'Girls' parties

[NotForSale]

Just spoke to a venue for my daughter's birthday party. He said they "do Frozen parties for girls". I replied that I find that sexist- why can't boys have a Frozen party? The poor work experience lad looked utterly bewildered... he said they have neon parties and football parties for boys.

AIBU?

Oh for fucks sake!

@CoughLaughFart completely agree with you.

I love how you insist that people who disagree with you don't understand 😂

Ohh my god yes yes YABU...

I haven't come across any boys frozen parties.. or girls superman parties... I am not saying it doesn't happen just that no need to say this to the poor guy

It’s a messaging thing, as the OP has said. I have come across venues that present a variety of themes with no gender label attached (e.g. pirates, jungle, fairy tale, space) which is fine, and others who have essentially the same offering but labelled as girls and boys, with associated pink or blue party bag tat, etc, etc.

It just doesn’t make commercial sense to me. Why limit your market like that?

Both my DC (DS & DD) have had dragons, science, space, jungle, pirates&princesses.... and then grown out of big parties . I am a bit taken aback as to how many 11th birthdays are “pamper parties” though.

They probably aren't targeted at specific genders, they were probably the 'poor bewildered work experiences boy's' words rather than the companies.
If this is his first experience of the real world, he's probably never had to use his brain to promote an event without offending anyone and was put on the spot so just answered using his own experience or preference ("boys like me like football so that must be for boys, everyone likes neon so that's for everyone, girls like frozen so that must be for girls).

I'm confident it wouldn't have been the company advertising it that way, and if they were they would have received a backlash before now from another irate parent.
We held a princess and superhero party at work and we were inundated with phone calls telling us how sexist it was ever though there was literally no use of the word 'girls' or 'boys' anywhere. The kids could play with whomever they wanted to play with!

DDS school still do a "boys tombola" and a "girls tombola" at their summer fete!

My DDs have recently been to their friend’s superhero party. A little girl’s seventh birthday party. She didn’t have a princess or a frozen party. My DDs love pretending to be superheroes as well, using towels as capes.

I quite agree!

Can anyone in Cambridge recommend a great ‘Elsa and Anna’ entertainer for my DD’s 3rd birthday party please? I’m a bit concerned as have read some pretty awful reports!

It just doesn’t make commercial sense to me. Why limit your market like that?

I'm not saying they're necessarily right to do so, but maybe - especially if they offer quite a number of different options - people search online and like to narrow down their options, whether Googling "Girls' themed parties north Devon" or finding the general party site and then honing their choices down within the site. I'd expect there to be an option for 'All' as well, but many parents with a gender-stereotypical child (or opposite gender-stereotypical child, for that matter) will prefer to instantly discount undesirable options straight away and focus on options that might be of interest.

Most clothes shops, for adults and children, will categorise their wares as women's/men's/girls'/boys'. Nobody is stopping anybody from buying anything they want in the shop, but the vast majority of their customers will want to be able to zone in on what they're after and ignore the rest.

Putting everything all in together in one big section labelled 'People's Wear' and making women plough through men's suits and men go through dresses before finding what might actually interest/fit them is likely to just infuriate everybody.

We held a princess and superhero party at work and we were inundated with phone calls telling us how sexist it was ever though there was literally no use of the word 'girls' or 'boys' anywhere.

To be fair, though (and I'm not saying I agree with the complainers), I can see their point. Superheroes suggests a catch-all theme for male and female characters, but princesses is clearly female-aimed, so one might surmise that the girls have two options and the boys only one; or, OTOH, the very fact that there is a clearly female-aimed one might be perceived as rendering the other, otherwise neutral, one for boys only.

YANBU I know a boy who had a frozen party and a girl who had a football party.

Young guy on work experience just assumed that most children interested in Frozen parties would be girls,and is probably statistically correct.

He just made a casual remark, not a political broadcast on behalf of the company.

I think you're taking offence where none was intended.

I agree OP. "We have the following packages for children" is sufficient. Plenty of girls like football and plenty of little boys (and bigger ones!) like dancing or frozen and plenty of children have mixed sex parties.

YANBU. This is just like the "girls toy aisle" at the toy shop. While there's nothing to stop you venturing in to the "boys" aisle, most wouldn't do that.