To think the cheaper the kids clothes the more gendered the clothing?

[howmuchtoomuch]

DS needed some new tracksuit bottoms for nursery today, so I popped to ASDA. I hadn't realised quite how prolific their gendering of kids clothing was, slogans everywhere!

On the boys side:
‘The louder the better’
‘A bit of dirt never hurt’
‘Rad like dad’

And the girls:
‘Smiley happy dreams’
‘Mummy’s little flower’
‘Giggly and cute’

And the two crimes against fashion I've attached here.

A recent trip to Sainsbury's saw similar results. Whereas a trip to Polarn O Pyret (which I can't afford!) didn't. Not a slogan in sight in PoP!

So why is it that cheaper clothes tend to carry gendered stereotypes? Is it market driven?

YANBU - which is why my girl wears ‘boys’ clothes and the boy sometimes wears ‘girls’ colours but not the ones with the sickly ‘smile’ slogans. You have to pick and choose basically.

@slightlyglittermaned

No, you don't. You have a little puddle to clean up instead

@KochabRising

Yes, masses and masses of assertions. It's almost like I don't have a definitive answer for the nature vs nurture debate!

I know anecdotes != data but I've worked with literally thousands of children from different backgrounds and work with those who have worked with thousands more and have made up my mind. I believe that there are absolutely innate sex-based differences. If you can show me any study that proves I'm wrong I will change my mind in an instant but you can't.

Any links to the 'male genius' studies? I'd really like to read them (not sarcastic).

"Most of those are cultural rather than biologically set traits."

Love the irony!

Not really, cheapest t shirts in primark in boys section are the plain coloured ones.

Enraging you for 15 years, Qvar? I think you need to move on

Oh cathf headtilt simpersimper that's an excellent way to engage with someone's point, you're so clever to imply that ALL someone thinks about is the particular thing they just mentioned, I'm sure nobody's ever brought a strawman to a mumsnet discussion in the hopes of starting a bun fight headtilt simpersimper

You got an opinion on kids' clothing to share, cathf, or have you just got a hangover and feel like spreading the misery?

I can't stand it. I love supermarket clothes for cheapness but I just can not bare the way the girls stuff is all pink and boys is all monsters. It's so annoying.

It's absolutely not a non issue.

DS buys clothes from whichever section has stuff he likes. He's finding the ladies section at Primark has the best t-shirts at the moment, as he loves Pusheen, Harry Potter and unicorns.

"Most of those are cultural rather than biologically set traits."Love the irony!

I don’t get the irony, can you explain? A cultural trait is one that is enforced /set/reinforced) by society (for example the idea of filial piety) whereas a biological trait is one that has a biological basis (for example a strong desire to care for a child that is yours, or blue eyes, or your height.)

Male behaviour is a mix. Men are generally taller, stronger etc and that’s biological. The levels of Male violence in society is more problematic to pin down. It’s too simplistic (and too apologist) to say men will be men - can a man not control himself? Is a man a helpless creature with no free will? A grunting Slave to testosterone? No, I don’t think we can say that. It’s pretty insulting to men.
What we can perhaps guess is that the average Male is socialised from birth to fit certain stereotypes and allow certain behaviours and that when that’s combined with bigger body size, higher testosterone and greater strength we have a problem. It’s nature and nurture (as most things are) but as sentient beings we are responsible for our behaviour.

Biology alone is not an excuse for male violence or behaviour- socialisation plays a huge part. I’ve lived in various different countries and cultures and seen first hand how different socialisation results in different behaviour patterns. Men in Iceland are notably more involved with child rearing and domestic chores than men in Mexico
The uk isn’t as bad as some, but it is t as equal or progressive as some either.

Socialisation begins early. We don’t need to be doing anything g extreme like preventing girls from wasting any pink at all but we should be sending g them to school in clothes they can play actively in and not dissing their toy choices.

If there's a toy construction bench, for example, in multicoloured (shown with a boy playing with it) or shades of pink (with smiling girl) you can be sure I'll buy the "boys" one

On Xmas jumper day I ended buying DD the "boy's" christmas jumper because it had a cool flashing button on it. The "girl's" jumpers all had sparkly snowgirls and robbins on. None of them did anything as amusing as that flashing button. DD loved playing with it.

I hate how impractical and boring girl's clothing can be.

When I took my little baby dd for her jabs she was wearing a white all in one with little light blue bears on.
A guy came up to me and said “is he a good baby? Boys normally are”.

Boden’s New SS18 collection has a lot of sharks and dinosaurs for the girls. I haven’t checked out the boys clothing yet, but they have a vast selection from florals to dinos for girls now.

Sainsbury's do very nice slogan free clothing. That's the cheapest I've found. I think heavily gendered baby clothes are a trick to get us to buy the same thing twice over if we have a second child of a different sex personally. Putting your 6 month old daughter in blue jumpers is hardly going to raise eyebrows, but if everything you own has "daddy's little prince" or "boys will be boys" on it you're probably going to go out and buy something different, even though the clothes themselves are still perfectly fine. My friend had a daughter and bought everything pink, glitter, princess etc. They are a very very low income family (like, can barely put food on the table) and when she unexpectedly found out she was having her son a year later she had no money whatsoever to buy new clothes. But she did. They went without food and she sold her own clothes because she couldn't bear the thought of her newborn son wearing pink babygros. It made me feel really angry (not at her).

