Please could someone help me articulate an email to Asda regarding these pyjamas?

[Acunningruse]

First post here so please be gentle.

I was looking for Christmas pyjamas this morning for DD age 3 and 7yo DS. Ridiculous I know in September but last year I left it too late and everywhere sold out.

I was just about to buy the red pyjamas from Asda below for both of them when I happened to notice the pyjamas were in the boys section. Intrigued, I looked in the girls section and found these pink so-called Christmas pyjamas.

Now I am very sleep deprived due to said 3yo not sleeping ever. So I don't know if my initial horrified reaction is OTT. But just WHY??? Why are there pink ones for girls? The universal colours of Christmas are red and green not insipid pink! Why do there need to be separate girls and boys ones? It just seems so unnecessary but at the same time sending a message as ever seems to be the case that girls and boys should be treated differently. My DD is already one of the strongest fiercest people I know and I don't want that changing any time soon but with stuff like this how can it not??

Excuse tired angry rant, if anyone else thinks I am not BU pls could you help me form a coherent email?
Thanks

You can get drills and other tools in pink too.

Yes because they make drilling soooo much more enjoyable and easier for us wimmin!

What would really make tool use easier for women would be smaller handles and grips. We have smaller hands and I have suffered several wrist and hand injuries because tools are too big to hold without straining tendons.

Female-specific safety shoes, when I finally found them, had sodding pink on them, why? They're going to be worn on a building site FFS.

@SinkGirl

Why can’t girls be Christmas puddings? It’s bizarre.

Because if a boy is a pudding it's cute. And if a girl is a pudding it implies she's fat and needs to be put on a stupidly ludicrous starvation diet that will ensure she's anorexic by the age of 7.

As for Asda selling pink Christmas pjs for girls - to all the idiots that say it's not important I hope you wake up soon and realise it is important. It's one little message to a young woman that she is a watered down version of a young man. Yes have pink, not red. Be a nurse, not a doctor. Give up your career and accumulate no pension and live in poverty while your ex husband has a big house where he houses his second family.

One small step....

I don't think this is a problem because you can buy whatever pyjamas you like for either sex child. It's not like you have to buy pink, and IMO pink is for whoever likes it. Yes it's annoying that some shops act as if pink is just for the "girls" section, but that doesn't mean you have to. It's also totally untrue that clothes for girls are all pink. Go into any Asda or Sainsbury's etc and there are loads of colour options for both sexes. (Though of course to me it's just for anyone as I would just buy my child what they liked, boy or girl.)

I'm as feminist and GC as they come and I have pink Christmas pyjamas myself. I like pink and I am not impressed if someone says I can't have it because I'm female. That's madness.

Basically, you want to tell them that you think it's ridiculous that christmas pyjamas need to be split by gender sex

Yes. And that the boys can have pink too and that pink should not be shoved down girl's throats. I ended up hating pink because it's so hard to get sportswear etc in strong or dark colours instead of pastels and pink. I would probably be a lot more amenable to it if I had more of a colour choice when buying outdoors clothes, you know, the kind of choice that men take for granted.

Clothing for younger children probably should not be sold as boys and girls. Because it supports and reinforces an implied difference in personality between boys and girls which woild not exist in a none sexist society. Neither should toys. It’s not just pjs.

Only when things are designed to account for sex difference such body shape is differentiation useful

I ended up hating pink because it's so hard to get sportswear etc in strong or dark colours instead of pastels and pink.

Really though? Most of my sportswear is black or dark grey, sometimes with some colour flashes which are mostly pink, green or orange but I could have chosen blue, purple, yellow etc too.

Not expensive either, this is from places like Asda and Gap.

I totally agree dividing clothes into boys and girls is rubbish and perpetuates sexism. As does dividing clothes into boys and girls and then putting "princess" and "gorgeous" on the girls and "rascal" and "action adventure" etc on the boys.

