# Gendered toys (and clothes). Is it as bad as it seems?



## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

Having become an auntie to somewhere in the region of a gazillion children in the last 6 years I've spent a lot of time buying children's clothes and toys.  

Now, I'm a product of the prevalent social mores as much as the next person and I would be lying if I claimed I didn't love buying fabulously cute and pretty pink dresses for the girls. Especially as when present buying you want to buy something 'special' rather than workaday jeans or utilitarian vest tops in plain colours. 

Has it become more gendered or was it always this way? 

Even with newborn vest thingies it's all fairies and pink and 'mummy's little princess' for girls and blue and green 'daddy's little monster' for day old babies!  

Boys and girls toy sections in the shops.  Why would they even think to do this. Do people spend more money this way?  I don't get their logic.   Practically all 'girl' toys are pink. Practically all housework play toys are baby pink and in the girl section.  Trains and cars are primary blues and yellows and reds and boys' toys.  Lego comes in pink for girls. 

As an auntie I don't like to step on parent's toes and although I would perhaps buy a more 'boyish' toy for one of the girls I probably wouldn't buy anything girlish for either of the boys and actually I tend to ask what the parents suggest (even though one of the boy's mums is keen not to funnel him into boys toys.  He's had prams and hoovers and kitchen sets bought for him which he did play with but has become more interested in trains and crashing things - he's definitely very 'boyish') 

How easy is it to buck the trend and how much of a struggle is it when the message from everywhere else seems to be highly gendered.  Do parents deny their daughters boys toys and their boys girls toys?  Or are they more laissez faire with girls but terrified their boy might turn gay if he has a my little pony?  Is there a difference between mum's and dad's attitudes? 

On the ELC website they had a category called 'instils confidence'.  It only had two toys. Curious I clicked and it was a girls' world and a make up set.


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## killer b (Mar 4, 2013)

it is pretty bad, and i suspect getting worse. get them something wooden perhaps?

i doubt a sensible parent would care if you got their kid something non 'gender appropriate'.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

I'm not asking for ideas just a bit despairing.


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## toggle (Mar 4, 2013)

even if the kids aren't taught this stuff at home, they will pick it up from school and the kids there that are taught it.

teach em it's shite and they gorw out of believing they are limited by that. 14 year old told the 4 year old she could play with what she wanted and looked completely nonplussed when I reminded him of the pictures i have, taken about 18 months ago of him in a 10 sizes too small fairy dress.


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## colacubes (Mar 4, 2013)

I'm interested in this as well.  It seems to become particularly prevalent in toys once they get above 3 afaics from buying pressies for friends kids.  Like you quimmy I have no problem with pink v blue per se, but I'd much rather it was their choice once they're a bit older rather than foisted upon them by the toy industry


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## killer b (Mar 4, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> I'm not asking for ideas just a bit despairing.


yeah, i realised that immediately after posting. 

ELC has proper gone to shit. and you can now get pink 'girls' lego...


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

Yes. And pink meccano! I was given that as a suggestion but got something else instead. Why specify pink? Grr.

Are the shops at odds with what parents think?

There is a let toys be toys group on facebook with a petition. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Let-Toys-Be-Toys-For-Girls-and-Boys/104658933034521?fref=ts


https://www.change.org/petitions/to...ing-toys-as-only-for-boys-or-only-for-girls-2


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## colacubes (Mar 4, 2013)

Just as an aside I've bought things like this a few times for small people recently:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lego-1kg-...UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item231a35ef9c

I'm not sure their parents have been that thrilled though


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## weepiper (Mar 4, 2013)

Lego for girls in the 70s



lego for girls now


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

nipsla said:


> I'm interested in this as well. It seems to become particularly prevalent in toys once they get above 3 afaics from buying pressies for friends kids. Like you quimmy I have no problem with pink v blue per se, but I'd much rather it was their choice once they're a bit older rather than foisted upon them by the toy industry


 
Thing is they seem to end up picking the gendered toys anyway because so much of the messaging they get, unconscious or deliberate, at home or out and about, on the telly, in the shops is 'this is for boys', 'this is for girls'.


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## colacubes (Mar 4, 2013)

That's depressing 

ETA - that was at weeps' post but equally applies to Quimmy's.

But is it really that different?  I remember hassling my parents for Sindy/My Little Pony shite between the ages of about 5-10, but remained resolutely a tomboy throughout and grew up being quite non-girly (ffs I can barely do eyeliner at the age of 35 )  My brother actually played with my SIndy stuff far more than I ever did.


