To be annoyed with the obsession for 'pink for girls'

[trickerg]

Saw rows and rows and rows of pink girls' clothes in Asda today. I thought this was age of equality and equal opportunity? Are we dividing the sexes more and more?

I was thinking that too. Just as you moan about pink defining girls, why should you let it? DD wears pink cos she gets a lot of perfect condition hand me downs from my SIL but it doesn't mean she won't be bought toy cars or allowed to do metalwork or put together flat pack furniture with me. I don't give a toss what colour she wears. It doesn't define her as a person.

But on no account will those farking princesses cross my threshold. They make me vom and Disney should be banned.

My daughter can wear pink 'til the cows come home, but on no account is she allowed to watch kids' films that end in an open-mouth kiss! At least not until she is old enough to drive.

you think I kid...

Glad we are agreed on something. My mum gave my dd a princesses toy mobile phone, it excitedly asks her 'to come to the party' it is going to be thrown out lost soon

There was a bit on 'Child of Our Time' where they talked about young children having a very fluid sense of gender, thinking that if you dressed like a boy/girl you could change sex which led them to strongly prefer gender specific activities and clothes. I think that the pink/blue thing has gone too far though, the world was just less pink 30 years ago so we didn't crave it in the same way young girls do i think

It's not so much the colour pink that bothers me as the awful princessy fairy 'born to shop' obsessed with being pretty all the time stuff. Also gender specific toys, I don't want DD thinking she can't play with cars and stuff when she's older because toy shops now have a boys and a girls section.

Dylon machine dye can fix a lot of your pink problems

I loathe all the pink shit too. My mum (bless her) bought us loads of pink Disney clothes from Asda ( although I hated the Disney element more than the pink, tbh) and me and partner took them back and exchanged them for other colours (and NO disney) Ghaah.

Asda is Wal-Mart right? Which is a big American corporation - maybe them and Disney have some sort of deal going on.

even mothercare has a fair amount of non pink stuff, like greens..

I don't know whether the world was less pink 30 years ago as I [admitting my age] don't go back quite that far. What I DO remember from early childhood was being told when I expressed interest in being a biologist that I should want to be a ballerina and being given a barbie doll by every well-meaning-but-obtuse relative at each and every gift-giving occasion.

It didn't stop me from being very contrary and insisting that my favorite color was, in fact GREEN (it was really blue, but my 5-year-old self didn't want to admit this as everyone else liked blue as well), and disassembling barbie dolls to see how they fit together. I still ended up in IT with all the boys.

Gender roles are certainly fluid, and saying "girls wear pink" may contribute to crystalizing gender roles, but I think it may be worse to, even subconciously, say "girls do x and boys do y and I don't want to be a girly-girl so I do y" in that it reinforces that some activites are for girls and others for boys. Even though it encourages girls to cross a percieved gender barrier, it also tells them that there IS a gender barrier.

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FWIW, Asda is owned by Wal-mart, but seems to take stocking suggestions from Tesco as I have bought the most adorable, girly, brown/blue/green/purple/red/gray outfits from Wal-mart and haven't seen anything similar at any of the large chains. No, not even Mothercare or Pumpkin Patch, although I will admit that those girls' sections are slightly less pink-washed.

**will let my daughter help me weld on my car grill AND teach her to waltz, for no other reason than it seems to confuse people when you can do both.

Oh, and the Disney deal: retail chains find it much easier and cheaper to carry licensed merchandise than to develop their own licensed brands/characters which won't have the same amount of recognition in the stores as the Disney charcters. From the corporate perspective it's a win-win for all as the store doesn't have to spend money deveoping, copyrighting, and marketing characters and Disney makes truckloads of money from licensed merchandise (as does Universal Studios, Pixar, and In the Night Garden).

That's why store brands (such as George, Cherokee, Tu, etc) usually have snotty comments or "princess" crap on t-shirts instead of characters. It's almost enough to make one want to go all crunchy and make their clothes.

I don't really understand this arguement. If you don't like pink - just don't buy it. Why does it matter that other people have pink for their girls?

I have 2 girls and have just had a scan of the living room. The only pink I can see is the changing mat.

They do have pink clothes, but also have pretty much all colours. I guess my youngest is in pink a lot (2 months old) but then at least people know she is a girl! DD1 is 18 months and doesn't wear pink that often really. She is always in dresses, so they are girly but she has blue ones, red ones, white ones, yellow ones, light green, multicoloured etc.

My DD is about to grow out of the majority of her clothes (she 15m). Lots of them are pink and I'm giving them away once she's grown out of them. Anything else I buy is not going to be pink. I have found some quite good stuff for her:

-green trousers from M&S
-navy Tshirt from gap
-red tshirt from mothercare
-blue tshirt from mothercare
-orange pjs

There's quite a lot of white stuff around but I don't really approve of white for a toddler! Yellow as well is a bit impractical, so it is quite hard to get clothes!

It's easy to find different colours though. Try Hennes, Gap, Boden or even the local NCT sales, secong hand shops, go to Camden...you just have to look a bit more.
Even in Asda, I am sure there are alternatives

Exactly Mrsruffallo. I havent purposly tried to get non pink stuff and TBH most of our stuff is second hand. There is stuff everywhere that isn't pink. Yes if you glance down an isle of girly stuff, a lot of it will be pink as this is what sells well but there will always be alternatives!

Its the pink toys that annoy me, I don't like the idea of toys being so gender specific, girls just seem to be so much more into being pretty and sparkly than we were. I just think we have taken a step backwards, too much emphasis on our girls being 'pretty' and 'girly' when boys aren't judged on their looks but are expected to be scruffy and unkept to some extent. But maybe it's just something I don't relate to? I was a tomboy, much more interested in climbing trees and building lego than dressing up. I don't know how I'll cope if dd decides she wants to be a princess type.

rufallo where in camden? the only kids shop i've seen there is baby gap or is there more on the market end?

It only tends to be the cheapest of the cheap that do everything pink -like Asda , Matalan .Also I hate slogans or captions or whatever you want to call them on clothes.My DDs are obviously gorgeous , pretty and beautiful, they don't need their T shirt to have to announce it too.

As for pink/blue toys I know that ELC are planning on phasing out their gender specific items and and are going back to neutral. About time really I think they overstepped the mark when they started doing pink batteries!!

I didn't realise actually how hard it is to stay away from this stuff. DD is too young to go madly pink yet but she adores the Night Garden and her little face when she see pyjamas or a book etc is a picture. I end up wondering if it's worth the bother of not buying it i.e. she needs new pyjamas, she would love ITNG ones and as long as they keep her warm in bed I'm not bothered what's on the front so I end up buying them. Always swore I wouldn't do that but it's harder in reality.