old chestnut - pink for girls - driving me nuts

[nellieellie]

I know its been a thread before but I am so tired of the difficulty getting my 18mth DD clothes that are not pink. Don't get me wrong, she has some pink clothes but I really resent the fact that in some shops, everything for girls is pink. It's not just the clothes either, but even toys seems to be gender-marked. I go round to a friends house and her little girls snap their clothes off and put on pink tutus and look at themselves in the mirror; friends who bought my DS imaginative activity toys give DD clothes and dolls (in pink). Friends with older children hold "princess parties" for their little girls and little girl friends. My DD looks nothing like a boy but routinely is termed "little boy" at toddler groups/parks etc because she is not wearing pink. And this despite her flowing wavy hair and inch long eyelashes.
Other people talk of how their little girls are so interested in their appearance, and as young as 2 look at themselves in the mirror to see if they are "pretty".
I'm sure that the gender divide on clothes is worse than ever - as is the way toys are marketed as either for boys or girls. The worrying thing for me is that while toys for boys is invariably about doing stuff, or being active, girls toys have a bias towards appearance and looks - "prettiness". What is so good about a "princess" at a Princess party? - presumably dressing up and looking a certain way. For boys,say a "pirate party" is about rushing around, putting on silly voices and climbing up the crows nest - or sort of. I just remember my childhood as being fantastically oblivious to how I looked - having too much fun playing and running about. I don't want to isolate my little girl from her peers - and have nothing against a little bit of pink and dressing up from time to time but I don't want her to be sitting in front of a mirror putting bows in her hair (or getting me to) in the morning before she goes to nursery. I just want her to be a kid. Eating disorders are on the increase and I honestly think that in creating an enclosed world of pink and princesses for our girls we are giving too much emphasis on looks and appearance.

Was that in response to my post Divine? Why does dressing a child in pink automatically equate with them being told they are pretty?

YANBU. It's not that there's anything wrong with pink - actually, I love pink - but the fact that so many little girls mentioned on this thread (including my dd) say it is their favourite colour shows how insidious and effective the marketing is. This overwhelming female preference for pink can't be natural occurrence, after all - it's because they learn very early on that they're supposed to like pink. And along with that innocuous preference, they learn a whole lot of other stuff that is far less harmless.

My dd is 3 and now getting very upset when she gets taken for a boy (she is tall and has short hair). I am growing her hair out - despite her hatred of hairwashing and hairclips - because I simply do not know any other small girls with short hair, and I'd rather bow to social pressure than have her feel shame. She has recently discovered Disney princesses, and I was happy to give them house room alongside the tractors and trains - I believe in a good mix of toys, and allowing the child to follow her head. But I was really dismayed when she started telling that she liked so-and-so, "Because she's the prettiest". Even worse, she has started getting upset because she doesn't have yellow hair.

Nothing wrong with pink, nothing wrong with princesses. But a lot wrong with the way our tiny daughters get taught to value - and get valued in terms of - prettiness, consumerism, and ability to net a prince.

My little girl is rather pink but she adores real trains she loves dolls too

I love girly bits but I let her decide these days what she wears.

I sell bright funky things not tooooooooo girly for the most part because more parents do want girls things not quite so pink N fluffy!

I can't remember who said that the OP's DD wouldn't be interested in a train set, but I think they're wrong.
Last time we were in a Hamleys, there were various "girl" and "boy" toys set out for demonstrations. The table with the most children of both sexes gathered round it was the one with the Thomas train set. I've never come across any pre-schooler who doesn't enjoy going on the real train every so often, either.

For very little children, Boots had some decent colour choices last time I looked. I remember an autumnal orange, and some green in particular. For parties and going out, if you can afford some of the French brands, they seem to have a nicer idea of how a little girl should look. Lots of colours like baby blue and lemon as well as pink, simple styles and no horrible plasticky satin. Tiny Clanger had some Floriane things a few years ago that were really lovely.

smallclanger love your name and you are right - I saw that as well but didn't post.

OP's DD is 18 mo - same as mine - and mine would be overjoyed with a train set

In fact her fave toy is her ELC space rocket (red) - there is loads of non gendered stuff around if you look - certianly for this age (toddler).

I suspect things will get harder as she gets older, not least as she will probably twig that she's a little girl and that means all her stuff has to be pink

But for 18mo it really shouldn't be a problem.

YANBU at all.
And I second what smallclanger says.

TBH the increased gender divide by the shops and parents apparent williness to lap it up routinely horrifies me.

I was a girl who loved football, trains, lego without a brother insight. Appearance has meant little to me in my life apart from a couple of awkward teenage years.

Yet I know so many women who's lives have been damaged because of a feeling that their apperance reflects on their happiness. sadly I feel that the whole girls are pretty, and little princess is so limiting for some girls that don't fit into these increasingly rigid roles.

(or boys for that matter who arent 'cheeky monkeys etc')

smallclanger, i ;inked to booots mini mode and molly and jack earlier

d3 loves our trainset. and all the cars in the house. on my living room cupboard is an elc pirate ship. it gets played with daily.

and we're an all female house O(apart from dh lol).

