Girl in boyish clothes = YES, boy in clothes that are even the tiniest bit feminine = NO!

[GrahameSylvia]

Does anyone else think its a bit unreasonable that when dressing young kids (babies, toddlers, and perhaps also a bit older), a lot of people now seem to think that dressing girls in slightly more boyish clothes (blue, dinosaur print, stuff with 'strong girl' etc printed on it) is great, progressive, cool etc. But that if you put your baby or toddler boy in one item that is even the slightest bit feminine, even when paired with other boy-ish stuff (I'm talking blue dungarees with a tiger on them and a vest that has gone a tiny bit peach colored in the wash) people instantly assume they are a girl and / or are made quite uncomfortable and ask why your kid is dressed as a girl??

I'd say we dress our one year old somewhere between 'standard boy' and what we think of as neutral - not that this should matter. There is plenty of blue, brown green in his wardrobe, though also some yellow, brighter prints and the occasional bit of dark purple or fawn. But anytime he has the slightly 'girlier' things on everyone calls him she. We've also had a couple of instances of relatives (not always older ones) being uncomfortable or mocking him / us when he's been dressed in supposedly 'girly' things e.g. a red cardigan, a bonnet with earflaps instead of a beanie, dungarees printed with sweetcorns.

Since then I've started to look round and noticed that even in our relatively progressive, affluent bit of the world some girls are dressed very femininely, but plenty are dressed in stuff that is boyish or neutral and everyone still assumes they are girls. But every boy is wearing camouflage, sludge colours and vehicle prints. The same extends to toys, plenty of girl toddlers being encouraged to play with lego and cars and get muddy, but parents at our local affluent play cafe actively discouraging boys from picking up dolls or dollhouses - despite the fact that most of these girls will grow up to own cars and drive and the boys will own houses and have babies.

So why do all these progressive folks feel it is okay and positive for girls to be 'boyish' but still seem to be (consciously or unconsciously) very against their little boys being the slightest bit feminine?

Has anyone else seen the same / seen different / think its unreasonable to condition little boys to be against anything 'soft', 'feminine' or 'caring'? Doesn't feminism / progress cut both ways?

I have a boy that I dress in whatever I like to, including clothes from the girls section, but no ones every said anything about it to me

Every time my girl is wearing beige/blue etc or anything not girly basically- I get 'what's his name'! So not sure it's any better the other way round

Why do people know the girls are girls? Probably because there is still something ‘feminine’ in how they are dressed. So people are still dressing them differently really.

Why does it matter though? Surely your point is that they should be dressed either way and therefore strangers shouldn’t be able to tell and it doesn’t matter?

ds loves pink and if people say ‘she’ then so what? We just tell them. No biggie.

Yes it really annoys me. I dared get my DS a pink and gold blanket when he was born because it was lovely and EVERY single comment, no exaggeration, was 'why does he have a pink blanket'. From my parents, DPs parents, all of our siblings and other family members. Ridiculous.

My eldest is a girl, youngest a boy - he gets lots of hand me downs by choice. He also rocks long hair on occasions so we get lots of mistakes. Mistakes but never negative comments that I pick up on - we get more regarding his hair from elderly relatives!

He has just had a pearl necklace bought for him on holiday as it was a tourist gimmick!

I used to dress my toddler DS in red, with colourful hats, etc, because I thought the fashion for dressing small boys in sludge colours and camo, and then taking them to the (green, leafy) park was insane. I wanted to see him when he plunged into a hedge or long grass! He was called "she" by everyone until he grew a beard but didn't care then, doesn't care now.

It works both ways. I usually dress my 1 year old girl fairly unisex (as do most people I know tbh). I recently dressed her in jeans and a blue check shirt for a cowboy fancy dress party I was quizzed by a women on the bus why I’d dress my ‘pretty little girl’ in boy clothes to which I pointed out they aren’t boy clothes they are just clothes she called my a bloody wierd hippy and got off the bus. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Not the point of the post, but OMG, dungarees with sweetcorn on!!!!! Cuuuuuuute!!!!! I'd love something like that for myself

I totally get you. DS2 had long hair as a toddler/ up to age 10. He was always taken for a girl- especially since I've always dressed my 3 boys in bright colours- not sludgey ones. He's now a 15yo, 6'1 rugby playing, moody teen and his favourite, new hoodie is pink.

