Asda launches gender-neutral children’s clothing range

[Nordensost]

Asda launches gender-neutral children’s clothing range

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3ce13aa3-c9ca-43e9-84f0-6b5292a73808?shareToken=65cfec1b8e0c194c62d283cb8b176d71

If there was genuine intent to offer more variety than the traditional pink and purple clothes for girls, and blue and green for boys, I'd applaud this.
But advertising it under the banner of diversity and inclusion? What fresh hell? Are these clothes for non-binary babies?

And why tf did the Times ask Debbie Hayton to weigh in? He's a male who writes about his sexual arousal when wearing 'women's' clothes. Isn't an AGP the last person you'd want to talk to about baby clothes?
I am beyond revolted by the Times right now. The Guardian looks moderate in comparison

Great. Now I'd like to see it with children's birthday cards.

With all of it: colouring books, bikes, umbrellas... When I was a child, the assumption was that parents would have two or three DC, and would want to be able to pass things down, so a lot of stuff was unisex.

This was in an era when I thought a bit eccentric owing to my passion for toy cars (boys' toys - I descend from engineers on the paternal side). Girls were supposed to play with dolls - but still got the same t-shirts, scooters and lunchboxes that their brothers did. It was probably easy to be a tomboy then than it is now. At least then everyone knew you were still a girl, even if you were assembling Lego whilst wearing stripy t-shirt and plain jeans. No one was fretting about your gender identity.

I could go on and on about gender-sterotyped clothes for children, such an early and basic form of stereotyping😠

Years ago I used to make a note of the slogans on boys'/girls' t-shirts and complain to the shop, but gave up after getting so many blank stares back..

Boys' saying Here Comes Trouble and girls' saying Daddy's Little Princess etc.
Boys' having pictures of tractors, girls' butterflies, that kind of thing.

I think the extreme stereotyping of children's clothes came as part of the backlash against 70s feminism. Pinkwashing/fairies/princesses took over and controlled little girls' imagery of what being a girl means.
Coming to think of it, it also seems to define what being a girl means for today's TWAWs!

As usual- unisex and gender neutral means boys stuff that girls are allowed to wear!

I like the look of these clothes!

Christopher McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education — another conservative pressure group, feels that “gender-neutral clothing should be offered alongside gendered clothing including blue for boys and pink for girls”.

“Many parents will be alarmed that Asda has joined the bandwagon seeking to abolish gender,” McGovern added. “Babies and infants should not have to carry the burden of adult neuroses.”

Surely the whole girls = pink, boys = blue thing is another example of adult neuroses? It only started from the Victorian age or something.

In fact I'd argue that having such defined colours and clothing (and hobbies, careers, etc) for each gender is more likely to make someone think they're born in the wrong gender – when really no one said women can't wear blue, men can't wear pink, women can't play football, men can't do dance, etc.

I do agree, I'd like to see more frills and cuteness on boys' clothing. But you already have people on MN raging about men wearing women's clothing.

After all, males in ancient civilisations wore heels, jewellery, makeup and skirts! The "rules" only started from the Victorians. I personally think if you draw such strict, arbitrary, boundaries then people are more likely to believe they've got gender dysphoria or whatever, just because they like frilly or glam stuff.

Oh come on, we all know what they are.

Blue dungarees with a little sailor on for boys

and

Pink flowery dresses with little matching socks for girls.

Clothes that, in the real world away from MN, most (well a lot) people choose for their babies/children without second thought.

You'd think we'd be able to cope with the idea of babies being able to wear all the stuff in all the colours. Not blue/pink based on their sex, or beige, green, yellow as "gender neutral". Just, lots of different colours and styles without people deciding that some colours/styles are only suitable for some children.

Had my first ever post deletion tonight expressing my anger towards an AGP commenting on children's clothing.
@mnhq would you mind explaining to me what I exactly said which was wrong? Hayton might be lovely but he does have a paraphilia. Do we choose EDI over safeguarding?

Hello @Nordensost, we've had a look and it seems like that deletion was done in error - we've reinstated your post now.

There have been unisex ranges out for years, just not under the banner of "diversity" or "gender-neutral."
My sons (now 16 and 14) were both often dressed head-to-toe in the Little Bird range by Jools Oliver at Mothercare (I love all things with a retro vibe!) I remember my middle child when he was about three rocking the cutest ever pair of bright purple trousers! So cute!!
He still loves loud clothes ❤️

No they have good marketing... It'll sell.

