To be fed up of shops favouring girls clothes?

[Galwayg]

I had a little boy last year and noticed almost as soon as he was born that there seems to be a huge imbalance between the range of clothes available for boys compared to that for girls. I even noticed in some shops the girls clothes were displayed at the front, while boys clothes were hidden in a corner at the back.

I’ve brushed this off as a bit annoying until now, when I’ve gone to try and get him holiday clothes. It first caught my attention on Next’s website that they had WAY more baby girls swimwear than boys. The boys’ options in every shop is also the same bright blue swimwear with either multi coloured sharks or dinosaurs emblazoned across it. I’ve had a bit of a search tonight and compared the boys vs girls swimwear in some of the shops I’d look on:

Jojo Maman Bebe - boys (51), girls (80)
Next - boys (145), girls (277)
Marks & Spencer - boys (11), girls (16)
John Lewis - boys (145), girls (181)
Matalan - boys (9), girls (27)

AIBU to think this is majorly unfair?! 🤔

Completely agree. And anything really nice sells out straight away so if I ever spot anything I like for my little boy I buy it there and then! So much easier to dress a little girl. This has been discussed so many times on here and I've seen it elsewhere too so why don't the retailers pick up on this? So so frustrating.

I know someone who owns an upmarket children's boutique and she says that the demand for girls' clothes is much higher, hence the majority of her stock being girls' clobber.

Yanbu. I have a teen ds and finding clothes for him that don't look like jumble sale rejects is hard.
Drab, dreary, badly cut, horrible materials. There is much more choice for girls.

@MurderAtTheBeautyPageant oh interesting 🤔 it is maybe the choices they’re trying to sell though just aren’t what people want. I’ve seen a few nice grey or more subtly patterned boys swimming things and they’ve been sold out as soon as I’ve gone on it but you can take your pick of the same old highly patterned shark shorts 🙈

@MintJulia oh god, it continues 🤦🏼‍♀️😂

@frillseeking its bizarre! And surely the fact the more plain or less shark/dinosaur themed items sell out quickly tells them to do more of them 🤷🏼‍♀️ Every time I find any they aren’t in his size. H&M is often a good one for more neutral boys clothes but I actually forgot to check the numbers for there

Yes but I suspect it’s unfair to girls, since they need to be pretty and well dressed and not repeating outfits too much since birth apparently 😂

And H&M is the same, would you believe it 🤦🏼‍♀️😂

Yes we've got a few lovely bits from H&M. They had a lovely sage green stripe boys swim outfit on there but that sold out immediately. Zara used to be good but they've gone too trendy for me- all baggy tracksuit bottoms and everything oversized. It's either dinosaurs and fire engines, the Spanish chav look or neon. As you say, the nice bits sell out so why don't they adjust the spend accordingly and design into these areas? Makes no sense!

I actually picked up a few pieces in Mango recently, would say they're worth a look

@frillseeking yes actually, mango ads pop up occasionally! I need to have a look on there 😊

I suspect it's driven by demand. Are (some) people treating the baby girls in their lives as dolls who needs large wardrobes of pretty clothes? Do they think girls are more fun to dress?

I've boy/girl two-year old twins.

I find I prefer the boys clothes in shops. For girls, there's so much pink, unicorn, rainbow stuff.

I've got lovely boys clothes in Jojo Maman Bebe and Dunnes (I'm in Ireland).
For my twins, I buy a lot of nautical stripes etc, so they swop and share most of their clothes.

This is why I’m all for gender neutral clothing. Babies don’t need girls sections and boy sections. Just a child’s section with blue, pink, yellow, green, all the colours. I’ve found in recent years that clothes go either:

• Super girly, Princess pink frilly everything


• blue and grey clothes that have diggers on them or Dinosaurs saying ‘Raaaaah’

every bloody shop! More variety please retailers!

I remember this when my boys were young 20 -30 yrs ago . Seems like it's never changed then .🙄

Had this exact issue today… all I wanted was a bloody sun hat for my little boy. We had the choice of Batman or Minecraft, whilst there were loads of girls hats. @PlasticineMeg if I see one more “raaah” dinosaur top I might scream

Welcome to the unending world of clothing stereotyping! Once through your dinosaur phase, you will graduate to everything being football and gaming, through to an array of grey and camo for teens.... But then the girls get all the impractical, "be kind" slogan crap..... If you have the budget, Boden is great for up to about age 13 though.

Not changed in the last 15 years then? I knew the swim stuff would be covered in sharks, it’s always sharks! 😂
As a PP says, mini Boden always had other options and I used to bulk buy clothes in French supermarkets or chain stores: not all diggers and “raaaah” dinosaurs.

I found this when I had my second child. I had a boy first and when pregnant with my second I was sure it was a girl given how different the pregnancy was. When I found out it was another boy I decided to go and buy a nice outfit to celebrate and the store was FULL of beautiful girls clothes. With nothing that caught my eye for boys at all.. Was very disheartening at the time.

Vertbaudet was where I got most of the best neutral stuff 20 years ago for my DD, which was mostly reused for ds. As Ds is 12 now, I haven't looked recently but it's worth looking. It was always really good value, especially the multi packs. They did have very annoying marketing techniques and obviously Brexit might have impacted prices.

100% agree especially when it comes to swimwear.

I posted on a similar thread a few weeks ago that our huge matalan don't even stock boys swimwear in store but did funnily enough stock multiple different swimming costumes for girls.

Not one single pair of swimming shorts although it's hardly surprising when they have 1/2 an aisle for their entire range of boys clothing and 3 aisles for the girls.

Yep! Mum of 3 boys here! I find the same with shoes,looking for summer sandals for them and the choice is rubbish compared to girls.
I usually get their clothes from asda-George,H&M and primark and manage to dress them pretty well!

A lot of it is supply and demand. Shops exist to make money so it makes sense to stock what sells and not waste floor space with stock that will just sit there until it ends up being reduced.

A slightly different example, but I used to work in outdoor retail and we stocked womens sizes 8-20 - however we never had size 20 on the shop floor because it just didn't sell enough and it made more sense to use that space to stock the sizes that sold.

Even when we did put those sizes out, we maybe sold one or items a season, if that.

Maybe once a year we'd have a customer complain that we didn't stock larger sizes but it's not worth it if they don't make us money. We had to buy (I think) a minimum
of 1000 items in each size across the company - it would be business suicide to do that when we'd only sell maybe 10-15 of those items a year.

Just one more example of the sexist shit that starts from birth.

It’s a nightmare OP and I say that as a mum of both. I also find it a struggle for my daughter because if you actually look at what’s stocked it’s almost only crop tops and super tight sexualising clothing. No young girl should be walking around with their entire stomach hanging out in my opinion. If you pick up a short sleeved top in boys section and the same size in girls section you will notice the girls version being much smaller, shorter and sewn in at the sides. Why would a 5 year old girl be slimmer than a 5 year old boy and why is it okay to put that pressure on girls EVER? I know that’s a different rant but trust me there are massive issues having both genders and girl mum face many hurdles as well. Stock wise though yes I agree, I’ve even walked into entire shops with children’s clothing to discover it’s 100% girls things. When questioned the cashier just said ‘No, we only sell women’s, men’s and girls wear’. HUH??