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## weltweit (Mar 4, 2013)

I don't know about gender, but my lad wanted me to buy anything with Thomas the tank engine on it.
It might have been rat poison but if it had Thomas on it - he wanted it


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## killer b (Mar 4, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> Are the shops at odds with what parents think?


not totally sure. someone on urban works in the kids clothes industry (forget who - pinkmonkey perhaps?) and i believe that one of the reasons that most kids clothes are so rigidly pink/blue is simply because nothing else sells (or it certainly sells a lot less than the pink/blue stuff) - so manufacturers only bother making the colours that sell best... may be true of toys too i guess, that it's at least partly consumer driven.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

nipsla said:


> Just as an aside I've bought things like this a few times for small people recently:
> 
> http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lego-1kg-...UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item231a35ef9c
> 
> I'm not sure their parents have been that thrilled though


 
Lego is evil for anyone with feet or knees.   All children should have it though.


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## mojo pixy (Mar 4, 2013)

I had to check myself for real when my little boy had some minor surgery.  He was 2 months old and he was very brave, all the theatre staff were impressed by how calm he was and he just fell asleep till they were done.  I was very proud and afterwards was cuddling him and calling him a Big Brave Boy and .. I hesitated .. would I have said Big Brave Girl if he was a girl?  I decided I would have, but it was a little wake up call in gender conditioning.  Reminded me to be careful.


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## weepiper (Mar 4, 2013)

When I was in Toys R Us buying Christmas presents I came across 'girls' and 'boys' marble runs. This kind of thing 







The one like that had a picture of a boy on the box. The one with a picture of a girl on was all pink and purple. Just, why?


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## twentythreedom (Mar 4, 2013)

I read about some research into this a while back, the bottom line was "yeah it is really bad, and it's mostly Disney's fault".


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## Thora (Mar 4, 2013)

Weepiper that is SO depressing!

What really pisses me off is that in ELC centre now there is two versions of everything - two garages, two kitchens, two teapots etc - one in blue and one in pink.  Why?  Why not in red, green, yellow, orange?

It's like there are only two colours now, blue-green and pink-purple.  Maybe red shoes for girls and brown shoes for boys too.  I try to go for colourful clothes for my son without lots of "little monster" and Fireman Sam all over it.

A woman came into a toddler group I was at the other day with two little girls, maybe 18 months and 3 years old, dressed in trousers, red, green, orange clothes - and they really stood out!  All the other little girls were in pink and purple skirts and dresses with ballet pumps and glittery hair clips, Hello Kitty etc.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

weepiper said:


> When I was in Toys R Us buying Christmas presents I came across 'girls' and 'boys' marble runs. This kind of thing
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Oh!  didn't see that.  I bought a couple of these at christmas.  Both for boy gidgets.    Both are available to their female siblings though. I  am resolved to buy them for the all girl households too.  Yes.   They look like good fun. 

My impression is that it's less of an issue to get 'boyish' toys for girls than vice versa.  I did buy the wizard and the princess book for a boy.  I suspect a lot of the time people don't think to buy books for boys with female heroes. 

On the one hand I would like to dress and get toys for my theoretical children that are not 'typical' but on the other hand I 1. wouldn't be able to carry it through too far 2. would not want them to look back and hate me for making them a social experiment and always the odd bods at school.


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## moomoo (Mar 4, 2013)

In my experience little girls like pink things and little boys don't. If I had bought one of my boys something 'girly', they would have had a fit. 

I know it's fashionable to be gender neutral these days but whatever. If I want to buy my favourite little girl pink pyjamas with ponies on then I will. 

*Whistles innocently*


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## weltweit (Mar 4, 2013)

Some parents try not to have toy guns in the house to prevent their boys from playing with them.
Don't think you can keep a small boy from a shooting em up game though.


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## killer b (Mar 4, 2013)

moomoo said:


> I know it's fashionable to be gender neutral these days but whatever.


it isn't fashionable. precisely the opposite, in fact.


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## Drei (Mar 4, 2013)

killer b said:


> not totally sure. someone on urban works in the kids clothes industry (forget who - pinkmonkey perhaps?) and i believe that one of the reasons that most kids clothes are so rigidly pink/blue is simply because nothing else sells (or it certainly sells a lot less than the pink/blue stuff) - so manufacturers only bother making the colours that sell best... may be true of toys too i guess, that it's at least partly consumer driven.