However, I do feel like I cannot dress DS3 in the pink, sparkly things he sometimes requests. He's 10 and has ASD, so is already socially and emotionally much younger and different. He finds it hard to make friends, so appearing at school for non-uniform day in pink, sparkly shoes will make him even more the butt of the joke. It's hard. Luckily, he also loves everything 'gaming' and there's plenty of that around to buy. He's now gone off the pink stuff, but it makes me sad that I didn't feel I could indulge him.

Whilst I agree there is a lot of sexism and stereotyping in children’s clothes and toys, I don’t think somebody referring to your child as she is an example of sexism in itself. It seems like a fairly practical guess. I don’t have much need to interact with young children but if I needed to and came across a baby or young child who I could not tell was a boy or girl I probably would make a guess based upon their outfit.

Blue used to be a girl colour and pink a boy's. Baby boys used to wear dresses. Then it changed. It really doesn't matter what a baby wears as they'll barf and poo in it later.

It is pretty one sided. I made sure my
boys had dolls and pink clothes etc, although I did feel I can’t put them in skirts and dresses (would be happy for them to choose to wear them when they are old enough to choose)

Just don't let other people's opinions rule how you want to dress DS.

When ds was a baby I needed some vests when visiting friends. The local Tesco only had the flowery pattern in his size so that's what he got. I wouldn't ever chuck decent clothes away because of a pattern so he wore those for months until he grew out of them. No one said anything but if they did I would have asked them why they cared. If someone assumed ds was a girl I would have just corrected them, it's not an insult.

He also had pink dummies because that's what he chose and would often be sporting a pink top and played with dollies. Who actually gives a shit?

It's forcing these sort of stereotypes onto kids that has left us with the problem we have now. So many people confused with their gender because they were forced to 'pick a side' as a young child.

Lol yeah my daughter had really short hair for years, I was always complemented on how cute my son was

The same phenomenon that sees unisex names becoming girls’ names. YANBU.

That said, nothing you’ve described from your son’s wardrobe sounds very feminine at all, and I don’t know anyone who dressed their boys in camouflage stuff etc. So your friends’ reactions do sound somewhat unusual.

A doctor at the hospital I gave birth in called my newborn a boy and I corrected him and said she’s a girl.

He got annoyed and told me I should have dressed her in pink.

I was shocked that he got annoyed in the first place (no big deal to make a mistake about the sex of a baby, who hasn’t done that before) and why is there a rule about dressing girls in pink and boys in blue in this day and age?

So, I agree with my dd’s childlike and very sensible perspective that there shouldn’t be boy or girl clothes and that kids should be able to choose clothes that they like.

@HotPenguin The first computer programmers were female.

It is a female role co-opted by men in the late 80s/early 90s because it is highly paid.

You think it's a "traditional male" role due to how you have been socialised there as because I have a friends' mum who was one in the 60s and had relations doing the role in the 80s I don't.

Incidentally lots of children now think the highest rulers in the UK e.g. PM, Queen are female roles. 😃

Back on topic - if your baby/toddler has short hair and/or wears strong colours lots of people presume they are a boy. One friends' DD wore all pink and strangers decided she was a "he". My DD wears a mixture and adults can't guess so often go for "he".

Mine has had opinions on what he wears from about two, so I tend to dress him in what he prefers (whilst trying not to spend a fortune). He likes paw patrol, Spiderman etc.. so either boyish or neutral. He chose minimouse sunglasses -totally fine. If he wanted pink clothes sometimes I'd be fine with that. I wouldn't decide to dress him as a girl though, it would just seen random and then you spend the whole time saying he's a boy.