Sorry, only skim-read some of the posts. Great minds thik alike...

My daughter loves her Brio (well, fake Brio) train set. We play with it at least twice a day every day. I rather like it too, and am female last time I looked.

raspberry blower - that is so depressing about the asda pj's and just says it all, doesn't it?

Actually, the thing that really annoys me is not so much the clothes (as we've said, you can dye or look abroad or whatever). The thing that irritates me beyond all belief is how eg in ELC you can get a pink easel and a blue/red easel. Clearly the pink one is aimed at girls and the other (more attractive) one at boys. This never ever happened when I was a child. It was an easel. If you wanted an easel, you got an easel in whichever colours it happened to be. Somehow, now, we've got to the point where we have to have gender-specific easels. It's mad.

I bought my daughter the boy's one, anyway. The other one was really sickly and nowhere near as nice to look at.

DSD was dressed "gender-neutral" as a baby/toddler. Now she is the pink QUEEN!!!
I have used reverse psychology with with DD, from the first she has been dressed in pink. She seems to be turning into a little bruiser who mixes it with boys! Last week she delighted in going down a steep slide headfirst and on her tummy, landing in a faceful of dirt.
I do hope my cunning plan is working!

Those of you that hate pink do you refuse to buy your dds pink toys as well as clothes?

YANBU, I TOTALLY agree. When DD was born I was aghast at the rigid gender stereotyping.

I resisted it, but ultimately she has picked up all the pink princess pony nonsense anyway. I have decided that the only way it'll not be a big deal is to let it run its course.

When she's old enough to have stereotypes explained to her I'll let her make her own decision. I'm confident she'll understand the damage rigid gender stereotypes do.

Oh and catweazle - you said you didn't buy your DD1 pink clothes at all does that mean even things with just a bit of pink, pink embroidery or stitching or something say pink, yellow and orange?

its not all pinks i dislike.its that soppy light pink i dont like. hot ;pink fine. day glo pink, fab. cerise, cool.

soppy baby pink? nooooooooooo

No I was not saying pink means pretty!! I was aware that I was pretty because I was told by people all of the time, I wore dungarees, beige, navy and had little pink (70s colours didn't include pink for me!).
My dd has some pink but no logo clothing, nothing from Next, Asda etc....
Have a look at Catiini, Oilily and Phister and Philina and that's my little girl. She also gets told she's pretty all of the time, but then she is!! She has big green eyes and brown ringlets in her hair and she's only two.... there again my boys get told they're handsome and I don;t think this has anything to do with pink!!

Couldn't agree more, Horton. I wanted to buy my DD the ELC red and blue easel, but they'd sold out. Ended up getting the pink one - so when DC 2 came along, a boy, he's using a pink one... so maybe that's worked out as a good thing in a twisted sort of way?
I'm keen for DD not to overload on pink, but I've never dressed DS in her pink handmedowns. Wonder if I'm running a double standard here?

Hello there

I'm having my first baby in June, so have been perusing the shops, fingering baby clothes. I recently discovered he's going to be a boy ? which dashed my ideas of woolly tights and cute bottle-green corduroy dresses ? but have been dismayed by the total channelling of even very small babies into 'daddy's princess coochy coo' or 'mummy's right little shit'. Surely for a few years at least, they're babies first, girls or boys second?

Also, any argument that pink-preference is somehow hardwired into girls' brains is belied by the fact that until the 19th century, the custom was pink for a boy, blue for a girl. I think because red was a more expensive dye, and boys were seen as more valuable.

DS#1 is 12 and chooses to wear pink.

He nickname is Alexia at school

Is he trying to tell me something?

His nickname....

I refuse to buy gender specific coloured toys like easles. I've got one dc of each sex and so it's got to work for both! All this sort of thing really has got worse in the last 10 years or so. When ds (7) was born ELC didn't do pink easles and blue easles, pink and blue CD players, etc... It was green for everyone!

It was my ds who had pink as a favourite colour as a toddler. Not my dd.

True about not seeing any girls nowadays with short hair. When I grew up (in the 80's) quite a few of my friends had short hair and it was normal.

I also think it's mainly a British/American phenomenon. In Europe it's just not quite the same. Lots of girly clothes and hardly any sickly soft pink or frilly things.

My dd(4 at the time) was desperate for a pair of 'wall e' PJ's this summer, so she now owns a pair of PJ's from the boys' section, because for some reason ALL girl's PJ's in BHS at the time were Disney Princess, Bratz or something similar. Funnily enough she hasn't forgotten and every time she wears it she mentions it.

Herbaceous I think up until the 50's or something it was pink for boys and blue for girls. A couple of years ago there was a documentary about this or it came up in a documentary. And interestingly the early Disney princesses wore blue: think Snow white, sleeping beauty. Also the Virgin Mary is generally protrayed wearing blue. I think it went something like red being a strong masculin colour (blood, fighting,...) and pink being the softer version of that.

I can't bear the blue for boys and pink for girls crap. It's BS and I go out of my way to avoid it.

I never shop in ELC which avoids the pink toy crap generally.