a particular view of society? It is not harmful to say boy or girl on a sign.
hows it forcing? Surely the current way is more forcing a view it's saying this designer says this is for boys because it's blue or whatever, this is just saying here's a bunch of clothes choose what you want.

if my girls wanted a traditional boy item I'd get them it but I don't see the need to morph everything.

OK, I don't get this. Say a five-year-old girl wants a pair of jeans. Do you look in the 'traditional boys' section? Why not literally have one 'jeans' section as proposed?
Obviously this is only up to a certain age when body shapes come into play but we're talking about children's sizes.

Also where are certain people getting that the clothes will be 'gender-neutral'? THEY ARE JUST REMOVING THE "GIRLS"/"BOYS" DEPARTMENT LABELS NOT MAKING ALL CLOTHES MARL GREY

It is not harmful to say boy or girl on a sign.
Why not group t-shirts by 'left-handed' or 'right-handed'? I've got every right to dress my right-handed son in right-handed clothes but the shops are making it very difficult.

It may not change the shopping attitudes of parents but it will make it easier for a small child to pick a t-shirt, or whatever, with an appealing design or colour. If they only get taken into the girls' or boys' section at the moment they have less choice.

I don't think suddenly a loads more boys are going to choose a fairy costumes but they may choose something purple or a girl may choose a green or orange or blue top with whatever design.

I think it should make shopping for children much easier esp. If you have a boy and girl - just go to the one section for the garment you need.

Surely, if you think certain clothes belong on girls, and others on boys, you don't need a label to show you which is which? exactly

What an odd idea - putting labels of things forces a point - by taking the label off there is more freedom of choice

Some of dd's friends laugh at her for wearing 'boys' t shirts. They're Star Wars or sometimes blue or with a football (she loves her brothers hand me downs). That's being forced to make a choice I what clothes should be

Well actually I think equality is achieved by making stuff for boys and girls the same. It's the gendered expectations on children that have an impact on their future life choices.

Some of you are talking like your girls have an innate love of pink. They don't - they're socially conditioned - and you're reinforcing it.

If you believe that girls can be fighter pilots and boys can be carers, then making clothing gender neutral for prepubescent children is an excellent place to start to help them break out of gender norms.

It may not change the shopping attitudes of parents but it will make it easier for a small child to pick a t-shirt, or whatever, with an appealing design or colour. If they only get taken into the girls' or boys' section at the moment they have less choice.

Fair enough, I didn't consider children choosing for themselves. Sexist parents will have it lots harder to explain to a girl why she can't have a green top with a dinosaur when there's no "proof" that it is "for boys".
That's a good thing - and possibly explains why so many adults on here are so upset about such a small change.

I still had to go through all the 'boy' stuff to find a onsie I liked (grey with dinosaur spikes, aimed at neither gender yet placed with boy stuff).

If it was placed with the boy stuff, and there was nothing similar for girls, how do you know it was "aimed at neither gender"?
Granted, the designer may not have intended it to be aimed at boys, but the seller then did.

I'm in favour. Polar O Pyret already do this- no girls and boys, just clothes. Go Swedes!! which is one of the reasons Sweden is a progressive gender equal country unlike our knuckle dragging one still obsessed with boys and girls roles and divisions...

I'm expecting a girl, our first was a boy. Sorting out baby clothes and despite the blue/green bias it all strikes me as pretty neutral.

JL's app clearly hasn't caught up with their new idea:

It's not about making everything the same, it's about enabling girls and boys to have a full and free choice of clothing without having to declare themselves as cross-dressers. My DC are past that age now, but there have been many times when my DD has objected to a perfectly nice plain green T shirt, jeans or Star Wars PJs (she loved Star Wars and Dr Who as a small girl) because it says BOYS on the label. I surreptitiously cut the labels out in some cases.

This goes double because I've got one of each so I want to be able to pass plain winter coats or wellie boots down without either child being mocked in the playground because someone has noticed that the label says the wrong sex.

Mao had the same idea. Everyone wears same grey suit.

At first it was 'Celebrate difference.' Now its more like everyone should conform to the same ideas in relation to gender. Where is the choice?

The forcing exists in that there is a determination to make all things the same - not equal. In the 1980's there appeared an idea that there should be 'positive discrimination, in an attempt to address imbalances.

Gender neutrality is in the mind. The idea takes a long time to percolate in societies and so moves like this seem to be nothing more than fluff as the idea is has not finished percolating.

All that said, it is up to JL what they do. They feel they are responding to something in society - they aren't they are responding to a particular view of a narrow segment of our population who hold particular ideas.

How is it helpful to ask people to celebrate differences and accept their own or other peoples and then try and homogenise society?

My dad used to have to wear his older sisters hand me down shoes because the family couldn't afford to get him new.

I think we forget that clothes are cheap now - back in the day hand me downs and hand made clothes were more common

Yes, you've understood the story perfectly DNGS. They're going to reduce the choice of clothes so that all children will be wearing the exact same thing - tunics and leggings in three slightly different shades of brown.