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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

"Nursery tells couple to dress daughter more girly" news story & reaction

46 replies

seafret · 22/08/2018 09:18

Saw this just now in the Indy100 and saw it also reported in the Daily Mail.

www.indy100.com/article/gender-girl-boy-pink-blue-nursery-bow-viral-reddit-dads-parents-8499386

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6079053/Parents-send-baby-daughter-nursery-bow-gender-row.html

The couple report that they were told to dress the daughter "more girly" so that the other kids could discern her gender more easily (WTF?) - and they responded with a post-it of a bow stuck to her head, in disagreement. The 'problem' seeems to be that she wears some of their son's hand me downs so her clothes are tend to be blue/ neutral rather than pink.

Reported on Reddit I think so maybe be US or UK, not sure.

But what concerns me here is obviously the nursery's reaction, but also on the DM you get a lot of comments criticising the parents for using the child to make a point and to be trendy, and of course reinforcing that there is 'no harm in gendered clothing', but actually the parents are just staying away from stereotypical pink clothes for girls and not at all trying to 'trans' their daugher. They said they gave away pink princess type clothing they were given because of the message. They are GC.

More backlash against normal parents trying to be GC where they are seen to 'be as bad as' the trendy-woke-virtue-signalling types or the transing-their-child types, and conservative gender-preserving tradtionalists are perfectly aligned with the transgender-gender ideologists.

Exaxtly as wise women have said all along.

And really, that nursery ought to be closed. :(

YOU WILL CONFORM TO GENDER. Sheesh :(

OP posts:
cariadlet · 22/08/2018 10:33

I also use a popular observation and assessment system that states (for generic use): “Note that male pronouns should be used, because “his” and “him” are distinct while the female equivalents are not”
No idea what that means!

I think it's just a grammar thing.

his and her are possessive determiners.
him and her are pronouns referring to the object in a sentence.

There are 2 different masculine forms, but only one feminine form so using the masculine form throughout a text could be seen to make the meaning clearer.

FanWithoutAGuard · 22/08/2018 10:37

Have you ever seen that longing in their eyes at fancy dress. The materials are attractive and they don't feel able to access them. sad

This is why I loved my DS2's first nursery (DS1 has never approved of any kind of dressing up. He used to wear school uniform to non-school uniform days on purpose!) - I saw a picture of them all on dressup day - 80% of the kids, male or female, were in princess dresses and crowns (plus an iron man, and a pirate). No-one gave a damn.

This is us doing it to them - us limiting their freedom - we can help to change it, just like women fought to wear trousers until it was normal.

placemats · 22/08/2018 10:37

What a gorgeous little baby! Reminds me of my first born and she was bald too - with very little in the way of 'pink' clothes. Most were gender neutral. All my son's clothes as a baby were gender neutral - he was born this century.

I just don't understand it. Do they not know the child's name and sex? Most toddlers will point and say baby anyway.

placemats · 22/08/2018 10:41

My nephew ran up to me on my wedding day in tears - I had changed into my going away outfit as we were leaving that night.

'Where did the Princess go?' he cried. So sweet. So I got the dress and held it up to me. He just gave the dress a huge big hug.

FanWithoutAGuard · 22/08/2018 10:42

his and her are possessive determiners.
him and her are pronouns referring to the object in a sentence.

This has just made me realise why the youngest still says "that is shees hat" rather than "that is her hat" - he's extending out from 'his'

Tanith · 22/08/2018 10:47

Thank you, Cariad! That’s helpful to know.

keefthebeef · 22/08/2018 10:48

Just the way it has played out on reddit/the media, the photos etc. They are Steve and Jessica Rold - have a look at the the photos and statements. Seems very ‘created for purpose’ to me.

FairylightsTentsAndBunting · 22/08/2018 10:58

you'd never see an eight year old boy wearing his sister's hand me down dresses, would you?

Dresses are impractical.

My daughter is 12. She doesn't own any dresses or skirts outside of her school uniform - her choice.

She doesn't like pink because she doesn't like the colour.

She has worn denim shorts and orange/brown/grey festival t shirts all summer.

I don't think it's so much that boys' clothes are seen as the default for gender neutral clothing because boys are the default sex, I think it's becaise girls' clothes carry such strongly gendered messages that no boys and a large number of girls don't want to wear them either. Whereas boys or ungendered clothes are more varied colours, less fussy, more practcial amdless restrictive.

It's also that they ae more akin to the clothes we wore as children of the 70s/80s where you had a pair of red or blue dungarees from Mothercare, sturdy Clark's shoes and a patterned jumper or plain t short.

'Boys' clothes are as clothes always were (if you ignore the monster/hero slogans). Girls clothes are an odd 'subset' of children's clothing that lots of us avoid.

ZigZagZebras · 22/08/2018 11:00

Pale pink seems quite popular for boys tops at the moment, seems like its becoming more acceptable for boys to wear anything and more restrictive for girls.

KlutzyDraconequus · 22/08/2018 11:07

I really don't think they parents are being trendy or virtue signalling

Then why publicise it?
Surely you'd just say,
"she's a baby.. she doesn't care"
And move on with life.

But then it may just be a generational thing that every damn thing has to be put on InstaTwitBookEdit.

NotMeOhNo · 22/08/2018 11:24

I hrtft but why did they have stereotypical boy clothes for their eldest? So gendered clothes are OK if they're for boys?

Gileswithachainsaw · 22/08/2018 11:30

It's tights and a hoody. I don't think they are particularly stereotypical just because they are blue..

