DD is pink and princessy and cares about hair etc and is only 5

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

So not like me.

I was brought up by progressive parents in the 70s, and got nothing but electronics kits for my birthdays - there was a cartoon I saw once with a little girl opening a chemistry kit and thinking "I would kill for a barbie" - that was me.

So I have not tried to sway in any particular direction. I am going to have to come up with a reasonable answer to "how do I become a princess?" "Mummy when are you going to be a princess?" Erm, never is the answer to both so far...

toilet doors

I remember one activity holiday I went on as a teen when they were marked:-

Elton

Olivia Newton

Raven....Have you got something against people with one leg? disablist

Norma....Letterbox books is great for 'alternative' books for girls.

IMO - and I am going to shut up now - she's taken on the idea of liking pink. She may not stop because you tell her what the symbolism is; she may stop but feel like you did as a child, wanting to please your parents but feeling conflicted. But you can draw her attention to pink that's being worn/used in non 'feminine', princessy contexts - men playing rugby like in Dittany's picture, any of her male relations who wears a pink shirt or tie, that sort of thing?

'insipid, overtly pink, with tassels and Barbie all over them. I want to buy dd a bike not buy into Disney Princesses or Barbie.....a bike for riding, not for display. Same as if the boys bike had monsters or Ben10 all over it, but boys bikes aren't as "merchandised" because boys are supposed to like exercise.'

Have you seen many girls riding their bikes recently?
Have you taken a good look at a boy's bike recently?
A lot of this bears little relation to reality.

Still no clear answer as to why 'girly' = 'insipid' or why the assumption implicit here:
'Every little girl I've seen on a bike in the park is on a pink one. Often with bizarre tassly sparkly pom pom things coming off them. Same with cycle helmets - bright pink. The boys on the other hand are on something non-descript but they still seem to having a good time riding a bike. Becuase it's the cycling that's important, not the pinkness. '

How do you know the boy is not relishing the drabness of his bike? How do you know the girl is not enjoying her pink bike with the tassels? How do you know the drabness is not as important to a boy as the riding and how do you know the pinkness is just as important or moreso to a girl?

For a symbol to be successfully used as a tool of oppression, everyone has to understand it as such. What if girls simply do not see it that way? Are they completely wrong to embrace pink, miss the point the patriarchy is trying to make, and continue to outshine boys academically and take up their rightful places in universities in huge numbers?

Norma, as I have said earlier, the pink thing is very age specific. DD is 10 and doesn't like pink because it is childish and she thinks she is too old for it, which is exactly the message that advertising pushes at her. So you are only resisting the pink thing for a limited period of time; then your daughter will be older and have a whole new set of aspects of femininity pushed at her.

My mum bought DD a karaoke machine; the colour choice was pink or black and I had to explain to my mum that DD would hate pink because pink is for little girls. That isn't to say DD will never wear pink; there was a tshirt recently with a chicken on and it only came in pink; DD wanted the chicken top so she accepted the pink, but in general she will avoid it.

I think it is hard for parents who have been through it to advise, because it is much more of an issue now. I don't think that even five years ago there was the same range of pink products. I don't remember pink globes, pink microscopes and so on. I remember the first time I saw a pink tv and I thought it was very odd.

The pink think also hits at the time that you have the most control; you can introduce lots of things that are not about pink or princesses, and the princess phase is very short. People selling you stuff do not want your daughter obsessing over princesses for too long because they want you to have to pay out for a new lunchbox/duvet/hairclip as soon as possible. So we have been through Princess/High School Musical/Hairspray/Hannah Montana/Hello Kitty/Gaga. The thing to aim for is some sort of balance, so that your daughter has wide and varied interests and is not just constantly enthralled by the latest trend for her age.

Thanks Milly

And I do think the range of stuff sold to boys is just as nuanced. DS has a particular kind of cycling helmet; he has the BMX kind not the mountain bike kind. If he had the mountain bike kind this would be some sort of boy disaster. It is about partly about display for boys too.

And boys also are marketed things for specific periods of time. So now DS has to have minecraft and has a minecraft tshirt. He does't like Ben Ten not because he is resisting it but because he is too old, just like DD and princesses.

It's the idea Math that for a girl to enjoy something it has to be form before function, I find that pretty depressing. Because this means that they must be form before function, beauty before brains as even if they are bloody clever and do well at school their self esteem will still be crippled if they don;t feel pretty enough.

And, for the record, dd loves pink as do I.....I see it as just a colour, but the stamp it has dominating everything makes me wrong in my assumption that it's just a colour.

I don't see a basket (pink or otherwise) on a bike as form before function, or tassels, which don't interfere with speed -- in fact the tassels streaming out horizontally give a rider a way of visually confirming her speed. They are no more 'form before function' than little clips my DS and his friends got for their bike spokes. Both DS and the DDs went through a period of putting playing cards in their spokes, willingly putting sound effects and form before the primary function of their bikes. I don't see how a pink bicycle helmet puts form before function. I can personally attest to the fact that pink ones work just as well as blue helmets. And I would prefer to see a child in a helmet of any colour than none.

