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]

So how would you make it gender neutral?

@ShetlandWife re 'How would you make it gender neutral', I commented on this earlier in the thread but will copy and paste.

All colours are acceptable to me. I love to see blue, pink, red, green, yellow, grey, teal, turquoise, purple, orange. Do the current selection not seem to be from a rather limited colour palette, to you?

Personally I would like to see a selection of bright colours as well as dull ones. I would like dresses as well as shirts as an option (not specifically for girls, as I do like the 'for kids' ethos, but for any children who prefer a dress).

I would not like to see any lazy stereotyping or gender association with particular colours. I would like the ones in bright colours to have serious messages and scientific accuracy in their illustrations just as much as the ones in dull colours. I would like the ones in dull colours to have the option of decorative touches such as flowers, as much as the ones in bright colours.

This, to me, would be more truly gender neutral. The current selection appears to me to be the 'male by default' type of gender neutral.

I also dont think its helpful to compare the colours the adults wear with children. I would bet that black, grey, navy, beige are massively over represented in many womens and mens clothes yet not in childrens. I'd say my wardrobe is mostly black, grey, mustard and wine yet my childs is a whole rainbow of colours.

Yes, I saw that reply. 7 out of 10 of those colours feature already.

So you'd add pink, teal and orange, and dresses.

So to make it gender neutral, half of the changes you'd make are ones strongly associated with being female

So to make it gender neutral, half of the changes you'd make are ones strongly associated with being female confused

I think that's the point... why cant that be gender neutral? If green, blue, brown (or "boy" colours) can be gender neutral then why not girl?

Of course boys can wear pink (I already mentioned my son, who has more pink in his wardrobe than I do).

But it's odd to complain about something not being gender neutral because there's no pink!

@ShetlandWife, yes, my problem with this selection of clothing is that it omits many of the colours that are stereotypically associated with girls.

Why should gender neutral be about the removal of stereotypically feminine options?

Why, in this case, is "gender neutral" so stereotypically male?

... that's not REALLY gender neutral, is it?

I've just seen some girls dinosaur t shirts in morrisons. They were so cute!

What message does that send our children? 2 or 3 out of 56 products being purple and turquoise does not a gender neutral selection make, IMHO.

Which 56 products are you looking at? Op was talking about t_shirts and there are 14 of them. Navy, bottle green, grey, yellow, red, beige, purple, turquoise, black. Which of those colours are not 'typically girls'? I'm trying to imagine next girls section. I'd see all of those colours there, I think. The only 'girls' colour that's missing is pink. I get your general point about gender free clothing should not mean everyone accepting 'boys' colours. But in this example of T-shirt's at NHM, I don't think this is the case. There's no pink T-shirt, but I see plenty of colours that would be perfectly acceptable to boys and girls.

lots of shops have dinosaur print skirts, dresses, sparkly t shirts in the 'girls' section as well as lots of neutral colours in the 'boys' section, think your looking in the wrong place (asda, tesco, john lewis, next and h&m all have what your looking for)

I guess you've missed that all colours have, for a long long time, been worn by women. But pink has almost exclusively been associated with girls. It's really the only colour that is mostly worn by one gender.

So adding it is adding the only colour that isn't truly gender neutral. Although I agree it should be a gender neutral colour. But girls have been 'pinkified' in recent years so much more than they ever used to be when I was young, so including it does the opposite job of what you say you want.

Your daughter likes pink. NHM are not currently selling a pink dinosaur tshirt. That is not sexist, that is just the way it is.

It takes two seconds to pop 'pink dinosaur tshirt' in to google and you'll find many, that your DD may like more than the colours NHM currently have to offer. It goes no deeper than that

I've just had a rummage through my DSs' t-shirt drawers. Their contents are influenced by their likes and aversions and what is actually avaliable to buy...

