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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Trans Royal Family

50 replies

KittyPerry77 · 05/06/2018 11:14

Looks like Sarah Ferguson and Lady Sarah Chatto were actually trans - who knew?
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5807141/Candid-snaps-taken-four-decades-Royal-family-away-public-gaze.html

Trans Royal Family
OP posts:
OneHourTwentyFourMinutes · 05/06/2018 11:22

They look like boys and girls in comfy suitable clothing, to me.

Yes by today's standards their gender identity would probably be questioned by somebody known to the family.

ToeToToe · 05/06/2018 11:44

I've said it several times on here - this was the stuff all girls wore in the 70s - unless going to a party/wedding or something. Comfortable clothing in all the colours of the rainbow. Girls frequently had short hair (easier to care for I guess) - whereas now the vast majority of girls have long hair - judging by my dc's primary school classes.

Something happened between then and now that has made boy-girl clothing and toys very, very rigidly gendered into pink-blue. It's all linked, it must be.

hackmum · 05/06/2018 12:07

I agree with you, ToeToToe: this is how we dressed in the 70s. It is very noticeable that as women started to benefit from equalities legislation, we went backwards in terms of gender stereotyping children. When I was a kid, I don't think I had any pink clothes or toys. I mostly wore trousers rather than skirts, and lots of girls had short hair.

I think the change was largely down to marketing. Maybe clothes and toy manufacturers realised that they could make more money from gender stereotyping? So that if you have a boy and a girl, then you can't pass the boy's toys and clothes down to the girl, you have to buy a new set. That's my best guess.

AngryAttackKittens · 05/06/2018 12:10

I think having grown up in that era explains why it's mostly women over 40 whose response to the current idea that wanting to wear flouncy clothes makes you female and wanting short hair and sensible trousers makes you male is "what a load of old bollocks".

Stilettosandan0venglove · 05/06/2018 12:12

Something happened between then and now

Yes, what do you think it was? I've been wondering about the difference between my 80s childhood and now. Is it disposable, cheap goods - clothes, toys, etc, meaning it is worthwhile for manufacturers to create separate markets for boys and girls? Is there more to it than that?

Stilettosandan0venglove · 05/06/2018 12:13

Cross posted with you, hackmum

AsAProfessionalFekko · 05/06/2018 12:15

Thats how we dressed back in the day... It was called 'normal clothes without and agenda'. How very boring.

AngryAttackKittens · 05/06/2018 12:15

Did the change happen in the late 90s or the early 2000s? My niece is late teens/early tweens and I remember that by the time she was a toddler it was getting hard to find clothes for a girl that weren't princessey, but it wasn't impossible yet. Seems to be much harder now.

AngryAttackKittens · 05/06/2018 12:16

Late tweens/early teens, rather. Her older brother is early 20s and it was much easier finding clothes that weren't attempting to announce a gender identity for him when he was little.

AssassinatedBeauty · 05/06/2018 12:17

That was totally normal hair and clothes then! I have loads of pictures of me and other female family children in the same kind of era looking exactly the same.

What the hell happened that means girls must be hyper feminine or be considered trans?!

SuitedandBooted · 05/06/2018 12:18

I'm a Seventies child too. I had short hair. The only girly thing about me was my T- bar shoes!
It really highlights how regressive the pink/blue thing is.

MrsJacksonBrodieTheSecond · 05/06/2018 12:19

I was born in the mid eighties. I wore all my brothers hand me downs as did many of my friends. I had a couple of dresses but they were for parties, church or visiting elderly relatives. I handed my boys baby clothes onto my sister whose daughter lives in them. She has had so many people ask why she insists on dressing her baby girl in boys clothes. It’s such a weird, backward shift.

MrsJacksonBrodieTheSecond · 05/06/2018 12:21

I also had short hair, as did many other girls at my school. I wasn’t allowed to start growing it until I was 8 or 9 and cold brush and tie it back myself. My dm just didn’t have time or inclination to do it. All the girls at dc’s school have really long hair with complicated plaits worn all the time. I feel so lucky I had boys as I can’t even plait my own hair.

AngryAttackKittens · 05/06/2018 12:22

Hasn't the Queen's hair always been basically the same style and kind of short? I wonder if genderists think she's secretly longing to be a bloke too.

fmsfms · 05/06/2018 12:24

" It is very noticeable that as women started to benefit from equalities legislation, we went backwards in terms of gender stereotyping children."

