Gender Neutrality

[ajhillmmu]

Hi, I am a final year student at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am in the process of writing my dissertation and was wondering if you could help!? I am exploring gender neutral children’s clothing and would love to hear your opinions. I will be looking at whether parents agree or disagree with brands such as John Lewis, Clarks and Gap removing boys and girls labelling from many of their products. Alongside this, I will be discovering if gender neutral children’s clothing leads to wider life choices.
Furthermore, I will be speaking to retailers to investigate their motives behind their decisions, are they displaying impressive morals or is it a sales-based decision?
If you are a parent that has a traditional view and believe that ‘boys are boys and girls are girls’ or are raising your child as gender fluid, then I would love to hear from you.
It would also help me a great deal if anyone, parent or otherwise, with strong opinions regarding this subject could get in touch…
Whatever your opinion, it will be invaluable to my research and of course remain strictly anonymous.
If you think you can help at all, please leave a comment on this post or privately message me.
Thank you in advance, (Sorry for the long paragraph!!)
Annie x

John Lewis may well have changed the labels on their clothing to be unisex, but in reality they still display the clothes according to sex, so it's a bit pointless. Personally I am happy to buy my daughter (nearly 9yo) clothes from either the boys' or girls' sections and she herself is happy with that (I've bought her a number of 'boys' t shirts from Next just because she liked them, the sleeves are often more generous on boys' clothes as well).

We are also happy not to stick to gendered toys or accessories, as is she. I don't believe that because she has a vagina her bag/drinking cup/trainers have to be pink and sparkly.

Having said all that, she loves her dolls and prefers playing with girls.

My strong view is that gender is a load of nonsense that is damaging to both boys and girls but that sex matters, and it is not possible to change sex and pink and sparkles is not what makes a girl a girl.

I agree with the PP entirely. I have 2 toddlers. A boy and a girl.

I don't like gender neutral clothes. I find retailers that are trying to do this deliberately end up with a limited range in very neutral and un appealing colours. I don't want pink and sparkly things to disappear from the shops and I'm more than happy for her to wear them sometimes.

I don't understand why anyone would want to raise a child gender fluid. Do you even give them a neutral name? How far does it go?

The strange thing is sometimes my children do conform to their gender stereo type with what they wear, play with, like on tv or in books but it feels like it's happened naturally and not something we as parents have forced on them.

Have Clark’s removed their labels of boys and girls. The other day my 2 year old able to clearly tell me which stand was marketed at boys and which one was marketed at girls.

Thank you all for your opinions on this matter! As you have all experienced similar feelings towards this, do you think that society is experiencing a real change toward gender fluidity? 'Jackshouse' your experience in Clarks is widely reported. The company have previously used the term 'Leader' for their boys range, and 'Dolly Babe' for their girls. How do you feel about this and there decision to scrap those names? Is it society gone mad or do you agree?

This is how you do it: www.polarnopyret.co.uk/

There is a huge difference between gender neutral and gender fluid. The first pertains to the belief that gendered clothing/toys/roles are constrictive and damaging for children. Gender fluid implies that boys and girls should align with clothing/toys/roles according to the gender imposed on them by their sex and that any child who doesn't subscribe to those boxes is transgressing boundaries. It's nonsense.

And I'm surprised you're conflating the two terms if you're in your 3rd year.

What are you a student of, might I ask? You seem to be confused about the terms gender fluid and gender neutral, as the previous poster said.

I am a fashion student, therefore have never studied gender before. I am looking to study the link between gender and children's clothing and am still in the very early stages of a proposal and research. I apologise if any offence has been caused but as i say i am still learning about this topic and any input is appreciated!

I'm a child of the 70s and kids' clothing is hyper genderized now in comparison to then, and societally speaking I think it's extremely damaging and almost certainly a cause in the rise of 'trans' amongst kids. In the 70s kids all looked the same, even haircuts weren't that dissimilar.

Did Clarks really do that? I think that's revolting and certainly would complain to any kids brand that did that.

Gender fluidity is something that assumes gender has more importance than it ever should. 'Unisex' would be my preferred term.

have never studied gender before.

Oh dear. Are you ready for the onslaught?
Did you think that Mumsnet was full of nappy valley yummy-mummies? It also contains some furious feminists who bridle at people who haven't thought through their gender politics.