One of his friends - a boy - wears nail varnish and jewellery together with typical boyish clothes - it looks cool. Equally there's nothing wrong with dressing a boy in just boyish clothes - especially if your boy chose them!

@Maybebabyno2 I love what you posted. Great advice about not letting other peoples opinions rule how you want to dress your dc, that goes for other parenting decisions too.

I also agree with this: It's forcing these sort of stereotypes onto kids that has left us with the problem we have now. So many people confused with their gender because they were forced to 'pick a side' as a young child.

I remember a little boy about 3 asking me if boys were allowed to like pink. I said yes, all the colours are for everyone to enjoy. He looked so visibly relieved that it struck me just how much anxiety he had about liking a colour. Really sad that societal pressure is doing that to kids.

The ssue here isn’t whoever random person in the street not knowing what sex a baby or child is correctly (why would that matter? who cares?) … it’s parents feeling that there is some kind of shame or risk in their child being mistaken for the opposite sex, or in people not being able to tell immediately what sex their child is. Also it’s parents feeling awkward about pointing out a mistake or what the correct sex is.

Our kids have the whole lifetime to be pressured to pick a side around masculinity and femininity, firstly because of old school sexism, and now even more so now that gender identity politics has really taken off as well. (new school sexism).

It’s not (or shouldn’t be) a slight or an insult to have someone get your gender (ie stereotypes of masculinity or of femininity) wrong, or not be able to guess. I’d say, in a child or in an adult. We’re in a place culturally at the moment where this is a big frightening deal to get wrong (usually on a sliding scale of offence being taken depending on increasing age of the person in question), because of some adults’ reactions around this issue who really, really believe gender stereotypes are important. Who benefits from that, is a question for another thread.

Actually there could be loads of different responses to that situation of someone getting it wrong or not being able to tell, many of them not related to embarrassment, shame or anger at all.

Feeding into that negative reaction around this is just setting up gender non conforming kids for trouble. So a small way to start to tackle the sexist culture that we live in, is to try to take the heat out of this issue in our own responses when it comes up with our kids. It’s not always emotionally easy to do, but it’s sending out an important message if we can do it. Also it is supporting freedoms for anyone who doesn’t stick to the strict masculine or feminine gender presentation rules 100% of the time- which will be almost all of us, to some degree, and so is likely to include our kids in future too.

The thing I find interesting is the random things which seem to be gendered - my son has a white top with strawberries on it and ehenever he wears it people always thing he's a girl. A virtually identical top but with bananas doesn't result in the same misunderstanding. Are strawberries more girly than bananas and on what basis?

I know you're not lying but I do find it odd that I just never encounter this. Like are you surrounding yourself with morons? You're 100% right about the clothes in shops but I've never come across anyone who would ask why you e dressed boy as girl or anything so rude

My nearly three year old boy refuses to wear anything that doesn't have a digger or dinosaur on. I tried so hard to not push gender stereotypes on him - but he did it by himself! 😂

When I had my girl/boy twins people gave me lots of pink/blue matching baby grows. In that first year I barely slept and didn't have the brain capacity to think about baby fashion. My twins were vastly different sizes so never could wear these matching sets together. I would put them in whatever clothes fitted them at the time. Sometimes my son was in pink, sometimes they both were. I didn't give a shit but occasionally we would be out at a social gathering and instead of congratulating me on actually getting out of the house I would get stick for him wearing pink. Like I was trying to make a deliberate feminist statement. So odd people care what colour a baby wears!

Some people are very set in their stereotypes.

I have a longish haired "pretty" 5yo boy. As a baby/toddler he'd get mistaken for a girl a lot whatever he was wearing. My Dad was horrified that I got him a doll's house until I pointed out that it was just role play because he lives in a house.

Lots of boys in his class like a bit of sparkle, nail varnish and have long hair. I feel sorry for the child who wants long hair but whose Dad says "no, that's for girls" and has very set gender ideas, it's poisonous.