Angry at M&S and their 'girls are here to spread positivity' clothing

[TheBlueOwl]

Looking for some sweatshirts for my 10 year old daughter on the M&S website. It was hard to find anything without a nauseating ‘positive/kindness' message/slogan. Had a look at the boys stuff and it seems they don’t have the burden of spreading positivity to the world via their clothing? What is this all about? It feels wrong or AIBU? Surely we’ve moved on from girls having to be sweetness and light? Do I need to learn applique and start some counter messaging? Get Fucked? Too strong? Any ideas?

Here are my findings:

Girls Tops:
Positive state of mind
Life is full of surprises
Always positive energy
Spread kindness
Amazing things will always happen
Super Love
Let the Sunshine In
Happiness Rocks
Better Together

Boys Tops:
Dead Cool
Gamer at Work
Just Roll With It
Turtley Amazing
Powered by Dino Might
Strong Together
Gamer
Goal

this is where gender neutral sections would be great

I have an old catalouge from the early 80s. Many clothes items in it were unisex. Branded TV show/film sweatshirts have a boy and girl standing together and the item number is the same for both tops. Same for branded pyjamas too.

It's funny that we've devolved since then.

Honestly, at a time of war, I can't get worked up over this. As men aged 18-60 are conscripted in Ukraine and women are evacuated...there are sex differences. I don't see anyone moaning g about the sexism in that. If it doesn't apply to you then don't buy the T-shirt with that logo. But let's focus our efforts on bigger battles.

My DD is into dinosaurs, space and dragons and hates fairies and unicorns etc.
We usually buy our clothes from the boys' section because we know that's currently what she prefers.

Once I went to Next and bought her a PJ set. Three pairs. Space themed, in the girls section. Brilliant.
When I got them home, all of them had pink on, one had LOVE spelled out in a star constellation and the one had cool little UFOs and shooting star patterns all over, and, bewilderingly, bunches of flowers all over too.
Like the designers said 'Let's make some girls Space PJs! But don't forget some flowers, in case boys want to wear them too'

I have a DS now so the hand me downs are efficient, but I have noted the colours in boys sections are usually drab and mud themed, and the logos usually mention trouble makers or something, which is similarly annoying.

Have you seen LetClothesBeClothes on FB and twitter, @TheBlueOwl?

Have you seen LetClothesBeClothes on FB and twitter, @TheBlueOwl?

@DontBuyANewMumCashmere Yes someone mentioned it earlier. It's brilliant! So glad there is an actual campaign.

I try so hard to find bright clothes for my son, from the age of 2 everything in the boy section was so drab. Now I have a girl the difference is awful. Comparing the trousers for babies she’s been given to ones my son had, from the same shop. The girls are skin tight and thin fabric, the boys are thick cotton and not tight. There’s differences in the size of tops as well and everything has bloody frills on!
I find good plain bright clothes from h and m and then scandi brands/frugi/little green radical but all so expensive.

YANBU. They are decades out of date.

I’ve noticed this too, I made it really clear that I’d prefer to avoid any ‘pretty sparkly cutie pie who is daddy’s princess’ clothing for DD and I guess my family know me well enough to know that anyway.

But I’ve noticed lots of the stuff they’ve gifted her has this kind of message instead. She actually has a top on today that says ‘always be kind always be happy’. That’s quite a lot to ask of an 18 month old really. (She’s wearing it because I don’t want to waste clothes and I’m not ungrateful for the gift and also because she can’t read and has a cardigan over it anyway )

I keep telling my husband I’m going to make her one that says ‘no YOU be kind’ and another about being fine with being grumpy, but would also be interested in your ‘get fucked’ range.

I also agree with this OP. It's this gender marketing and consumerism that underpins all that gender identity questioning. Pre-teen girls clothes is all crop tops, dumb enhancing denims and nauseating be happy be kind slogans.

bum enhancing

YANBU - I am expecting my first baby (a DD) and am only really taking an interest in baby & young children’s clothes now. I want to dress her in feminine prints & colours and have no problems with unicorns, but I won’t put her in anything with a rainbow or silly virtue signalling slogan on it, as I don’t agree with the hero worship of the NHS post-covid and the #bekind message is often disingenuous. I’d rather she wore a top saying #don’tbeatwat !

@Dammitthisisshit

What’s wrong with a unisex camo wearing glittery lizard

I, a 42-year-old professional woman, would wear the heck out of a camo wearing glittery lizard t-shirt. Solidarity.

I hadn't actually picked up on this. My DD has lots of tops with this kind of messaging on them. She likes those kind of tops. But yes, actually it isn't just up to girls/women to be kind etc.

Look on the Wildlife trust shop, they have some lovely sweatshirts for children and adults, they make to order so no waste and when your child grows out of it you get credit off next purchase if you send it back.

YANBU. It's a girl's responsibility to look cheerful and spread joy in the world, and if they don't some arsehole will feel obliged to say "Cheer up, darlin', you're much prettier when you smile" as if that's what matters about someone looking grumpy. Total misogynist BS, obviously.

I switched to Next precisely because of this.

YANBU, that’s nauseating. I have two sons and I avoid their boys’ stuff like the plague. It’s all mock military/combat gear or gaming related (or both). Boring stereotypes. Not thanks.

I saw

YANBU

I don't buy that stuff

Sorry - pressed send too soon. I saw a particularly bad one in Boots a few months back. Boys’ and girls’ pramsuits. Boys’ one was blue with a bear on. Cute. Girls’ one was pink and said ‘beautiful little thing’. Vomit.

YANBU. It’s all the shops. I was going to buy a dress for dd4 until I realised it had ‘Be kind’ scrawled all over it.

Write to them, try and get some influences to take it up.

In the meantime don’t buy it.

So buy a boys one!!! Bigger things to worry about in the world right now.

@TashieWoo

YANBU - I am expecting my first baby (a DD) and am only really taking an interest in baby & young children’s clothes now. I want to dress her in feminine prints & colours and have no problems with unicorns, but I won’t put her in anything with a rainbow or silly virtue signalling slogan on it, as I don’t agree with the hero worship of the NHS post-covid and the #bekind message is often disingenuous. I’d rather she wore a top saying #don’tbeatwat !

I avoid any kids clothing, accessory or novelty item with rainbow references. It's inane how this is being shoved at us. Bizarre.

I agree although people do need to stop buying this stuff.

My 5 year old DS was on the other hand bought multiple tops saying “gamer” on and with games console images. He’s not a “gamer”, he’s 5.

It's a class thing and this always gets overlooked. I think it's really unreasonable that the higher up the market you go, the easier it is to avoid this kind of stuff. I always loved the Little Bird range in Mothercare but could never afford it. It was lovely bright rainbow colours, properly 'unisex'. Joules and JoJoMaman do lots of navy girls clothes and Boden do nice rainbow colours. But when you're stuck at the lower end of the market you have less choice and George, Matalan, Primark, Peacocks, etc all have the extremely gendered stuff.

Def an element of that.