And instead of "gender-neutral" clothes being beige etc...just let your kids wear what they like?!!! My 3 yo little girl wears tops with dinosaurs on some days, other days sparkly love hearts! She chooses!

DS is nearly 16, he wore lots of unisex clothing from shops such as https://www.polarnopyret.co.uk/
Green baby and various Scandinavian brands I found I TK Maxx. They were mainly bright, colourful and comfortable clothing.
Gender neutral / unisex clothing for little ones isn’t new.

@Skiphopbump Yes! Agreed
Frugi was another (organic) brand all three of mine loved that offered gender-neutral (my 3 yo still loves Frugi, but not quite my 13 and 16 yo's so much any more!!) 😆

20+ years ago I was buying clothes in a mix of colours for all my children. Of all the places to buy cheap clothes Asda was the one that only sold things with stupid slogans about being a princess or a dinosaur hunter, and all their waistbands were too big for my DC anyway.
So for them to claim some kind of high ground for selling stuff that all the kids can wear is a bit cheeky, to be honest. I wonder if they have started doing a few with adjustable waistband elastic?

Surely the whole girls = pink, boys = blue thing is another example of adult neuroses? It only started from the Victorian age or something.

I agree that it's all down to adults, but the fascinating thing is that it actually switched! Pink used to be seen as a masculine color, being a lighter version of red, while the calmer blue was for girls. Imagery of the Virgin Mary usually has her in blue.

“There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” - Ladies Home Journal, 1918

The Victorians did have a lot of rigid sex stereotypes but even they didn't impose them on infants, who used to all be dressed in neutral baby frocks for the first few years. Much easier than trousers for toileting! These look 'feminine' to the modern eye but weren't considered so at the time.

Knowing all this makes it particularly hilarious for me when I read nonsensical hot takes like 'women naturally love pink because cavewomen gathered pink berries'.

The cost of fabric and labour meant the Victorians thought it was entirely proper to hand down baby clothes to the next child. Obviously many Victorian women handsewed all their baby garments themselves without paying a seamstress to do it, but they certainly wouldn't have valued their own time at zero. Once you've made a garment, you want as many uses out of it as possible. So the little gowns were made to be unisex.

Today's rigid colour-coding of baby clothes is only possible due to the technological developments that made mass-production of clothes possible. It's all down to baby-clothes manufacturers, who want us buying pink sleepsuits for girls and then feeling obliged to buy an entirely new set of sleepsuits for the next baby, because that one's a boy. There's no other time in history that people could have afforded to think that they needed to buy an entirely new wardrobe for a three-month-old boy, instead of using the stuff bought for his older sister 18 months ago.

Unisex clothing for babies/toddlers is a lot more recent than Victorian in the UK. My twin cousins - boy /girl born between the Wars, wore identical dresses.

In France toddler boys were wearing dresses in the 1950/60s. And, you still buy pink dragees (sugared almonds )for boys, blue for girls.

AGP = the new leper.
Yes he's a self confessed AGP but he's also a parent, and a teacher.

Is he not allowed to have or express a view?

How very free speech.

He has positioned himself as the Go-To Mr Reasonable on all topics 'gender'.

He gets off on wearing gendered clothes, so why he is now an expert on 'non-gendered' clothing is a mystery.

As I said earlier, unisex and gender neutral means traditional boys things that girls are "allowed" to wear. Never traditional girls things for boys. It's so depressing.

And as I said before MN and people would probably go crazy and see it as some kind of trans agenda if they came out with pink skirts and frills for boys. When actually I think it puts paid to the idea that you have to change gender to wear whatever you want

Boys clothes are practical, comfortable and withstand alls sorts of activities.

Girls clothes are generally less so.

So there can be different functions built in with the clothes. A girl choosing boys’ clothes could have a different reason for that choice from a boy choosing girls’.

But I agree that if there were say corduroy trousers -one pair plain or with dinosaurs, and another, the same cloth, shape and durability but printed with flowers - society might see it more acceptable to wear the former; less acceptable for a boy to wear the latter.
Similarly that would apply with for example, a grey, navy, or red tracksuit, and a shocking pink one.

My fear is that you have to watch out these days too incase a little boy with long hair and a taste for ‘beautiful’ things gets the suggestion he may be transgender whispered in his ear.

At least the 1960s and ‘Flower Power’
reintroduced flowery shirts for men without any necessarily gay or trans label attached.

Give over.