Am I wrong to let my daughter enjoy being girly then?

[pictish]

DD is four - she will be five in Feb. I have two sons as well.

I have never encouraged or acknowledged a marked differentiation between the sexes, regards their interests and clothing. I always steered away from that stuff, letting them make their own minds up.

However, dd has embraced girliness wholeheartedly. She loves pink, and dresses, and My Little Pony and all things sparkly. In the interests of autonomy, and cultivating her own tastes, I don't mind it in the least.

I am starting to feel though, that through reading MN, unless she is playing football in bovver boots, I am doing her a disservice.
My mil (who is lovely really) is rolly eyed about all things pink and girly, and can't resist from making little comments about it. "Oh that's a very fancy dress" (sarcastic).

I have explained that the girliness is her own choice, and just what she happens to like, but I think it goes over her head...mil wants to think it's me pushing this onto her. It isn't.

I sometimes wonder if, in the quest for equality, we sometimes go too far the other way, and heap scorn upon girls who want to be girly? I feel the need to defend my dd's right to love pink and sparkly, as it is now heralded as so deeply uncool.

I thought it was all about offering choices...but nowadays (particularly on MN) it seems as though a girl being girly is a failure.

Anyone?

[PenguinsDontEatPancakes]

Yes, Yes 5Mad. We still have a culture that views it is degrading for a boy to wear his sister's hand me down pink coat or (as I saw on a recent thread) parents saying that they need to buy a new bouncy chair because the current one is not unisex and their new baby is the opposite gender. Pink is exclusively the domain of girls. And not in a 'it's so great and special' way - because if it was that parents of boys woudn't recoil in horror at the idea of their boy being touched by it.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Flea - yes, I was thinking - those descriptors might add up to two girls total!
And I think its one of the reason why people sometimes say the 'my DD likes tutus but plays football too' type thing - its not oppositional, or that one is better than the other, more that we're celebrating their multi-faceted tastes.

[20wkbaby]

Haven't read the whole thread but couldn't agree with you more OP. As I have said before on MN I was brought up in the 1970s by a mother fully Spare-Ribbed up who sneered at everything girly and glamorous. As a result it took me ages to admit to myself let alone anyone else that I liked clothes and shoes and looking nice - and even the occasional bit of pink.

I have 2 DDs and both appropriate for their ages love girly stuff - I would draw the line at anything too old for them (subjective I know). I would hate to think I would ever suppress any aspect of them as individuals but equally don't force them down other routes.

It always rankles on threads when people bang on about how their DD would never dream of wearing a dress and is always covered in mud - cheering on traditionally 'boyish' behaviour over traditionally 'girly' behaviour always seems the most sexist thing of all.

[SmokedMackerel]

Errol, yes, it is good to celebrate multi-faceted tastes. I think I am just objecting to the "but" and feel it should be "and".

maybe I am just over-sensitive because my dd has never shown any enthusiasm for climbing anything

[pictish]

It always rankles on threads when people bang on about how their DD would never dream of wearing a dress and is always covered in mud - cheering on traditionally 'boyish' behaviour over traditionally 'girly' behaviour always seems the most sexist thing of all.

Nail on the head.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I have no problem with pretty things and frills; it's slogan tshirts which associate boys with naughtiness and girls with prettiness, or being spoilt, etc, that I find a problem.

I have just realised that I and both dds are wearing flowery dresses/skirts, and indeed very often do. I have never thought of me or them as 'girly girls' though; the phrase just wouldn't occur to me!

[Coupon]

their DD would never dream of wearing a dress and is always covered in mud

Why do you take that as a promotion of one thing above another? Isn't it just a description?

[SmokedMackerel]

coupon it seems like it is denigrating the wearing of dresses, and being proud that your daughter doesn't like them.

People never write that their dd would never dream of wearing trousers and was always covered in glitter. Or at least not without a subsequent sentence to "make upfor it" about how their daughter does like riding her bike or playing with star wars Lego. But people don't feel a need to do it the other way round, and round out the character of the dress-hating mud-lover by emphasising how much they like playing with dolls.

[pictish]

Absolutely mackerel!

