Why does my daughter have to have butterfly or heart zipper pulls on her school uniform?

[MsMotherOfDragons]

Just that, really.

Why do the school uniform options for girls not have things like rocket or dinosaur charms? And why don't they have pockets?!! It drives me wild.

I've looked at several of the main supermarkets and they all seem to have the same problem. Eventually I went for the Sainsbury's ones on the basis of price and quality, so we're stuck with butterflies on everything.

Can I replace them with something else... does anyone know where to get rocket charms or similar? Can anyone recommend a better supplier? I'm kind of appalled that all the gender nonsense starts so early. It's so unnecessary.

DD's school uniform has pockets, I spend a lot of time picking bits of gravel/sand/leaves etc out of them.

onemansoapopera

I think you'd be marginally more convincing if you actually engaged with my points and argued against them rather than just lashing out

Not sure why you're so angry, given that you think this isn't an issue?

To start, can you explain why it's "bollarks" that there is a huge disparity between the images used for boys' and girls' clothing? You know, even though it's a demonstrable fact?

The shops cater to demand? And don’t insist that you buy the girl’s stuff for an actual girl and vice versa?

As I said before, it was probably less emotional when they didn’t have huge BOYS and GIRLS signs with downward arrows pointing to the stuff they “expect” you to buy for your child.
It’s still a choice, though.

Although to be strictly fair, they didn’t have all those obnoxious “wannabe wag”, etc, slogans when I was still buying girls clothes in the kid’s department.
But surely anyone with any sense just walks past them anyway (and goes for a unicorn or a tractor?)

The supply/demand thing was discussed in some detail upthread, I think.

I'm fairly sure there have always been boys' and girls' clothes sections, with signs. It's just that the gendering of clothes has become more and more pronounced in terms of the images and messages.

Yes, sorry, I take your point about the slogans.

I wouldn’t have bought any of the positive ones either, though, I don’t want my child to be a walking billboard.

My daughter would definitely choose a dinosaur zipper on her school dress if she had the choice. She’s still at an age where she will pick the t-shirts she likes whichever section they’re from but she has started to make comments about them being ‘boys’ clothes even though she has chosen them. I’ve explained at length that children’s clothes are for CHILDREN not ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ and she can choose whatever she actually likes but I wonder how long this will last as peer pressure takes over. She already had classmates asking why she was wearing ‘boys’ shoes when she chose shoes with a dinosaur footprint on the sole last year and she was only 4

The thing I really notice is how many of the clothes marketed at boys depict predators and how many of the girls clothes depict prey. I see it everywhere, the boy section is full of sharks and crocodiles and tigers and the girls section is full of chicks and bunnies and kittens. Even the dinosaurs get sanitized for the girls section, no roaring t-Rex showing his teeth for the girls, they get cute pink friendly looking dinosaurs. I wonder what message that is sending?