I understand, but do not agree with, the PINK everything for girls BUT....

[CrapolaDeVille]

Why does a nurse's outfit need to be pink? It's bad enough that firefighters/police etc are in the boys section.....but why does a girl need a pink nurse's outfit?

wow.
which shop is it?

Early learning. I don't usually notice, we buy a lot of stuff from GLTC. But the nurse for girls is bad enough, why pink?

Because girls are now taught from the minute that they are out of the womb that girl=pink so it becomes very attractive, and I suspect ELC have discovered that things being pink earns them more money.

Actually I think bright pink glittery things are innately attractive to most children, regardless of gender however (many) boys are taught from the minute that they are out of the womb that it is bad,bad,bad for them to want that. Aversion therapy of sorts.

For these large companies it's all about the majority so the fact that it doesn't need to be pink, or some girls would prefer for it to actually be the colour of a nurse's outfit doesn't matter. It's all about the bottom line.

Nothing wrong with a nurse for girls btw. Nursing is an important, respectable profession and of course the girl can have the doctor's outfit as well.

Don't fall into the trap of seeing the female dominated professions as "lesser".

Maybe wonder why a boy shouldn't have a pink nurses outfit?

maybe think of it as a red matron's uniform

the worst thing about making it pink is it really underlines the belief that nursing is not for boys. Unless, of course, there is a boy nurse's outfit too which I doubt.

For my DCs main Xmas gift this year (DD will be 4.6 and DS will be 2.4, it's the first time we are doing a joint present) we are planning on putting together a big dressing up box for them. I'm already thinking about what to put in it and where to get it (if anyone has any suggestions I'd be grateful) - I have a feeling I'm going to be ranting a lot about lack of choice and/or uber-stereotyping... Not too keen on specific character stuff either (eg I'd rather get generic buildery stuff not a Bob outfit). I'd like a really good range for them :)

Since I have avoided Early Learning Centre my blood pressure is much better, and it's threads like this which remind me why!

I wouldn't even think of going into ELC these days either.

My dcs' dressing up box has a bunch of old clothes, hats etc as well as bought costumes, and actually they prefer the random stuff - there is a rather good purple and orange jacket from dh's time in a student band in the 80s that gets a lot of use.
I think individual items rather than sets work well too - so you can buy a builder's helmet and a toy drill rather than a builder outfit, which helps to make it less gendered as the individual items aren't so obviously aimed at one sex.

I went to Mothercare!! ELC is now in it. I must admit I never go in the local Mall ELC. My youngest DS loves dressing up as a princess, in fact we picked up older siblings from school with him in his princess dress!! The reactions were mostly good natured, except one woman who mentioned Eddie Izzard.....I had to tell her that at present DS poos in a nappy and picks his nose and eats it and I would imagine those things would stop at adulthood!!

And I didn't mean to belittle nursing, it is a valuable profession. BUT I've never seen a boys nursing outfit.

So why wasn't that a boys nursing outfit? Because it was pink?

See, I think we've got it all upside down. Don't ban pink. It doesn't stink - it's just a colour. No better or worse than green or yellow or purple. It's this insane pink=girls that needs to change.

But I don't know how you do that

I have no issue with pink, all my children wear it and like it. BUT you have to be pretty robust in some circles for boys to be able to choose that colour. To deny that for many boys it isn't a colour they can choose is wrong.

Exactly!

But it's crazy, no? As crazy as saying a girl couldn't grow up to drive a train, although given the world being what it is, obviously not as limiting - men don't suffer economically because they can't wear pink.

I just sometimes when I see "Pink Stinks" think, really? No, pink is fine, it's our attitudes that stink and girls wearing less pink won't fix that, but boys wearing more might help.

Pink does stamp 'girl's toy' though doesn't it? (in most households)

ELC seem to do every toy with a pink alternative!! Dressing up costumes annoy me that they are so gender specific. Boys are builders, police officers and firemen and girls are nurses and princesses. I think in a dressing up box the best things would be old hats and fancy clothes (try charity shop) as well as costume jewelry, bags and lengths of material. My sister and I used to dress up in sheets as children. You don't need a tabard with a red cross for a child to pretend to be a nurse.

The intrinsic problem is that all their clothes are colour coded pink. And then the toys are colour coded pink. The cooking, washing, ironing, child care toys are pink, and are therefore for girls.

I agree that there's nothing wrong with pink, and that it would be nice if we encouraged boys to wear it. But in the grand scheme of things, girls are growing up to think that they are pink, and that the pink toys are for them. And the pink toys are the 'home-making' toys, a lot of the time. I don't think it sends a good message.

Also, I don't really like brain-washing of any kind, and I think girls AND boys are being brainwashed into unnecessary gender role stereotypes, and colour (ie, pink vs blue/black/grey,etc) is one of the major tools that is bringing it about. IMO.

Are ELC still making the stuck-in-the-fifties old fashioned type nurse outfit they used to do? All nurses, male or female, wear the same sort of thing these days, don't they?

Well, to be fair to ELC all the "homemaking" toys are also available in blue (they used to only come in one colour which was blue or green or red iirc). Blue used to be quite a common colour for teasets etc, back when these sort of things really were considered girls-only.

And none of the dressing up clothes are "boys only". I'm not sure how they could make them boys only actually now that there are no limits on the colours that girls can wear - there are no colours that are gendered in the same way that pink is.

Absolutely no reason for pink to be only for girls. Consumers have to be a bit more demanding however and this has to start with mums asking manufacturers of clothing and other products to adjust their offers too. My son's favorite outfit was a shocking pink, heavy cotton jumpsuit with a bright multi-coloured parachute on the back. He wore it zealously for 3-4 months--up to and including his first day of kindergarten at age 5. After that he never wore it again. It was not even particularly "feminine", but obviously the colour sparked comments. Sad isn't it?

Doctor's outfit - with picture of girl and boy wearing it.

Pink nurse's outfit

White nurse's outfit

But yes, it's a 1950s style outfit so only for girls. How stupid.

Pink vet's outfit

Blue vet's outfit

Good grief, ELC has certainly changed since I used to buy toys for my son there.

I would like to see green scrubs!!

Green scrubs sounds fun! What about clothes that reflect other areas of work? Or is that the problem---not all areas of work have "special clothes" even if the work might be inspiring?

Suzi - camoflage has a similar gender-specific reference for boys.