To think the NH museum shop letting girls down?

[Ambam]

So my daughter loves dinosaurs. I wanted to get her a dinosaur t-shirt for her birthday and went to the Natural History Museum online shop. But to me the vast majority of their kids clothes look stereotypically boyish (in terms of the colour palette and graphics). www.nhmshop.co.uk/toys-and-games/kids-clothes-and-accessories.html#4

She’s pretty gender heavy and I don’t reckon she’d like them.

This was a while ago but I’m now in the same position and just checked their shop again. It’s exactly the same. I get that you can say girls can wear any of the clothes they sell but, like I said, to me most of the colours and graphics align exactly with the “boys” section of most kids clothing shops. Kids aren’t stupid. They notice how things are pitched.

AIBU unreasonable or do you think their collection is a bit sexist?

[Edited by MNHQ to remove identifying info]

Lately Sainsburys, M&S and Next have all had a lot of girly pink dinosaur and space themed clothing. We just bought our DD the boyish clothes with themes she liked and it is fine.

would it kill them to have some pastle tops with 'cute' dinos on it?

I'm glad they don't. Having pink pastel tops with some unrealistic cute smiling blobbily drawn Bambi eyed herbivores would send the message to girls that they were meant to go for the crappy infantilised version whereas boys get the scientific version. Quite glad that one of the personalised ones "Sophiesaurus Rex" was a proper fuckoff teeth bared carnivore. Although having it available in pink as well as black would be cool. You do sometimes get planes and cars and things on girls' clothes but they are blobby cartoon ones not the hard "correct" lines of machinery that you quite often see on boys' clothes.

I want a bit of realness in girls' clothes. Including the fact that female great white sharks and eagles are bigger and more powerful than the males :-)

I think that the last bastion is going to be targeting "girlie" stuff at boys. The bag and lunchbox with butterflies on both had female names on. Still unthinkable for companies to expect boys to "weaken" themselves by liking girls' things.

Many years ago, unicorns used to be masculine, Christ-like figures in western art. They had beards and rugged, shaggy fetlocks, sometimes cloven hoves despite the Christ image and a big long pointy weapon of a horn. None of that this time around- it's pink, glitter, eyelashes, big baby eyes and smiles all the way with a cute inoffensive little rounded horn on top like the icing on a cupcake. Unicorns are for girls now, so they have been infantilised and weakened. Fuck that.

Didn't the study of butterflies (lepidoptry?) Used to be a male pursuit as well?
Girls do not need cute. But pink is just another colour.

Why can't unisex include pink, Shetland? Is there something less desirable about pink?

I've already addressed this issue. Twice.

Nothing less desirable about pink, but it is the only truly gendered colour, with the exception of baby blue for baby boys. Until that changes (which is all down to fashion), it's not a unisex colour.

(and I say this as someone who's son has more pink in his wardrobe than I do).

Aren't you the one gender stereotyping?

If stating that pink is much more commonly used for girls than for boys is gender stereotyping then I guess I am.

But I'm not saying anything that the people I'm arguing against have said with that. It's just fact, that's what fashion currently 'dictates'. I'm not sure what you are trying to show with that comment. Do feel free to eighteen me.

Next have loads of dinosaur themed stuff in for girls at the moment!

I can't believe this weird thread is still going!

The op hasn't come back and explained what 'gender heavy' means, unless I've missed it.

The op hasn't come back and explained what 'gender heavy' means, unless I've missed it.

It’s one of Heinz 57 varieties innit.

OK, I'm still none the wiser but you made me laugh, Butchy!

Asda have some fab dinosaur socks in for kids at the moment. Unfortunately they've still slipped a bit into pink/purple/pastel version in the girls' section and the primary colour ones in the same pattern in the boys' section - but for a kid like DD2 who gives zero fucks, likes pink, but likes bright colours, dinosaurs and superheroes as well - she's rocking some bright green ones with red velocirapters on this morning I think, and then some plimsolls with a superhero print on... and then a pink sparkly T-shirt.

We also have had some fab dino stuff from Next like someone mentioned - one t-shirt that was worn until it pretty much disintegrated.

In DD2's words - dinosaurs are cooler than unicorns because they could eat them.

They are letting your daughter down as they cant provide her with the clothing she wants.

If there are other girls in your daughter's position then they are letting girls down too, which I think would be sexist

I rather like the idea of a pink, sparkly dinosaur - it makes a refreshing change to the ubiquitous pink, sparkly princess.

Pretty gender neutral to me

I’m not a palaeontologist so happy to be corrected but I don’t think there were many pink dinosaurs. That sounds bitch, sorry , it really isn’t meant that way, if she likes dinosaurs, she likes them. She won’t care what colour they are or what noise they made 🤷‍♀️

Bitchy 😊

@MotherOfDragonite

Ask yourself again: Why is gender neutral always about the removal of stereotypically feminine options?

I understand what you mean, but even if that is the reason, maybe it is still the right thing to do because stereotypically feminine options aren't logical colours (etc) to use regularly anyway, e.g. the ones we see around us in nature? Pink isn't either part of the rainbow or a neutral colour, and there aren't many animals of that colour (except some humans, and pink humans already get prioritised anyway).

Similarly, we should get rid of high heels because they are ridiculous and dangerous, makeup because it's an unnecessary extra, and shaving because our hair naturally grows like that. Women are expected to modify their bodies whereas men are allowed to keep theirs how they form naturally. So it is just removing this expectation that should never have existed in the first place. Rather than saying men should wear makeup more.

I think no-one should feel badly if their daughter wants to wear traditionally 'feminine' clothes e.g pink and sparkly or a frilly sleeve etc. Maybe sparkly writing or logo as obviously the dinosaur wouldn't be sparkly if it was true to life.

Gender neutral is great and probably what I mostly see children wearing now but if I had a daughter (or son) who loved pastel colours and dinosaurs but the only tops that were the style fitted the bill had princesses and butterflies on then I would be disappointed too.

**You're the one gender stereo typing by saying there are 'boys' colours and 'girls' colours! Just get her a 'boy' shirt which she will then pair with leggings or a skirt or a pair of girls' shoes and, ta da, suddenly it's a 'girls' shirt

So the museum could presumably print pink and purple t-shirts and the boys could wear them with cargo trousers or shorts and ta-da it's a boy's t-shirt?