to be annoyed by this on the early learning centre website...

[dreamylady]

"For the little princess in the family we have great feminine outfits like Butterfly Fairy, Sleeping Beauty, Ballerina and Nurse's uniform. Why not add a medical case for that extra touch of authenticity.

The boys are catered for too, with great Doctor, Policeman & Fireman uniforms, not to mention fantastic Pirate and Knight costumes. All these can be combined with a range of accessories so your child will really look the part."

Here's the page: www.elc.co.uk/toys/dressing-up-roleplay/dressing-up-outfits/?filter=filter&category=604

gr r!! I've already written them an email to complain, but I wondered what the general mumsnetter concensus would be?

Message withdrawn

I think the whole point of this thread is that things really have got worse. Who know what the effect of this will actually be 10 and 20 years down the line?

The pink thing really annoys me but the suggestion that nurse outfit is for girls and doctor's is for boys really really annoys me.

I don't think there's such a thing as 'just advertising'. To dismiss its effect is reckless.

YANBU at all. Wish I could have countersigned and think I'll be writing one of my own.

Hi all,

I?m an associate of the group Pinkstinks and I?d like to draw your attention to our campaign www.pinkstinks.co.uk

I?d also like to stress that whatever the angle you may have seen taken in the national press, on TV or radio this week, we in no way want to ban pink toys or stop girls being girls, or having fun. In fact we were set up with the aim of helping girls have more fun in childhood and throughout their lives. We are not against Barbie per se, and we do not wish to abolish the colour pink. But we believe pink has become a cultural signpost for all things passive and pretty ? it?s not the colour we object to ? it?s the way the colour is used by clothes and toy manufacturers and retailers.

In terms of our current Christmas campaign, we know the Early Learning Centre is by no means the sole culprit when it comes to gender stereotyping. But as a company which specifically promotes itself in relation to ?learning? and which so strongly states its good intentions, we want it to openly and publicly recommit to promoting positive learning experiences for children ? boys and girls ? which are non-gender specific, exciting and stimulating for all. We do not see how is it educational for girls to be directed towards a globe which is entirely pink while boys get a geographically correct one. We think it is patronising and cynical.

And as far as clothes retailing for girls - we worry about the message it is sending to girls AND boys by dressing a three-year-old girl in high heels, make-up and possibly wearing a t-shirt with a slogan like ?Pink to make the boys wink? or 'Mummy's looks, Daddy's brains'. If you believe this is fine, please tell us.

www.pinkstinks.co.uk was established in 2008 to challenge the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls' lives. This year its founders won the Sheila McKechnie Foundation?s Women Creating Change Award. We have more than 2,500 supporters on Facebook and backed by Women in Science and Engineering and Ed Mayo, co-author of Consumer Kids.

We aim to counteract the current obsession with celebrities and to champion women who we see as inspirational, important, ground-breaking and motivating ? for girls AND boys. Our website aims to gather support, promote discussion and ultimately to influence commerce and the media about the importance of promoting positive female role models.

Evidence says young girls are facing a self-esteem crisis. Obsession with body image is beginning younger than ever. We believe the seeds for this unhappiness are sown during the pink stage of a girl?s childhood. We call it pinkification - the culture of pink which creates a passive image of what it is to be a girl that is specific and narrow. Toys, clothes, shoes, advertising and even characters in little girls? books are overwhelmingly pink.

Pinkstinks aims to redress the balance by providing positive female role models chosen because of their achievements, skills, accomplishments and successes.

Also under development, is our project Cool to be me, aimed directly at the children themselves. Using the best in design, writing, interactivity and content, we will use the power of the web and multi-media to challenge the norm. Unlike toy manufacturers we will credit our audience with intelligence. We will engage with girls - and boys - to give them something real and cool to aspire to be.

Please visit our blogs or check out our support on Facebook.

Kindest regards,

Lucy.

nancy drew, that's the point - why a pink garage or a blue garage???

Why not just a red and yellow one (which is what they used to do)?

If I buy DD a pink one, do I then have to buy DS a blue one? OOh loads money for ELC then! And yes it has got worse (my DS1 is 10 too)

If a doctor is always shown as a man, then girls are less likely to aspire to be one IMO.

Not saying that no girls wil be doctors of course. But for the same reason I prefer to model a working woman to my DC, and aslo DH likes to model a man who looks after the children at least some of the time.

Oooooh just looked at pinkstinks!

Am quite releived I only have a DS right now....

I am sure I am gonna be flamed, but is it THAT BIG A DEAL? shop elsewhere?

shop elsewhere? What, in all the other magically non-stereotyped gender unbiased toyshops that line the high street?

It is a big deal. Theres a lot more to it than boys like blue and girls like pink.....

I have NO problem with it. They are aiming it at a majority.

If you have both boys and girls then they are going to share and copy each other. Unless you encourage them to play with pink or blue only, they will do what they want in the end. My daughter spent a very happy day wearing my son's High King Peter costume from Chronicles of Narnia waving a sword around, as did the sister of one of my sons's friends on a playdate. I don't stop my son playing with dustpans and brushes, the one toy buggy is his and pre-dates her by at least two years.

To some extent as soon as they start to truly interact with their own sex at nursery or school, they do what you direct them to do. Once they hit school then you are no longer in control, unless you give them free rein at home, and then you can retain some input into their toys and play and allow them the confidence to do what they want and not what is expected of them.

Gracie123 I am always interested in the argument that girls and boys/women and men are fundamentally different, as I am a person who has always preferred boys/male stuff to things aimed at females.