It's owls not cars or dinosaurs or trains.
The hoody doesn't have "boy slogans" like " here comes trouble " or "boys rule"

Iused2BanOptimist · 22/08/2018 11:32

I dressed DD1 in lots of boy clothes partly because I preferred them but also because I reasoned if I had a boy in the future I would be able to pass them down.
Then she went through a pink/dress/skirt phase and I more or less indulged it reasoning it wouldn't be long before Black was the default. She did indeed grow out of it in a year or two.
This gendered clothing crap really pisses me off. Also the consumerism and waste that drives it.
It's mad not to pass down kids clothes. That's all I got growing up.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 22/08/2018 12:00

Are owls "boy" now?

I thought owls were "girl"??

Are girls literally not allowed to wear anything blue (as boys are not allowed to wear anything pink)?

That's a little baby for fuck's sake.

The increasing gap between stuff "for girls" and stuff "for boys" and the enforcement of wearing the "correct" attire your sex (and if you want any of the other you must be under the trans umbrella) is incredibly worrying. It's so limiting and the clothes are the obvious part but not the only one. If you believe some clothes are for girls and never for boys then that naturally indicates that we are fundamentally different (brains) and so are "naturally" different in lots of other highly regressive ways.

Are the nursery having stress because new staff don't know whether to give her the "boys toys" (action / problem solving) or the "girls toys" (caring nurturing quiet).

NothingOnTellyAgain · 22/08/2018 12:01

I bought my 8yo DD a tshirt in the boys section the other day because it had her favourtite animal on it.

So shoot me.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 22/08/2018 12:47

I found boys clothes very limited in terms of colour. Rather severe. All navy, rust, grey... Both my DS really suited pastels so I used to look in the girls'clothes for plain pastel t-shirts. They both used to love mucking about with my accessories - boas, jewelry, hats etc. I still grieve for the Chanel eyeshadow palette that got wrecked.(it was the sole survivor of my single state).

I remember DH being a bit Hmm when DS1 came twirling into the kitchen wearing nothing but a feather boa.

When they were babies they often wore tie-dyed babygrows, which I dyed myself because I'm an old hippy. They looked glorious,.or at least I thought so.

FairylightsTentsAndBunting · 22/08/2018 13:12

Prawn your sons sound like mine.

His loved the make up counter in Boots (I don't wear make up so none at home).

He wore his hair in bunches and had his nails painted whilst playing with Thomas toys, climbing trees and baking cakes. Just like a child should!

NothingOnTellyAgain · 22/08/2018 13:31

I have always prefered the men's sections - colours, styles, and accessories like good chunky watches.

At 5'3 and with boobs I can't actually buy any of it!

It's so much less fussy, nothing is unexpectedly transparent, things seem well made, comfy, non scratcy and I prefer the patterns and stuff.

It's personality is all.

Gender is what says men prefer plain funcitonal clothes with minimal decoration only that are not revealing, while women like frills and flounces, much brighter colours, unexpected transparency, things that are very delicate, pretend pockets and handwashing Grin

seafret · 22/08/2018 14:59

I really don't think they parents are being trendy or virtue signalling

Then why publicise it?

Because sometimes things matter and you want them to stop and puclically challenging is an effective way of getting them to stop.

Or we could just shrug and, you know, not even bother to come onto a feminist board.

OP posts:
WombOfOnesOwn · 22/08/2018 19:39

I get very bristly at this idea that boys are having their freedoms restricted by the limitations on their clothing choices being more restrictive than for girls.

I think you'll find in general that if a member of an underclass in a liberal society dresses like a member of an oppressor class, you'll see most of society nod politely at the attempt, even if it's a bit badly pulled off. When a member of the oppressor class dresses up like a member of the underclass, it's seen as weird and not very nice to do.

If a recent refugee managed to get a donated suit from a banker and wore it with pride, that'd be lovely. If a banker decided to dress like a refugee and walk around in rags, people would think it was very strange. When university students who are quite rich "slum it" and pretend they are poor a la "Common People," it's an ugly thing to do.

The same thing is true for clothing belonging to specific racial minorities. A black person in clothing most commonly associated with white people, using an accent most commonly associated with white people, isn't even something most people would notice or comment on. Even lightening your skin is very common in some cultures. But a white person deciding to wear cornrows and dress in black-associated fashion brands and trying to use "urban" slang associated with black people would be considered a creep, and rightly so.

Boys are restricted because they are the oppressor class. Offering boys a choice of more clothing and saying "oh, the poor boys, they long to wear a princess dress and cannot" is putting boys on even more of a pedestal than they already are!

It matters a great deal to women that boys are taught to be "gender neutral" about things like childcare, cooking, cleaning, emotional labor, "the mental load" of planning for a family. Perhaps once we have a generation of men successfully engaging in these activities, we can worry about opening up the princess dress as a wardrobe option?

It really chafes to see a thread about a little baby girl being treated badly result in so many "what about the boys, what of their love of pretty colors and objects?" replies.

What all this sounds like, applied to any other category but sex:

"It's so important to end racism, that's why we let our children get their hair done into little braids when we went to Jamaica!"

"It's important to end ableism, so we want to make sure our able-bodied child knows it's perfectly okay to go to school in a wheelchair if she wants to, it's her choice and no one can tell her otherwise."

"Marie Antoinette is using her identity as a classqueer woman to break down performative boundaries between peasants and royalty."

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