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...

oooooo.....I did prefer Startrite, but I took my mother shopping and she has the Clarks discount. DD's feet grow a lot, she's an 11!!

Little girl said to DS3, age 2, that can't be yor scooter as it has Dora stickers on it and Dora is for girls. He said "I like Dora and it's my scooter".

Good for him!

DirtyMartini, I am having the same problem trying to articulate my point

I think it comes down to semiotics. Concentrating on the signifier ignores the signified; the signifier- in this case, pink- is completely arbitrary.

As lucysnowe says (sorry for using your quote lucy):

"like she will say 'princesses love dancing' and I will say 'oh yes, but it's hard to get right, I bet princesses practise hard and are really fit aren't they?' or I will start a story about princesses fighting dragons or saving princes etc... she bears it well, poor little thing."

Instead of steering girls away from dancing, we need to be questioning why dancing is of lesser value than keeping fit. I suspect it is because dancing is associated with women. After all, the two activities consist of moving the body around- why is one more valuable than the other?

Why is fighting dragons a desired or more valuable activity? Because, to put it bluntly, men did it. So it seems as if we are actually reinforcing the binary opposition by trying to dismantle it.

And I keep pointing out to DS2 that actually male balet dancers are fitter than most football players.

OK - from everything here, I need to accept and then channel the pink

But I don't think people are just concentrating on the signifier; when someone rants on here about their dd being pink-obsessed I don't believe it's the colour they have a problem with, they are using the term as a shorthand for the whole package.

that is often met with censure whereas it's sort of 'cool' to be a tomboy

Agree 100%

"it also trains them early in the notion that being like a girl is a bad thing"

Agreed, startafire- but I think by steering girls away from girly stuff because it's girly and encouraging them in 'male' activities, we are repeating that message, just in a different way.

Oh god yes - I remember when DS2 was little (11 years ago) one of his little friends wanted a pushchair and his dad was completely set against it.

As I remember DS2 got a hoover that same christmas. (All of the ironing and most of the hoovering in this house is done by DH - I say at A) he is training (forces) and B) he has greater upper body strength

"[...]boys should not like this stuff and must learn early to dissociate themselves from what is constructed as the feminine - whatever arbitrary marker femininity is given."

yy, exactly; and we are doing it too by denigrating anything 'girly'

Agree 100% with tethersend's posts.
This devaluation of pink is very sad. I love pink and have a beautiful pink jacket. I admire Barbara Cartland. She loved pink. I think the "pink stinks" stuff is very sad.

"But I don't think people are just concentrating on the signifier; when someone rants on here about their dd being pink-obsessed I don't believe it's the colour they have a problem with, they are using the term as a shorthand for the whole package."

Can you expand a bit on 'the whole package' please, Sybil?

Interesting POV tethers. I hadn't considered that angle. Definitely worth thinking about it. There is certainly some truth in the idea that girls being 'tomboys' is considered a good thing while 'girly' boys are still held up for ridicule.

I have never discouraged either of my DC (boy and girl) from choosing/wearing whatever it is they like. They are both very much into pink and glittery. I got a bit sniffy with a neighbour the other day because DS chose a pink Hello Kitty toy and her comment was along the lines of "what do you want that for? Are you a girl".

School may be a bit difficult because while I don't want him to change, I don't want to set him up for being bullied either, and the sad fact is that there will be more kids and their parents who see this is as weird than won't. Haven't quite worked out how I am going to reconcile the personal with the political yet ? I think I shall probably cave in to some extent in a bid to protect him, though I hope I can do so in a way that explains to him about it and that he shouldn't feel ashamed in any way but just recognise that others are narrow-minded about these things. To some extent he'll negotiate his own way I guess. In his final year in nursery he had noticeably more 'masculine' behaviour at nursery than he did at home. He was already aware of roles and altering his behaviour to play different roles in different situations. Can't decide if this is terribly clever or terribly sad TBH - or maybe both?

Interestingly, DD has always steered clear of dresses and impractical shoes. While she likes pink and glittery she's so active that she detests anything that restricts her movements in any way. I have had to buy her boys shoes and stick 'jewels' on them on more than one occasion. The over feminisation of girls shoes does bother me. Glittery, sparkly etc are ok. Flimsy and downright bloody dangerous (many have very very slippery soles and straps that don't support the foot and encourage a turned ankle because the sole of the foot slides on the sole of the shoe) annoy me intensely.

In other ways my DC tend to conform to gender roles - DD loves dancing, DS loves kicking a ball around. But then they both love colouring/painting for hours on end and they also both like helping me with DIY (so much so they both have their own toolkits).