You say that the pink passive toys and the blue active toys are there because the majority of children conform to this stereotype. I would be interested to know what the statisfics are - do you have the figures?

As my feeling is that surely 99% of girls aren't awfully awfully "girly" and 99% of boys extremely "male" in their outlook and what they choose to play with (before they reach an age where their choices have been made for them by the genderisation). If it's more like 55% prefer things aimed at their own gender then to me that isn't enough to mean pigeonholing all children - it's just not a big enough majority. Do you have the stats?

I mean my toddler plays with cars and rockets and things as well as her cooking thingy - is she basically abnormal as she is not displaying a normal level of polarisation in her play?

Thanks, Lucy, it is good to hear what you're all about!

I have no problem with the colour pink: i do have a problem with it always being associated with girlishness - not just for girls, but girlishness, insipid, flirty, princessy, weak, pathetic and unambitious.
If pink was used as a pirate ship (or at least, maybe just pink sails?), or the sign on the garage, or a strip on the till: that wwould be okay, because it's not saying, you have to be a girl to like this because it's pink.

i am all for gender neutral toys.
I want to see a male nurse's outfit too (because in reall life they look different) and i want to see girls in the catalogues dressed as doctors and firemen and mechanics.

the pink stuff does have its place, but it shouldn't be forced down our throats as the only option for a girl!

the worst bitabout it is not that girls aren't encouraged to do harder jobs, but that boys are by extension discouraged from cooking, cleaning, looking after babies etc. (ie being part of a family)
if they're going to make pink toys, then they should have those same toys in blue. and vice versa.

But is the stereotype there because of the differences, or are the differences there because the constructs available make us see them in that way and reinforce that behaviour?
Or is it a catch 22 spiral where one leads to the other ad nauseam?
Its not so easy to discern cause and effect, and the nature/nurture debate is far from decided.

I also think it's a fuss about nowt. And I don't know where these little sheep schools are where girls will be bullied and ostracised for playing with cars. In all my years I never heard that before. Don't like it, vote with your feet. There is plenty around that isn't pink and if I want to buy DD a Bob the Builder dress up or whatever then I jolly well will and anyone narrow minded enought to have a problem can get to soddery. You lot think too much about what others think of you. Go your own way

what happens if you told your DS that, say, cars, were for girls and that he shouldn't play with them?
provided that he was a confident boy and able to make friends, he could then go up to school and sneer at all the boys who play with cars. then they'll all be embarrassed and start playing with the dolls, because it's more boyish.

you could start an entire revolution in this manner.
would be an interesting social experiment.
(i do believe it's all down to peer pressure)

nickel I think that many people would baulk at bringing a DS up in pink, only buying him pink toys, and sendign him to school in fairy wings. That would be a better way of testing the genderisation.

The car thing wouldn't work. There are too many external cues telling boys that they should play with cars. Your DS would simply tell you you were talking rubbish if you told him cars were for girls.

I bought this for my DD.

Imagine my horror when I realised I had bought the boy version and should have bought this instead.

I suppose that is VTech to blame though.

Does anyone know if they do planes in pink? That is her current obsession and I would hate to get her another 'boy' thing...

YANBU

Having read further on than when I posted I think my example proves that it is totally about ELC and other companies using gender stereotyping to make more money from parents concerned about such ridiculous things.

Generally speaking for my DD I would go with the 'boy' version of things - partly because otherwise it would be a sea of pink and partly because if we ever have another child and it is a boy I would like him to have some toys which don't look like hand me downs.

The way I look at it there are neutral toys and then there are the girl versions. Like they make pretty screwdriver sets for grown up girls because we can't use things which aren't glittery or shiny

YANBU - I had noticed it and it's blooming annoying.

If we lived in a world where men and women had equivalent earnings then I don't think it would be quite as tedious.

Individual DCs can and will choose to play with whatever toys they want. And, as they get older, there will be somethat revel in their individuality and their rights not to follow what they perceive as the cultural norm. I am more worried about the less confident and less thoughtful children who see no option but to conform to the stereotypes.

Having said all this I don't have any trouble buying DD clothes and toys that are OK by my "genderisation-ometer", even in the ELC.

I suspect it will get harder as she gets older though and has her own views more ("I want a pink one mummy, a pink one now!").

I also see all the little girls on the high street in head to toe pink and they are at an age where their parents decide what they wear, so I'm sorry to say that i agree that people get pink because it's what they ask for.

Clary The garage is blue or pink because vast numbers of children would express a preference for those colours over gender neutral colours. Of course ELC are laughing all the way to the bank: they exist to make profit not to be socially responsible educators - whatever their name might suggest.

Girls are outperforming boys at school and more woman than men in the UK are entering law and medical schools. I don't have the slightest worry that my daughter will feel in anyway limited, by gender, in what she can achieve.

Lucy I found your comments very interesting and much of the campaign I think is relevant and of worth: Few woman I know are comfortable with the early sexualisation of children through clothing for example. I also believe there is merit in the argument that if girls are always portrayed as nurses to boys' doctors this may lead to gender stereotyping.

However I strongly feel that in objecting to girl's toys being coloured pink, something that many would choose, you trivialise many of your better arguments, especially as I disagree, particularly with reference to the ELC, that boys are given a "geographically correct world" (which I understand to mean literally representative)- their world is blue to their sisters pink - and why not? No one really wants a pirate ship to accurately reflect what it really is do they?

OP, YANBU.

(I am a female pirate, for example...;))