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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Clothing for girls

36 replies

LadyOdd · 02/06/2018 23:05

What are your favorite female/girl emporing,positive clothing? I just bought bedtime stories for rebel girls and I really want to get more positive clothing for my DD.

OP posts:
ErrolTheDragon · 03/06/2018 19:52

As she gets a bit older, outdoorsy shops eg mountain warehouse are very good for clothes kids can do stuff in. Mountain warehouse usually has good practical kids footwear
www.mountainwarehouse.com/kids/footwear/ - note that most styles are simply 'kids' with a choice of colours. So a girl can have pink or not as she wishes, with no sacrifice of functionality.

Or a site like Muddy Puddles - a good set of waterproofs (also mudproof!) is essential.

But on a hot day, a little girl in a cotton frock and sensible sandals (as above) or 'doodles' type shoes can be perfectly comfortable and able to play freely. So long as it's washable or you don't care about a bit of mud or grass stain.

Waddlelikeapenguin · 03/06/2018 23:27

Mine are climbers - indoor sport & trees, walls etc i find the key is footwear. All mine wear barefoot shoes & wellies or watershoes (basically barefoot but cheap!) & therefor can do anything. I also teach mine that pants cover your genitals so you can cartwheel in public - you dont need shorts as well.

I make 90% of their clothes so colours & prints arent a problem. I like landsend (sale - there is nearly always a sale) for plain leggings & some fab science t shirts (cross section of the earth type things).

pombear · 04/06/2018 00:16

There is a great twitter thread right now (I've lost the link, can't find it, other people might have it?) which starts off with a mum who's asking for postive comments for her daughter who is obsessed with space, but worried that she's wearing a 'boy shirt' because the only clothes that have 'space themes' on are in the boys section in the US stores she shops in.

The post is swamped with people showing fantastic examples of
a) women in STEM, astrophysics and other sciences wearing non-gendered clothes and doing great stuff. (I'm hoping for more women in non-STEM stuff also posting wearing non-gendered clothing!)
b) people providing links to clothes manufacturers who break down the stereotypes currently existing
c) just generally people being great people and making twitter a good thing for once!

I've seen an increasing trend in the last 10 - 15 years of more gender-stereotypical clothing, toys, other stuff.

Magdalen, as usual, knocks it out of the park with her latest youtube film about stereotypical dress being sexist.

bookmum08 · 04/06/2018 00:27

My daughter aged 10 has a nice tshirt from Pep and Co that says 'Girls can do anything'. However she also has loads of Pokemon tshirts, minecraft ones, a green and white stripey one so she can 'Cos Play' a particular character from an online game plus lots of unicorns and llamas. Do clothes need to be empowering?

Slanetylor · 04/06/2018 00:42

Once they don’t restrict play or have ridiculous slogans on them, I don’t mind really. I don’t like the automatic assumption that something pink is inferior , just because and for no other reason, it is associated with girls. I don’t think green Tractor t shirts are automatically superior, just by virtues of not being pink.

FredaNerkk · 04/06/2018 01:06

Since they were 2.5years, my DDs have refused to wear dresses and anything particularly 'girly'. No bows, flowers, pink, frilly etc. I'm not sure where that attitude has come from - I'm not into frills etc but I wear a mix of dresses, skirts, trousers, jeans, and I'm comfortable in pink.

Anyway, generally DD2 (6) wears shorts/jeans and t-shirts. But this year she became interested in tailored suits this year. Again - I don't know why. She just did. After months of this, via the internet I showed her some women in tailored trouser suits, shirts, waistcoats - and she was "Exactly - that's what I want". Fair enough. I had to agree that the women looked good.

But do you think I could find an androgynous trouser suit for girls? Zero, zilch, nada. Why not? It's a known style for women, so why not girls?

Eventually I bought her a 5 piece slim suit she loved the look of from a website that offers children's outfits for weddings. It came from the boys section (the girls section of course only had frilly dresses). She loves the suit. She wears it when we have guests, and simply if she feels like it. And bless them, our guests have been very complimentary.

The other thing that irks me is that it is very hard to find girls' jeans that aren't 'skinny jeans'. DD2 hates skinny jeans (and won't touch leggings). Finding straight cut or 'boyfriend' style for girls is nearly impossible, yet it is really easy for women. GAP Kids sometimes has them - in which case I buy multiple pairs.

Why is there such a narrow range for girls when clothing stores know very well that women have wide-tastes and cater for them accordingly?

samueledotericson · 04/06/2018 05:11

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Kyanite · 04/06/2018 06:16

My daughter loves pandas and she used to wear a really cute panda hat/scarf.

My daughter got into metal when she was about 15 years old so out went the clothes from New Look and in came the clothes from Drop Dead, Grindstore and EMP. Thankfully black suits her.

They do have some feminine clothes, otherwise it's clothes either sex could wear but made in a women's fit.

I never dressed my daughter in pink when she was young because she has auburn hair and yellow or blue suited her best. As soon as she was old enough to express a preference she wanted to wear pink and purple. She was always very girly, now she's girly in black. She sometimes has blue hair too but not a TRA!

ErrolTheDragon · 04/06/2018 09:19

Do clothes need to be empowering?

No; but they do need to not be disempowering.

Kyanite · 04/06/2018 09:28

I find shoulder pads empowering...I miss the 80's.

Slanetylor · 04/06/2018 14:07

I don’t know any boys who wear 5 piece suits either, to be fair. I’d consider that to be a fairly niche clothing preference.

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