MN tends to be Gender Critical. I suggest that you have a read of the feminists threads. here

Whether conditioned by society or just my preference, I will gravitate towards the girls clothes when buying for my DD- that isnt to say I dont happily dress her in my nephews hand me down tracksuit bottoms.
On a previous thread a mother couldnt understand why her son's green leggings with pink kisses were referenced as being for girls. Dress your child in whatever you like but dont act dumb to the basic assumptions of society. I also dont think that by putting my daughter in a dress Im cementing in her head that she cant be a firefighter or a builder when she grows up.
First World Problems

If you go too far into the idea of gender neutral or gender fluid how do you stop outside influences?

My dc point at things and say that's only for boys or that's only for girls and I can only correct them but it didn't come from me. I teach them that what they wear or play with doesn't define them and they can be whoever they want to be that's the most important lesson to me.

I get more offended at a neural sea of mustard and beige or a sea of stupid slogans that offends me more although the Clarks marketing could be what has influenced my children I doubt they're the only ones guilty of it.

I studied similar 20 years ago and don't remember this coming up on my course and I'm glad it didn't!

I don’t want gender neutral clothes for my child, I want clothes that are fun, colourful and practical. I wish gender didn’t exist, it’s so limiting and has no real value in my opinion. It definitely does not need to exist in the design, production or marketing of clothes.

Agree with PP that polarn o pyret get it absolutely right. Little bird at mothercare is also good but both are quite pricey.

Have you looked at the “Let clothes be clothes” page on facebook, OP?

Little Bird is great but DD is now too big for their stuff, which is a shame. The fact that it's clearly influenced by 70s styles is not a coincidence. But again, Mothercare often divided up into girls' and boys', and the rest of Mothercare is pretty genderized.

I used to have to go to a lot of trouble to not end up with a sea of pink for my DDs.
I would have liked to be able to buy pink shirts with dinosaurs & blue shirts with unicorns - those are 'gender neutral'.
Paw patrol clothes shouldn't exclude the female character.
If you must have slogans (why?) then don't go down the girls are beautiful and like shopping, boys are little monsters nonsense. have 'future scientist' on a shirt that will appeal to everyone.

I bought my girls boys clothes when they were small often because the girls clothes were tacky - sparkly and impractical! I would team boys jeans (so no flowers or sequins) with pink shirts though. Even now as adults we have gender neutral outdoor clothes as why do I want pink waterproof trousers???

There's nothing wrong with having boys and girls oriented clothing but it's the slogans daddy's little princess vs scientist in training, that annoy me most, and why aren't girls shoes practical for kicking balls and running around in?

You might want to have a look at the website and Facebook page 'let clothes be clothes'.

I don’t want gender neutral clothes for my child, I want clothes that are fun, colourful and practical.

Might be my misunderstanding but I think gender neutral just means that clothes should be suitable for either a boy or girl to wear (as far as possible, so not dresses obviously). So not neutral in colour - though I agree some retailers cop out that way - but all colours, slogans that can apply equally like 'future scientist', designs like dinosaurs, rockets, ponies, Paw Patrol, whatever, on pink, blue, red, green, orange, lime etc etc.

I applaud John Lewis for making a stance. I was in another retailer the other day looking for shorts for my 18mo DS. They had none in his size but as I was buying something else, I saw a rail with plain jersey shorts in pale orange, lemon and blue. I said, oh, what about those? And was told: they're for girls. Why? Why on earth can't my son wear orange or lemon? I despair. (And then go to H&M.)

I bought a sweatshirt for my daughter from h & m this week. She chose it. She loves nature and so was attracted to the pictures of pandas, wales etc. However, since it is pink and in the 'girls section' the designers felt the need to put long eye lashes on all the animals, unlike the ones on the boys section which were more life like. Its stuff like this that drives me mad. The stuff aimed at girls,even if the subject matter is good, is dumbed down and prettified. I hate the restrictive genderisation of everything. Gah!

@doublethink

I love your comment and your user name!

I think you should also do some reading up on the history of this (e.g. in Edwardian times, pink was for boys and blue was for girls), the fact that the "pinkification" of childhood in the last 20 years is a trend driven by economics and sales figures (why sell a family a red bike for the eldest child which can be passed down from one sibling to the next, when you can sell a boy child a khaki one with monsters on, then expect the family to shell out all over again for a pink one with tassles for the younger child who's a girl).

