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...

Yes, StayFrosty I am using it as a short-hand too.

Sittang is of course right to point it out though because although using it as a short-hand, it is easy to fall into the thinking that there is somehow a natural difference. A bit like when people comment to me, while DS is climbing all over the furniture, 'Ah, he's such a typical boy' NO, actually, he is a typical toddler.

Sittang ?!?! dittany

Thank you all for all of the input.

I will try to get copies of Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine and Cinderella ate my Daughter. Does anyone have any other suggestions on feminist parenting books?

I feel reassured by much of the input on here. I will try not to see pink etc as a negative in itself, but have to agree that it is the stuff around it (which toys are branded pink such as irons, and as fluffles says the impractical crap that is added to make them 'appeal to girls'. ) This has helped me separate the two.

So putting the pink aside, I need to recognise and try to avoid my own gender stereotyping, and praise equally for the 'feminine' as well as the 'tom-boy' aspects of my DD (she climbs all over the tree and cargo net with her older brother)

Back in a bit - it's quite hard to type when you are having your hair combed (ouch)

Try telling my two girls (aged 5 and 7) that wearing one of their pink skirts (among many colours) marks them out as secondary to boys. They simply can't relate to this thought.

My take on it is to go with what is cheap (often cheaper clothing is pink and more stereotyped), mix it in with other stuff (jeans, bright jumpers) and top it off with some critical thinking. So, we've discussed why so much stuff is pink for girls, if boys and men can wear pink, what being a 'girly girl' means (prompted by hearing this expression and by reading about George in Enid Blyton), about being yourself and so on. It's a bit like living in a consumerist society, you can't get away from it, which is why we also think critically about adverts (e.g. LelliKelli and whether having a lipgloss is a good idea if it is sticky, or why they would sell that to girls, or whether school shoes that double as party shoes are actually that desirable).

I don't seek to prevent them wearing clothes of any colour, like my mum did (yes, I do still feel bitter about the brown cord dungarees and pudding bowl hair-cut) in the 1970's in her rather strange gender neutral experiment. I think clothes are about adornment, and so have a value beyond gender identification. But I do like my girls to have a bit of a critical think about what clothes say about us and what society tells us girls should wear (obviously only every now and again, I don't start a discussion on the place of the feminine in current society every time they get dressed!)

I like your approach Hardgoing

Yes, but how would you go about counter-acting the stereotyping they are exposed to outside the home/family environment? As someone else pointed put, it is inevitable that our children will/are exposed to these stereotypes how do we help them realise them for what they are (particularly if we ourselves are still struggling to throw off the stereotypes we have internalised)

It's all well and good to say that we as adults need to correct our miscoceptiond (we should, definitely) but what do we do about our children while we are 'fixing' ourselves?

Dittany, I don't 'tell' my girls anything as they are curious about the world and constantly ask questions and comment on things from clothes, to toys, to why daddies are different to mummies. This leads to discussion, not me telling them how it is! We discuss adverts about wrinkle cream, why Jordan wears a bikini in public, all kinds of stuff as this is constantly in their vision. You could try to isolate them, like my mum did in the 1970's, by not letting me watch TV and dressing me in gender-neutral clothes. But all this did was make me want to be a stereotypically normal-looking girl, to fit in my society, to be the girl with the blonde hair and the pink dress. Children are not blank slates to be written on by their parents, they are aware and can be critical of this stuff early on. It's not about teaching, it's about creating dialogue. You might be surprised at how naturally feminist five year old girls are.

That's right, but the idea that this social marker 'pink' diminishes them is just alien to me, but that's because I see my girls striding through life and whether they wear a pink skirt one day and a purple or blue one the next seems rather trivial to me. My own experience is that their pink consciousness comes on as their gender identity gets firmed up at, say 3-5 (my youngest was looked after a lot by my partner as a baby and believed she would grown up to be a daddy until she was about four...). It is at it's worst around the time when they start school, but by 7/8, they are able to think about it critically. Plenty of nine year old girls wear jeans and t-shirts. It then gets worse again around the teenage years as they try to work out what is attractive to their peers and to their preferred sex.

I don't ban any clothing, I just don't. I have been known to hide the odd t-shirt sent by a far-away grandmother with the 'Porn Fairies' on it (they are not called that, obviously, but they are a set of fairies which sit in typical porn poses clearly drawn by 19 year old males). But, I grew up in a household where everything was controlled (food, clothing, TV/media) to give me the optimum childhood environment, and personally, I just don't want to spend my life trying to fight the outside world constantly, it's very tiring and it doesn't actually teach you what to do when you do get out into it and have to make choices. I go for critical thinking about the modern world, not isolation from it but I may be proved wrong (if my daughters decide to be a pole-dancer, for example, I would be truly very distressed).

Norma - FWIW, Delusions of Gender was on the 2 for 3 in Waterstones recently, I think.

(Or 3 for 2, even. )

"[...]the markers of femininity are seen to diminish the wearer by society at large. It's why there's such a taboo on boys and men taking part in them"

Yes, exactly. This is why I feel that to denigrate anything 'pink and sparkly' is to ignore the greater malaise, and unwittingly reinforce the very divide you are trying to tackle.

By steering girls towards markers of masculinity, we are compounding the problem. We need to challenge the signified, not the signifier.

Dittany - how, practically do I do that when society has already pointed my daughter in the direction of pink? How, practically, do I mitigate against the stereotyping that is already there? I can't change society completely, just try to chip away at stuff as I come across it.

I have 2 older DS's as well by the way.

THanks for book info LRD

I'm just rejoining the discussion, dittany (good to see you back, BTW )- earlier on, there was mention of encouraging masculinity by placing a greater value on traditionally male roles. This is all done so subtly, and with the best of intentions; encouraging girls to climb trees instead of skipping for example, which I have seen amongst friends, is not helpful.

I appreciate that the discussion has moved on, but I feel really strongly about this. It's as if the next stage in telling young girls they are worthless is happening and people are embracing it as a reaction to the 'pink princess'.

tethers - yes, exactly. If little girls (and little boys) were unable to read social cues, it might be ok. But they can, and they know when you encourage them to climb trees and shun pink, you're making a comment on the undesirability of femininity. What I'm not sure is clear is whether you can opt to be female but not feminine - I know we want to put that message across, but how easy is it to get? I'm asking, I don't know. If your little girl says she knows girls can become airline pilots and tractor drivers as well as dancers, does that necessarily mean she didn't figure out many people think all dangers are girls?

I am at the moment just trying to take notes mentally, so excuse me if I'm not making sense.