To be angry about the lack of females on boys pyjamas?

[WeasleyWoman]

This seems rather minor but has me riled. I was in Asda today with my 3yr old giving her free rein to choose pants (in prep for potty training) she wanted paw patrol pants which could only be found in the boys section: no probs briefs are briefs when you are 3. I noticed that the pants only had the male pups on, even the ones with 5 pups still didn't have the token females (apparently they can only appear on the pink pants). This got me looking for female characters in the boys section, the only one I could find was Owlet (score 1 for pj masks) everyone else had gone, no Lilly on the Peter rabbit clothes just (Peter and Benjamin), no Penny on fireman Sam (just Sam, Elvis and the chief), no black widow or captain marvel on the avenger tops not even Peppa fucking pig on the Peppa pig clothes! It's Bacon girl's show yet all the boy's clothes have George on. I feel like there is, at last, starting to be more of a focus on making sure little girls know they can do anything, achieve anything and don't have to just aspire to be mums, wives and princesses but what is the point if we don't tell the boys too? If we don't show them that women are useful and important members of the team then aren't we just shout in the dark, or rather shouting in the pink sparkly section?

And when you looked in the girls section, did you find marshall, chase and rubble on the pants there?

I think if you choose to shop in a place that has such obviously divided clothing ranges, the problem goes both ways, and you seem to only be angry at half of it. Perhaps you'd have been better finding a shop with a more unisex range?

You must have a very lovely life if this is the kind of thing you get worked up about.

Did you find any grips?

Totally agree and wrote to Sainsbury's about it... online they had 26 items of Paw Patrol clothing, only ONE item featured all six pups! Skye was missing from 19 of them, and she wasn't on anything in the boys range. My son's favourite characters are Rubble and Skye but I can't get anything with both of them on. I bought Hey Duggee stuff in the end, at least the female characters were properly represented.

AIBU there isn't enough men on my daughters pyjamas.

Hang on a minute....

It's Bacon girl's show yet all the boy's clothes have George on.

What does this mean?

Problem is to get the popular characters you have to go to the shops that stock them... which aren't generally those with a unisex range.

DD has more boy underwear than girls as a result.

Iced latte I don't think the problem does go both ways. Fireman Sam is on the fireman Sam top in the girls section it's just pink. I appreciate shops with such gendered clothing sections are an issue in themselves. I guess what bothered me is shows are starting to put female characters in but then when they produce merchandise aimed at boys they strip the females out again. Just feels like a backward step.
Of course jumbo2000 my life is rainbows and kitten whiskers and this is the only thing I have to moan about.

And I agree with everyone saying it's a really minor thing because obviously there are huge injustices in the world and this isn't one, but I feel like this is where it starts - this is where 2 and 3 year olds start getting the idea that girls and women are less capable, important or exciting than boys and men, and it's insidious and damaging, so why not call it out when we see it? Ditto the slogan t-shirts where boys are tough, cool and awesome little dudes, and girls are pretty, sparkly princesses.

I do understand where you're coming from. Asda are the absolute worst for completely segregated boys/girls sections. They only have pink frilly nauseating nonsense for girls, and boring grey or blue casual clothes for boys.

Write to them and complain. Writing and complaining is a hobby of mine (I also write when I get good service) - I'll add this to my list.

I was just comIng to say PJ masks...DS has those pjs :) (and pants)

He also has a green ‘rusty rivets’ top from Asda with a girl engineer in the front, and several pink tee shirts...I am sad enough that I get excited when I find non stereotypical clothes in the supermarket!

I has a similar annoying moment in matalan, I wanted to buy a UV suit for a 2 year old girl I know, there was 1 in the whole shop that was too small (only in baby size) and the rest of the stuff was bikinis and swimming costumes. The boys had 5 or 6 UV suits in various designs and ages.

Absolutely agree - DS loves Everest. luckily pink is also his favourite colour so PJs no issue.

I'll tell you something else that's bizarre, 'girls' PJs have a lower, larger neckline than 'boys' (again, actually lucky because DS has a massive head). I wouldn't have noticed, but DS1 had teenage mutant ninja turtles PJs from the boys section, DS2 had the aforementioned Paw Patrol ones, and I noticed, so then I went back to compare, and it's the same for all girls/boys PJs - in multiple shops!

This does seem quite a specific issue to get worried about in the grand scheme of gendered clothing/toys for children.

What do you mean there’s started to be a focus that women can me more than mother’s , wives and princesses? I think most women/ society has known this for
Many more years that just starting now.

Anyway to your point did you look in the girls section to see if there was a top with the character on? I feel you are placing too much emphasis on clothes showing boys that women are equals in society. This comes / should come from You as the parent. In my house if I automatically refer to a he my son will always say “how do you know it’s a man mum, could be a woman?” You need to instill the equality into your son.

Yes this does mildly annoy me too. When DS was going through a major paw patrol phase last year, I could never find any boys section things with Skye on too even though she was his favourite character because she had a helicopter. Though the show itself is lacking in diversity generally so it might stem from there.

It made you angry? Blimey, you must have a very short fuse.

My 3 yr old got a paw patrol top from his granny as an Easter present and keeps asking me where Skye is. It’s annoying enough that out of 6 dogs only one is a girl (because they couldn’t possibly let a girl dog where any other colour than pink so there can only be one ) without them completely deleting the only girl from all of the clothes and bags and bedding and lunch boxes.

Used to annoy me when he was into Peppa Pig - the program is about a girl, my son likes it - why can’t he have a bag or a top with Peppa on, why has it got to be George on everything?

@mintgreen exactly! This is minor but it's very important to a 3 year old!

As a Mum of a boy who has the opposite problem I can tell you that you're looking at it wrong. They're not girls or boys pyjamas. They're just pyjamas, get them from any shelf or department you like.

He currently has a jazzy pair of pants that are sky pink and have Skye on from Paw Patrol.

We need to stop gendering all our clothing but the problem isn't girls pants are limited. It's that boys pants are as well.

@Divgirl2 already complained to Asda about the sexist division of their children's clothing and the colours/characters/wording on it. Got no response.

I live in an area where lots of girls do not like frilly pink clothing so they are missing a massive market.

My five year old son would love a glittery sequin top but they are only available in the girls section, it works both ways and it is so annoying!

I think you have too much time on your hands. Have you thought about getting a hobby? I really hope one day you can look back on this and laugh to yourself.

I get what you mean OP, it is aggravating. My DD loves paw patrol, her fave is Chase. I couldn’t find any pjs in the ‘girls’ section with him on, they were all Everest and Skye.

I ended up getting her pjs from the boys section.

There’s a fab documentary on YouTube about the issues regarding gender segregation - really opened my eyes. It doesn’t just focus on the girls either, it examines what the effect can be on boys when they are often told either subliminally or more directly that boys don’t cry because they’re strong, that liking such and such a thing is for ‘girls’. There was a shocking statistic that all the girls in the test class (7 year olds) had better vocabulary for words associated with emotions than the boys - the only emotion the boys did better at was anger.

@glogirl but the issue is that they divide the genders. Using the paw patrol example, you either have a top with 5 boy pups on, or a pink top with Skye and Everest (sometimes Marshal thrown in for good measure). If a 3 year old likes paw patrol, they want all the pups, the way manufacturers gender clothes is showing them that the girl isn’t good enough to make the main team set of pjs and has to be on a separate pink one

OP you're complaining about gendered clothing for kids but then you assigned a gender to a kids TV show.