I think a read of Susan Faludi's Backlash would be good too - it's 20 years old but still holds good today. The thesis is that whenever women's rights look like they're making progress, there's a backlash, in politics but also in popular culture. So - women work during WWII, then their jobs are needed for the men coming back from the war, so they're persuaded back into the kitchen with the "new look" (pinched waists, flouncy skirts) and Doris Day movies. Women make it into the workplace in the 70s (Equal Pay Act, yay) - 80s let's do "new romantics" and Fatal Attraction. I think you can see this going on at the moment (I'm an old gimmer so I've watched this stuff come and go). We're definitely going through a phase of "ultra feminine" role models for women - instagram make-up like painted dolls faces, lots of pink and sequins, clothes for children really demarcated by gender (in the social sciences sense of stereotyped clothing and behaviour which individuals of one or other sex are pushed into by society regardless of whether they fit neatly).

I completed a masters dissertation on children’s own opinions of gender and sex and how these opinions are influenced by the opinions and actions of their parents.
With this in mind I really tried to raise my 3 yo daughter in a hands off way regarding sex. Nothing was forbidden or pushed. Clothes were chosen for practical reasons ( and price!)but many overtly feminine clothes were gifted to us.
What do I have ...a Disney princess, sparkle, glitter and baby doll obsessed little girl. At 3 she loves shopping , watching me put on make up and choosing her own clothes.

It's really difficult to get hold of genuinely gender-neutral clothing. Even the shops that claim to have unisex "kids clothes" just happen to have roughly half the available clothes in pinks and pastels with frills and ruffles and ribbons and pictures of hearts, rainbows and unicorns, and roughly half in muddy brown/beige/khaki colours with pictures of trucks, dinosaurs and aliens.

Once, only once I found a pink tshirt with a sequin dinosaur on it (my son loves it, my niece is desperate to inherit it when he outgrows it).

There are online stores selling more gender-neutral stuff but when faced with a choice between 4 gender-stereotype conforming items from a supermarket at £10 each or one single item from a non-sexist retailer at £40, not many if us can afford principles.

It's not just about the subject matter of any pictures. If you like colours in the region of pink purple orange yellow etc then the tops will all have little puffs at the top of the sleeves and a little satin bow or two, and will be shaped tighter/shorter than is quite comfortable for free movement and the trousers will all be "slim fit" (ie too tight to comfortably climb trees in) and have heart-shaped sequins on them somewhere.

Gender neutral clothing would mean no correlation between the cut/shape/comfort of clothes, the colours available, and the subject matter of any pictures, rather than assigning a limited set of these to each gender stereotype.

Someone on mumsnet pointed out that when it comes to animals on kids clothing, the boys get the predators, the girls get the prey. I find that disturbing in its implications.

I try for cheerful colours and practical cuts that either a boy or girl could wear, and avoid sexist slogans. There are some great pieces for toddlers but from 4 up it's harder to find clothes that are both bright and practical - the choice seems to be between sludgy colours or frills/flimsy fabrics.

I'm an older MNetter and dressed my DC (mainly) in clothes that could be handed on to whatever sex I had next.

And when I was brought up, it was called unisex and was the utterly normal and dominant way of dressing children. Because it was in the days before clothing was cheap, and before marketing bods decided quite cynically that if they could divide things up between the sexes so that parents felt they had to buy twice and thus be an opportunity to make more money.

Good old fashioned thrift is making a comeback. It's a product of austerity and of environmental awareness. Very much to be welcomed.

I think the very highly gendered clothing we see a lot of in the shops is helping perpetuate stereotypes. To some extent it 'trains' expectations.
Saying that, I wouldn't want to see only unisex clothing either.
My DD isn't overly 'girly' but would reject what she considered to be boys clothes from quite young. But her reaction wasn't to drench herself in pink. Her favourite colours have been mostly yellows or purple.
How does it affect life outcomes? That's a big question. For a start, given that clothing is bought and chosen by parents, early formation of attitudes would surely reflect your parents. But we are only in part formed by that.
Impractical clothing may restrict the ability to play freely, plus the 'don't get it dirty' school of parenting. As children get older it may be more about wearing the right brand/fashion.
Lots of things are going to be factors.