Crazy - At least it was boys are normally good rather than the usual stereotype of naughty boys and good girls.

jan, I think your list is very debatable on the nature/nurture front but I don’t think that’s actually relevant. I think the point is that most of those aren’t things that people indulgently say ‘boys will be boys’ about, unless the behaviours are at the extreme end of those you’ve described (eg assertiveness becomes aggression).

It’s a phrase mostly used to excuse/allow behaviours that would be frowned upon in girls.

I’m also struggling with the phrase ‘resort to physical solutions’ which seems like a euphemism for hitting/fighting, and that you seem to be massively underselling men and their emotional and mental capabilities. Im not doubting your experience but do wonder if your preconceptions of men and boys unconsciously affects the way you interact with them.

Interestingly I was in Next last week with dd (9) and she suddenly piped up “ooh mom there’s a section here for boys OR girls!”. I went over and there was a rack of primary coloured/neutral plain t shirts, plain joggers, leggings, hoodies etc, some had designs on but not “gendered”. All bright and colourful. It was positioned on the border of the girls and boys area. Dd was thrilled as she often wonders why eg a strawberry on a t shirt indicates it’s for a girl not a boy.

I wonder if it’s a “thing” for Next or whether it’s just the store managers idea. Maybe she’s a mner

I don't think this has anything to do with cost.

Polarn o pyret might not have slogans but their home page has the boys in tops with bugs on and the girls in frilly pretty clothes. I think they've become much less unisex over the years.
Boden do the token dress with dinosaurs or rockets on but the majority is cute animals, teapots, florals for girls and bugs, vehicles, strong animals for boys.
Ralph Lauren do pink boys polo shirts and pink girls polo shirts but the girls ones are cut slimmer with tight sleeves when six year old boys and girls have similar body shapes.

Its hard to find brands with that are not cut differently for boys and girls, very few just sell kids tops or trousers in a range of patterns and colours.

Just avoid the slogans?

I don't buy slogan/character items of clothing for DC, but I do buy them obviously female clothes, because they're female. The fact that they're wearing robust leggings and tops mean they're physically free to do what they like, but if I choose a flowery pattern it's not going to do them lifetime damage

"I don’t get the irony, can you explain? "

You accused me (correctly) of assertions as opposed to scientific fact and then did exactly the same. You did more of it in your second post.

You've now moved on to talking about male violence as though it's the only trait worth discussing.

@Jassy

"I’m also struggling with the phrase ‘resort to physical solutions’ which seems like a euphemism for hitting/fighting"

I'm not surprised that that's your take but I was thinking of an article I read recently (print, can't remember where) where children were given problems to solve. Boys used physical solutions and girls thought them out.

One of the tests was moving water from one area to another. Girls made a channel-type system. Boys dragged the first container to the second. Neither is better or worse but certainly different approaches.

"and that you seem to be massively underselling men and their emotional and mental capabilities."

I have 2 issues here. Firstly, I think it's accurate as opposed to under or over selling and secondly, there's a lot to be said for simplistic approaches and solutions. K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid).

Another study I read asked men and women (boys and girls) to rate images from 1-10 meaning happy or sad. Men clustered at the extremes and women used the entire scale.

I think, to be honest, many are missing the point now. It's not about girls and boys being different, all children are different. My son is different to your daughter, obviously physically but in all sorts of different ways. And my son is also different to your son.

It's about all children, boys and girls and gender fluid and transitional and anywhere else on the gender spectrum being treated the SAME. Regardless of whether they have a penis, a vagina, prefer physical activities or using their intellect.

The only clothes that boys and girls need their own versions of are underwear, really, for purposes of comfort more than anything. And even then probably not until puberty.

Another study I read asked men and women (boys and girls) to rate images from 1-10 meaning happy or sad. Men clustered at the extremes and women used the entire scale.

And how do you control for that being an innate biological characteristic vs a response to socialisation?

Answer: you can’t. So what conclusion do you draw?

I've made it clear what conclusion I draw.

What makes you so sure that this is due to socialisation and not an innate characteristic?

Answer: you can't either.

Our Asda has removed the signs for boys and girls clothing which is a step in the right direction, however it’s still very clearly rows of pink and sparkles then rows of cars and diggers.

When my ds was 2 he wanted to wear skirts and dresses. I let him and I took him out like that. Would I have sent him to school in a dress if he’d still wanted to by then? I honestly don’t know. His favourite colour was pink until he was 5 and was told pink is for girls.

Both my dds were given lots of beautiful dresses as babies but they barely wore them. Just not practical from a comfort point of view, nor from a warmth one!

I shop mostly in supermarkets for dd2’s clothes but I don’t find it too difficult to avoid slogans or character clothing. I get 2 packs of plain navy and black leggings, plain or patterned tshirts/long sleeve tshirts (matalan is pretty good for plain ones) and maybe a couple of jersey dresses-worn with leggings in winter and without in summer.

I was talking to a friend about this today. She said she likes her (1 year old) son to 'look like a boy' so wouldn't dress him in leggings, pink or anything 'girly'. I find this very sad. Why do you need to advertise your child's gender?
I hate seeing babies dressed as 'little men' in flat caps and braces, or toddlers tripping over princess dresses.

Clothes should be hard wearing, practical, stretchy and comfortable. No decorative bits to catch on tree branches or slides.

Answer: you can't either.

That’s exactly my point. :)

Do you feel that only providing clothes girls cant play properly in is an issue? Or do you feel that girls wouldn’t want to climb trees and engage in active play?

As an aside, is it just me that reads Porno for Pyros instead of Polarn o Pyret?

They were an early 90s spin-off from Jane's Addiction, before anyone starts judging my internet habits.