[PenguinsDontEatPancakes]

I actually don't think that's true. You do see lots of people emphasising the 'non girly' aspects of their girls. However, it is usually in response to something. Either dealing with a problem their child has experienced as a result. Or responding to a thread with the 'it's all innate' argument and trying to emphasise multi faceting personalities. I honestly can't think of a thread where someone randomly boasts about their daughter in the way described.

However, because of the denigration of all things designated as feminine in our culture, I think it's quite easy for a parent to feel attacked if their child does behave in those ways. And also, when posters talk about social conditioning, it is easy to translate that as having failed as a parent to 'protect' them from conditioning, which maybe can result in people over emphasising other characteristics.

[SmokedMackerel]

penguins you are probably right, I do feel attacked because my daughter is stereotypically girly, likes wearing dresses etc.

And of course people are not boasting randomly, but it seems to me to come up a lot on threads about girls' clothing being impractical, girls toys and boys toys being stereotyped, things like that.

[FreshCucumber]

I have to say, at that age, I would have stirred her choices towards something else. And not bought any pinky, sparky clothes. The same way that I have refused to but 'boyish' clothes to the boys.
I would have let her buy the little Pony stuff but equally ensured she had some toys that were more gender neutral.

I would have done so because I believe that all these pre-conceived idea on what a little girl should be are reinforced by TV, ads, friends and society as a whole and I would want to 'push' the other way so later on when she can really decide, she can make a proper choice rather than one dictated by society.

[FreshCucumber]

Btw I am talking about the extreme stuff here. The extra pink clothes, the frilly sparky dress, all in pink etc.
not about a dress that could've nice and cute.
Why on earth would you want to stop a little girl wearing a dress?

[78bunion]

If the clothing stops the girl doing things then it's a problem and unfair like some cultures/religions which dress girls in ways that mean they cannot ride bikes, worry about jumping into a puddle etc.

[PenguinsDontEatPancakes]

Smoking - See, my girls aren't girly (though DD2 loves pink). I feel like there are always threads about how 'girly' is denigrated and I feel like yelling "My girls are just as much girls as yours. Why do you get to decide what it means to be a girl" (which is surely what the adjective girly is doing).

But I recognise that that is me projecting my own difficulties with the highly gendered environment my kids are growing up in.

As for toys, they are horribly stereotyped. As are clothes. DD2 would love a pink dinosaur t-shirt. A pink t-shirt with a normal dinosaur on it. Not a girly one with eyelashes. You know, just a dinosaur. Can you buy one? Of course not, because dinosaurs are a boy thing, so dinosaur t-shirts are boy colours. Red, blue, green.

[SmokedMackerel]

Oh, I totally agree that toys and clothes are depressingly stereotyped - I was just saying it is usually threads on those subjects where people are keen to show off about emphasise how much their daughter doesn't like girls clothes/toys.

[FloraFox]

This thread is just full of goady, antagonistic shite.

I have never seen feminists on FWR pour scorn on little girls or denigrate things considered "feminine" in our culture. I haven't had the impression that people are showing off about how their daughters don't like it. I have seen people talking about how their DDs are considered less "girly" because of it. Most feminists on FWR don't like the term "girly girl" as it suggests that "non-girly girls" are lesser sorts of girls and that's a very damaging message for children. That's not showing off.

My DD loved pink things from about 2 til 7, she wanted to be on "team girl", there's no way that it was a choice she made free from any societal influences. Everywhere you look, pink things are labelled for girls. After 7, pink became something associated with babies so was promptly dropped. Again, a choice not made in a vacuum but influenced by the world around her.

[pictish]

I agree Mackerel.

Penguin you make a very good point too.

[BasilBabyEater]

Let your DD be who she wants to be.

Just don't imagine that who she wants to be, is in no way influenced massively by her culture and her peers.

[pictish]

I don't imagine she isn't influenced by culture or her peers, but I am willing to let her make that choice, within reason.

[BasilBabyEater]

That's nice for you and your DD pictish.

[HeartsTrumpDiamonds]

My favourite book practically ever is The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch.

It should be all about choice and not being judged. How sad that our DDs are already being judged at such a young age.

[pictish]

I loooooove the Paper Bag Princess! It's marvellous and a firm favourite here!

[BasilBabyEater]

Judged? Children?

By whom?

[Coupon]

People never write that their dd would never dream of wearing trousers and was always covered in glitter.

Maybe because that's considered to be the "norm" by a lot of people, and so not worthy of comment?