But it really doesn't help to pretend you can't get a range of colours in women's and girls' clothes. Of course you can.

It's also totally untrue that clothes for girls are all pink.

But many are, and I have yet to see Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirts in the girls' section. I also challenge you to compare the "dolls" and "action" toy sections of your local Tesco. Yes, the sections have been renamed away from "girls" and "boys" but the toys remain the same, and the difference between the colour schemes is striking when viewed en masse, for toys that are fundamentally actually the same! What do you with a Barbie? Dress it up and act out scenarios with it. What do you do with a GI Joe? Dress it up and act out scenarios with it. They are both dolls, but "boy dolls" aren't called that.

It's not just clothes that are pink and pastel, it's toys, running shoes, safety boots, razors, menstrual tracking apps, breast cancer information leaflets, boxes of painkillers that are identical to cheaper ones in formula but cost more and have a pink box because they are marked for period pains, waterproof hiking jackets. All in softer, lighter colours sending a 24/7 subliminal message to women and girls that they are not allowed to be as bold or strong (and I don't mean physically) or loud as men and boys.

It’s that or go “non-binary” for all childrenswear and we know that these boards won’t stand for that either.

I think you'll find the opposite is true. Most rational minded people, of either sex, believe there is no such thing as 'girl colours', 'boy colours', 'boy toys' or 'girl toys'. Most reasonable people think there should just be colours, clothes, toys etc and that a child choosing something not stereotypically associated with their sex is fine, and does not need any form of intervention.

when a little boy wears pink he might be mistaken for a girl, and in the eyes of some that would be a very bad thing.

Imagine that, people being annoyed at being misgendered. Girls don't like getting mistaken for boys either.

Also perplexed at the claim that all sportswear for women is pink. That's news to all my running gear, which is mostly black with bits of other colours on - green or orange mostly - or hi viz.

Most of my sportswear is black or dark grey

When I got my running leggings about three years back, Asda and Tesco did not have them nor tops without pink on. I went online to get interesting cycling jerseys. If things have improved since then, great.

Not rtft but it's annoying as pink narrows choices for girls, as they then only ever want pink stuff.

Toys get labelled pink. The toys aren't particularly STEM like, more arts and home care and beauty, and then you find girls are falling behind in maths simply as the experiences they've had are less inclusive of STEM type activities. And vice versa for the boys.

As a mum of boys who is a teacher and one of girls growing up, I've been quite struck by the difference in toy range of friends with girls compared to my boys. We've all tried not to be stereotypical.

thegec.org/

Have a look at the video wall of the gender equality collective; I think there's one about the pink and blue issue.

These two tedx videos from that site probably explain the issue of pink v other colours, usually blue.

I'd be more annoyed at the pressure to buy Christmas specific PJs in a climate emergency. We should all be avoiding buying this seasonal tat, not worrying whether it is pink or red.

Regarding toys.

Anthropologists have been able to track the success of a civilisation through the types of toys it had for the children.

The more complex and varying toys, the more successful the civilisation was at engineering, technology, societal structures, architecture etc.

So dividing toys for male and female really can have a major impact on how the sexes learn and what they are able to do as adults. And it's signalled to kids via pink.

You're not allowed pink if you're a boy (girls are lesser plus homophobic comments) you're only an acceptable girl if you like pink stuff (domesticity, beauty, fashion.)

Well yes, damn good point Nevertwerked.

We need all the scientists we can get to sort it out mind you, not just the male ones.

Because it supports and reinforces an implied difference in personality between boys and girls which woild not exist in a none sexist society.

I am not sure what the implied personality difference is with pink, if colours really aren't about that?

But I am interested in this non-sexist society idea. I have a lot of doubts that a non-sexist society would have no cultural signs or markers of sex, or customs related to sex. Sex and it's effects are too important to our experiences and the fact is, people are really really interested in it, mainly because a mammal species that isn't doesn't tend to survive.