I don't always succeed but I tend to let them get on with it in their own way without thinking of gender roles at all. I believe that being the best person you can be is about playing to your own strengths, being aware of your weaknesses, and having integrity. Can't see that any of those things are affected by gender.

Just looked at their website and look at the Shop.
Nearly every product on the first page says either "I think pink stinks" or "I'm no princess". I am uncomfortable with the message that it sends. I think tethers is right, that it undervalues pink and princesses etc.

It's funny isn't it - my DS has always had a thing about becoming a prince, to the point that he made me find out all the eligible European princesses of his age! He is currently holding out for the eldest Spanish infantas!

But I never mind it, in fact it makes me laugh, cos I know he has a plethora of other things that he will be encouraged to do and there isn't a multi-million dollar industry shoving it down his throat that this should be his main ambition in life.

Norma, give it a few years and she might be a Goth!

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Since the question has been asked, to put it into words, I think the problem with princesses is that they're essentially passive, hanging around in towers or even asleep (!!) until some enterprising bloke turns up to claim them. But at the same time we're supposed to adore them for their beauty and grace. Maybe slaying dragons isn't so wonderful, endangered species and so on, but the prince is being brave and clever and physically skillful (even if his poor old mum is having heart attacks). What exactly does your typical princess ever achieve in life? That is the problem from a feminist perspective.

Well, I used "the pink and princess culture" on this thread as a kind of shorthand, when what I really meant was the ubiquitous and (I think) restrictive culture of girls being constantly steered towards all things homogenously pink and sparkly ... I think I get what you mean, Sybil, about people using it as a shorthand, because I do do that.

But I still agree with tethers, because when I really examine it, it is not the colour pink that is at fault, but the culture of restricting childrens' options that seems to go along with the pink-is-for-girls idea. Dissing pink (even though I don't like it much myself as a colour) is slightly beside the point.

I don't mind if either DD or DS like some pink stuff. I sometimes dress them in pink of my own volition. I just know it will be grate on me somewhat when DD hits the age where so many girls suddenly seem to feel that they should have everything pink.

I am not adding much to this. And DD is crying and DP is saying "it's very late". Goodnight all

I always think people overthink the pink thing. My view is that it is just another colour and that we as parents can do far more psychological damage if we associate pink with being weak and girly.

I have always loved wearing pink and it doesn't define who I am or what I am capable of. I grew up playing and watching a lot of sports, did ballet and tap dancing, did maths and science A levels, a science degree and now work in the City where at my (senior) level over 90% of my peers are male.

Dh also wears a lot of pink shirts to work. Nobody would say that he was weak and girly. He also grew up playing and watching a lot of sports, did ballet and ballroom dancing, did maths and science A levels, a science degree and now works in the City. Sadly, at his (senior)level in his organisation there are no women. You could really put a cigarette paper difference between how dh and I were raised, our interests and our career achievements. I just happen to wear a lot more pink than him. That's the message I want dd and ds to get, not that pink is bad because its girly.

I think the worst thing a parent can do is to take away a girl's autonomy. If a DD wants to wear pink then that should be ok, not just because she should have a choice in her clothes and toys (within financial and aesthetic reason as determined by parents but not wrt some rigid mindset of the parent) and should be allowed to express herself despite a parent's worst suspicions about where she may be getting her inspiration from, but also because in focusing on the trappings and the clothes a parent who abhors pinkness is focusing just as much on the external as a parent who is rushing headfirst along on the crest of the wave du jour.

I also agree with Noviceoftheday's (and others') point about the muddleheadedness of shunning pink and associating it with weakness and weakness with girliness. If it is a signifier then that is a shame because the basic message there is that to be a girl is to be 'less than' is not right.

My DDs are all long-haired and fashion conscious. They love nail polish and look like rather girly girls. They have always had a lot of pink clothes (hand me downs have never been turned away from my home and I have always had the welcome mat out for cheap clothing). They are also excellent students in fact ime the girlier the girl the better the grades. They play sports too, but they suck-- are not spectacularly good. (But at least they try )

RedHotPokers, like you my parents were anti-fashion; very much knit yer own lentil types but mum would make comments about appearance in order to reinforce the message she was trying to impart through her stance on clothing, which was that only homemade and extremely durable was acceptable. In the end I found the simultaneous focus on appearance and effort to transcend appearance impossibly contradictory.

Clothes are just clothes. Wear them and take care of them. For a child, they can be used to allow a modicum of freedom of choice, to teach self care (dressing, buttoning, zipping, snapping) and to teach neatness. Having enough clothes that are appropriate for weather and different occasions is important for a child's self esteem. I don't think anyone needs to go deeper into clothes than that.