I do not believe that the vast majority of products aimed at small children that are pink put form before function except wrt the colour. I have handed down clothing among 5 small children and it all kept well, even the pink stuff.

MillyR is right that products aimed at boys are just as nuanced. If anyone thinks boys are not paying attention to minute details of appearance and ranking and sorting each other according to style then you should spend more time with boys. She is also right that small girls' pink stuff is small potatoes indeed. There is princess pink for the 1 - 7 year old set, and there is Pink.

Norma, if you want to make sure your child avoids falling into the Pink trap don't sweat the small stuff. Focus on her maths homework. Make her work really hard in school. That is where what really matters is going to happen. Let the rest wash right over you.

Fine math, perhaps you'd like to look at the wide range of different functioning bikes for boys and compare it to the relatively small range or bikes for girls....I'm not imagining it you know. Tassels, as far as I'm aware, do fuck all to assist the riding of a bike, nor does a basket.

I have three boys and can absolutely say appearance of anything is not half as important.

You can deny the impact of this colour wash if you like, but for most girls without a feminist parent it erases choice.

Just to follow on from MillyR comment about it better to have pink girls than invisible girls, I was chatting with my daughter today who finally set her playstation up to play some games (it's been out of action for ages). She played Harry Potter. I said something like 'you'd better have a break from that else you'll turn into one of the characters' to which she replied 'don't be silly, there's no girls in it'. Invisible girls indeed (thanks for pointing that out Milly, it wasn't on my radar).

Norma, I agree with math about not sweating the small stuff. Mine are nearly 6 and 8 and already any slight interest in pink has passed. My mental audit of pink today (prompted by this thread) shows a smattering of old stuff (the odd duvet cover, older clothes) but new stuff, nah. Both have had their rooms redecorated, and chose bold bright stuff with symbols like horses or birds. They love Lego which is all primary colours and my youngest wants the Farm for her birthday. It's all healthy kids stuff and not, in my opinon, overly branding.

I do let them dress up for parties, though, as indeed I do myself. The dresses are not usually pink, but they are gorgeous.

I think you are worried as you were that child in the brown dungarees looking at the girl with sparkly shoes and the Barbie and wanting to be her (for all the very good reasons people have outlined). You either try to replicate that androgenous experience yourself, or you muddle through the pink. But they do come out of it, and teaching them to be critical consumers is never a wasted lesson.

2,544 results on an Amazon search for girls' bikes is not exactly no choice for a functioning bike. There were more choices for boys admittedly (about twice that many) but still I think a girl and her parents would find something functional among 2,544 bicycles, and if they wanted to add to its functionality they could always buy some grey spraypaint as the non-descriptness of a bicycle apparently makes riding it more enjoyable.

Well I've been trawling through the internet and stockists in my, large, area are limited. Only two bikes on offer that aren't prettified for dd's size. 16" wheel.

Dittany - I have not imposed my DDs love of the pink and princesses. I am quite happy to say that society has. I never put my DD in ballerina/princess outfits when she was a baby. She has chosen those later on (and been given such outfits for Christmas by relatives, because she told them that is what she wanted).

She did have some pink stuff as a baby, not bought by me, but hand-me-downs that were gratefully received. Was I supposed to throw these away?

My part of the duscussion on here was how practically to deal with this, given it is where we are. What I should/could do, whether I deeded to do anything.

I have no worries about her clothing making her less active. Her clothing has not stopped her joining in with all of the water fights/climbing trees/football of her friends or the friends of her older brother

I think the "pretty pink" culture is virtually impossible to avoid.

I am "sporty" and don't wear skirt/dresses/anything pink. I usually wear trainers, occasionally a pair of boots. My eldest (5) is a boy. My DD is 3.6 and so I would say that with a sporty mum, typical "boy" older brother and blokey father, DD is not being shown any "pretty pink" lifestyle crap by us. The bike that she is soon to get (DS's one that he has outgrown) is black. She is pleased to be having it.

Clothing for DD - I usually do Tshirts and leggings or trousers. She has one summer beach dress. I try and buy items that are not pink but not sludgy coloured either. I do have the odd item of pink - a tshirt, a pair of leggings say, in the interests of not being totally millitant and pushing her towards the pink. She has white trainers with pink bits on. The majority of her toys are shared with DS, she has the occasional pink item.

Ask this child her favourite colour: pink.
Tell her she's a princess: she beams with happiness.

WTF?

Sorry The general discussion has been really good! I have found it all really interesting / thought provoking.

I guess I was just being a bit defensive.

I do think those baby girl shoes awful. Mind you I do think WTF about most baby shoes

Don't mind at all

That would be great - another discussion I mean. I think part of the confusion on this thread is mixing practical stuff, and all of us reminiscing about what it was like when we were little and if it's changed, and ideology.

It's been a very interesting topic though, thanks norma.