Given that we are cultural creatures, we express our interests and thoughts and feelings through narrative and art and symbols, I don't think we would ever eliminate cultural markers about sex, which is to say, gender. Not without it being imposed in an authoritarian way.

My question then is, if that is true, what should that look like? How do we culturally express our sexed beings in a way that fills that need and desire but doesn't perpetuate negative ideas?

You’re right nevertwerk and I wear my pink Xmas pjs all year :)

I do like Xmas pjs and get them for the dc, but not just for wearing at Christmas iyswim. It’s just a time when you get new ones which are then used as normal.

They’ll allow you to buy the red ones, even if you’re accompanied by your girl baby. You could even buy the pink ones for a boy, had you a mind to...

@Usernumbers1234 I don’t disagree, of course it’s society so that’s why I think it has to be called out whenever it’s seen.

@NeurotrashWarrior. Better that people buy less tat than keep mindlessly consuming and hope for a scientific solution.

And pink clothes and female scientists are not mutually exclusive. I know countless female scientists who are also very "pink and girly" both now and growing up. I also loved pink as a child growing up and still do now and am grappling with complex legal aspects of tackling climate change after getting a first class BSc and a first class degree in law. Pink didn't addle my brain or mean I avoided science. My parents influences were way more important than material trappings.

I watch the big container ships full of cheap supermarket clothes come chugging past my beach pumping out vast amounts of climate changing pollutants and just wish people could grasp the enormous impact of constant mindless acquisition.

The assumption being reinforced is just that girls are different to boys the extent that they will like different things, Be that clothes or school subjects . It doesn’t matter what is used to signal that, it’s being signalled

By none sexist I don’t mean that we are not aware of sex, nor that it is hidden in some way. But it’s realm of significance is much less than it is today. The none sexist society would not assume a female brain. A none sexist society would treat women with the same respect as men. Lower voices would not signify intelligence. We would not use phyiscal proxy markers . WE would train girls and boys the same.i don’t know what it would fully look like because i don’t know how much our bioloGY affects our emotions

We won’t see it. I doubt it can happen without evolution , to more society focussed, less materially acquisitive

But we can see progress even if we seem to be in the middle of a conservative backlashes . You don’t get backlash without prohress

In a work capacity, I recently was involved in a focus group of parents with babies approx 6 months to 18 months old. They were looking at some potential new products and the prototypes were quite heavily "gendered" ie, the stereotypical boy/girl colours and tropes. The feedback was very much that more neutral options would be preferred so I am hopeful that things may begin to go back to how they used to be, with clothes,toys and other products in neutral or primary colours.

In my professional capacity, I speak to brands quite frequently about this, and most of them do get it but ultimately they are there to make profit and there is a core demographic that does buy into these things. It is the case that a very "middle class" brand will do better with neutral offerings whereas most supermarkets for example will see far higher sales with the heavily gendered items. Prams are quite a good example of this, the high end brands will almost always have black or grey as their top seller, a cheapy stroller at the £20 mark will almost always have the dinosaur print in shades of blue and green and the hot pink with flowers or bows as their top sellers.

As an aside, I don't think anyone is saying that pink items shouldn't be available, I have some pink stuff, alongside loads of other colours in my wardrobe, it's just that as a grown woman if I go to buy a shirt, I can choose navy,black,pink,blue etc whereas childrens clothing has a far more limited offering and the ideal scenario would be to keep all the colours and patterns, just get rid of the stupid labels designating which sex they are aimed at.

I agree OP and dislike this about ASDA. Polarn O Pyret is a great brand for having awesome unisex kids’ pjs. The cut and quality, they fit for a long time because the sleeves and legs roll up and I can hand them down. They’re more expensive but it’s worth investing in more ethical brands and clothes that aren’t throwaway.

I know the family who started Mamas and Papas, and used to socialise with them often. Their best selling item for several years was a pink ruffled dress. Mrs M&P used to say that she hated it, but people just kept on buying it.