There are some of the darker, sludgier colours in there, often with something like Minecraft/ Lego type prints (that's what is avaliable on that theme). There are primary colours like red and blue. Some oranges and mustardy yellows. A few turquoise. Brighter patterns including florals on shirts.
The brighter ones tend to come from outdoors shops, the darker/ primary colours from supermarkets. No blocks pink, but there are pink trims/ zips on items like jumpers or shorts if the dominant colour is quite plain. They have longer than average hair (particularly for an area which seems to have about 3 short boys' styles on offer) and get comments about looking like girls which makes them feel uncomfortable when they have to explain themselves. The irony is their hair is quite androdgenous and girls with the same styles would no doubt be asked if they were boys

I'm not anti-pink, I have plenty of pink amongst just about every other colour. The problem with pink is when it gets pigeonholed into the only (or at least along with a limited repetoire of colours) option for girls, and when girls limit themselves to only "girly" things. On the flip side, it's a problem that boys struggle to show interest in things that are "girly" too and are held back by toxic masculinity.

Marketing a broad range of "kids" bright colours, just not including pink is unisex. It's not the masculine by default e.g. square cut race-t-shirts that don't fit women's curves so you end up with a bias of females having a product that tends to work less well for them than males (male/ unisex "small" is not equal to small female sizing, but much curvier women than me struggle too)

Encouraging children to move away from gender stereotypes is tricky as other people do comment and influence them. With boys, I find a bit of pink, e.g. pink flowers on a traditional cut of shirt is passable, but the whole hog of a pink t-shirt is more likely to encourage awkwardness. Which is sad because a colour is just a colour and people should where what they like/ makes them feel good. I'd love to see less rigid colour sterotyping and a more open choice for all, and this range does it fairly well.

How in the living fuck is green a stereotypically male colour? I’m baffled.

I also have a dinosaur mad DD. We've bought...

@Ohjustboreoff, that sort of thing drives DD mad. Like, girls can be in to dinosaurs but only if they have a pretty pink bow on it.

It irks me the current trend of “girling up” traditionally boy themes. Saw one the other day and it was a pink Star-wars t-shirt.

Totally unnecessary.

I’m a grown up and wear mainly black, grey, navy, white/cream with occasional brighter colours - I think OP has the problem - dinosaurs are everywhere in many colours

On this note, as this feels like a potentially useful resource -- can anyone recommend somewhere I can buy (online ideally!) some scientifically accurate, science-themed kids clothing in bright colours?

My DD is really into purple and really into science and I'd love to find some science-themed clothes for her for Christmas.

It irks me the current trend of “girling up” traditionally boy themes. Saw one the other day and it was a pink Star-wars t-shirt.

Totally unnecessary.

Why is a pink star wars tshirt unnecessary? Is there something wrong with pink? Is it somehow "lesser" because it's a stereotypical girls colour? Can boys not like and wear pink too? Or are you just proving the point several of us have made on this thread that in order to be unisex it must lean more masculine? Becasue of obviously the worse thing a girl can do is like things that are stereotypically girly. I mean how very dare a girl like star wars but also like pink.

Dinosaurs are “boyish” colours naturally , a nice brown /biege Dino would look horrendous on a pink t shirt so they just match the colours up that way .
My dd never cared although she’d always pick a toy over an item of clothing anyway

@MotherOfDragonite
My dd has some fantastic science themed tops from Kennedy space centre , a lovely bright purple one and a bright pink one .
Have a look on their website

Dinosaurs are “boyish” colours naturally , a nice brown /biege Dino would look horrendous on a pink t shirt so they just match the colours up that way

Actually if you see upthread nobody actually knows what colour dinosaurs were. There is no reason to believe they were all brown and beige... especially since they are believed to have a common ancestor with birds who obviously come in a huge array of colours.

Thank you @FizzyIce, much appreciated! I will go have a look.

Btw there is some interesting research into the colour of dinosaurs, suggesting they were more colourful than you would imagine from the fossils! www.wired.co.uk/article/paleocolour-dinosaur-facts

I used to work in the nhm shop and we used to sell a pink dinosaur T-shirt with a cartoon diplodocus on it. I have one myself. But it didn’t sell well. So they discontinued it. Perhaps this is the problem with the ‘girly’ clothes. They don’t sell well so aren’t worth stocking ?