Point out that differences between the genders get bigger in more equal Countries and people lose their minds.....

i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/288/643/6c6.jpg

sportinguista · 05/06/2018 12:25

I was wondering about this too, mainly as I had to shop for a girl's birthday and wanted to get her some clothes. Also went in for a birthday card and the majority of the cards aimed at women and girls seem to be pink too.

Back in the seventies I too had short hair as we swam a lot and it was practical, so did many girls. I lived in trousers as did many girls or shorts in summer and I can't actually think of any stuff I had that was pink, lots of primary colours etc, comfy and practical, lots of jeans.

I really remember the pastel shades becoming a thing in the 80's and even then it wasn't wall to wall. Now it's everywhere, even women's sportswear you get loads of pink etc, I find it hard to get trainers because I want black ones and you are assumed to want mens if you want black.

I do suspect it is linked to money and the making of. It largely always is and I think you're right Stilletos the disposable nature of just about everything is a factor. Not something that's very good for the environment though!

Furrycushion · 05/06/2018 12:26

I grew up in the seventies with short hair & gender neutral (!) clothes. When I was a toddler in my blue dungarees people used to think I was a boy, though, so there must have been gender stereotyping to a certain extent. I showed my DD her first pair of shoes the other day (mid 90s) and she asked why I had bought her ugly blue shoes not something sparkly & pink. I told her it was because I wasn't stereotyping her, but I think it's what was available at Clark's!

cindersrella · 05/06/2018 12:26

Why does it always have to come down to transgender. My little sister had short hair and played football and looked like a boy (a girl even asked her out once.. she was about 10) but was not was my mom ever questioned about transgender.. maybe that because it was never an issue.
Who cares how they dressed, like my sister they were probably very happy, having a nice time in the clothes that they wanted to wear!

AngryAttackKittens · 05/06/2018 12:26

I wonder what year the special Lego for girls was introduced, since that marked a "seriously now this is just ridiculous" point in the gendering of childhood.

ToeToToe · 05/06/2018 12:27

I think it started early 2000s. I think it was starting when I started having dc. It is nigh on impossible now to buy something that is not 'for a boy' or 'for a girl'.

I recently tried to buy a present for my DD's friend - who is a tomboy, hates pink & girly stuff. But I didn't particularly want to buy her something from 'boys' section either. Impossible. I think I went 'art supplies' in the end.

Actually, I worry for her at secondary school now - I can imagine her getting sucked into this nonsense. Plays football, wears v boyish clothes. The TAs would have her on Lupron in a heartbeat Sad

cindersrella · 05/06/2018 12:27

But my mom was never questioned (mixed up sentence on previous)

AsAProfessionalFekko · 05/06/2018 12:31

My sister was the same - maybe clothes was a little easier back then - and mum and dad just went with it (and the ‘boys toys’). She played with a boy persona in role play, had soldiers and robots, would avoid skirts like the plague (apart from school skirts as parents didn’t get hysterical over uniforms back then - you wore what the school said and that was that).

These days she’d be called Derek and discuss being a ‘he’ and wearing trousers to school/using the boys loos.

lunamoth581 · 05/06/2018 12:42

A couple (US-centric) articles on the history of the highly gendered clothes and toys we see today:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/383556/

www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/

Seems like it started, at least over here, in the mid-80’s. The US deregulated children’s programming, so that essentially children’s shows could be half-hour long ads for toys. Advertisers found they could sell more toys when they split the children’s toy market in two - boys toys and girls toys. And, of course, this was when the backlash against 2nd wave feminism started to kick in, too.

HollyGibney · 05/06/2018 12:47

This thread is interesting. I wore jeans, jumper, tracksuits and trainers, all in various primary colours, arran jumpers, polo necks. The only thing remotely "girly" were summer dresses and sandals. We got all dressed up and had our hair done for parties and that's about it. I honestly hadn't realised the massive leaps made to girly/glittery/fluffy/pink and it's only been over a few decades.

AsAProfessionalFekko · 05/06/2018 12:50

My niece was born in the UK in the 80s and again wasnt an overly girly girl. Maybe pink leggings under an oversized jumper and long hair. I dont remember girls being dressed like little pagent queenas back then.

My sisters kids in the US (about the same age) were definately more frilly girly.