I worked in a shoe shop as a teenager and was surprised how they only order mainly black or brown smart shoes because they sell the best.
But i also think it's a lack of imagination to turn everything for a girl pink, because there are many colours that could be put together to differentiate girls from boys (because majority of parents wouldn't buy a pink trackor for their little boy)
I heard a theory (from nobody special) that colour coding toys for girls and boys was also a marketing scheme, so that little boys and girls looked for toys in that colour and asked for the ones they did not have, this was specially used among dolls etc


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## Thora (Mar 4, 2013)

moomoo said:


> In my experience little girls like pink things and little boys don't. If I had bought one of my boys something 'girly', they would have had a fit.
> 
> I know it's fashionable to be gender neutral these days but whatever. If I want to buy my favourite little girl pink pyjamas with ponies on then I will. :-D
> 
> *Whistles innocently*


I don't think it's fashionable to be gender neutral these days, quite the opposite.  In the 80s/early 90s we had duplo, toy kitchens, garages in primary colours.  Now they all come in pink or blue.  Everything is for boys or for girls now - brightly coloured neutral stuff is "specialist"!


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## weepiper (Mar 4, 2013)

It gets worse as they get older in some ways. Once your little girl gets past 5 or 6, just try finding clothes in the supermarket ranges that aren't basically overtly sexualising her. It's surprisingly difficult.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

moomoo said:


> In my experience little girls like pink things and little boys don't. If I had bought one of my boys something 'girly', they would have had a fit.
> 
> I know it's fashionable to be gender neutral these days but whatever. If I want to buy my favourite little girl pink pyjamas with ponies on then I will.
> 
> *Whistles innocently*


 
two things: 1. but _why_ would they have a fit? I'm not at all saying it's your fault but there are reasons that some things are girly and some things boyish and it doesn't have to be that way.

2. All that pink girly pjs and dresses and stuff is fab isn't it? I love it too, a lot of it. But there is a reason why we love that stuff and men don't give a shit, and it's not because we have foo foos and they have pee pees.


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## moomoo (Mar 4, 2013)

Thora said:


> I don't think it's fashionable to be gender neutral these days, quite the opposite.  In the 80s/early 90s we had duplo, toy kitchens, garages in primary colours.  Now they all come in pink or blue.  Everything is for boys or for girls now - brightly coloured neutral stuff is "specialist"!



Oh. I haven't really looked tbh!


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## killer b (Mar 4, 2013)

wilbur (my youngest) still happily plays with pink stuff, but i suspect that may change in september when he goes to school.


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## aqua (Mar 4, 2013)

moomoo said:


> In my experience little girls like pink things and little boys don't. If I had bought one of my boys something 'girly', they would have had a fit.
> 
> I know it's fashionable to be gender neutral these days but whatever. If I want to buy my favourite little girl pink pyjamas with ponies on then I will.
> 
> *Whistles innocently*


 she really wasn't sure about them and I still don't have a photo


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## Citizen66 (Mar 4, 2013)

Is this supposed to be in the employment forum? lol


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

weepiper said:


> It gets worse as they get older in some ways. Once your little girl gets past 5 or 6, just try finding clothes in the supermarket ranges that aren't basically overtly sexualising her. It's surprisingly difficult.


 
that's girl power, weeps.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Is this supposed to be in the employment forum? lol


 
_education_ and employment.


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## moomoo (Mar 4, 2013)

aqua said:


> she really wasn't sure about them and I still don't have a photo



Oh. Never mind, there's always her birthday...


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## Citizen66 (Mar 4, 2013)

Was just wondering if there was a bug as another thread meant for nobbin and sobbin appeared here earlier.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

I did kind of forget about nobbin and sobbin and didn't think suburban was the place.  I was too chicken to put it in politics. I stick by my choice.


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## Citizen66 (Mar 4, 2013)

There's threads and dreads too.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

That doesn't work for the toys aspect, Mister.


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## RubyToogood (Mar 4, 2013)




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## Sue (Mar 4, 2013)

Was in a toy shop a few years ago which was divided into girls and boys toys (indicated natch by pink and blue). Of course in the girls section was all the utter crap, in the boys lego and meccano and lego sets and chemistry sets and all the fun stuff.

Asked to speak to the manager, asked him what the point was. Told him I would not be shopping there as the gender-based toy segregation absolutely pissed me off. He thought I was a right nutter. (Told him I knew it no doubt came from head office but could he at least pass it up the chain to his area manager or whatever. Which I'm sure he probably didn't ).

I absolutely refuse to do all that gender-specific rubbish. I know it's all around but think it's really important children don't get the message their options (of toys or whatever else) are dictated by their gender. This of course applies equally to girls and boys.

(Know it's utterly unscientific, but I'm female, started as an engineer -- still work in tech stuff -- and know quite a lot of female engineers/scientist/tech types. It's quite interesting that whenever this comes up, they all say -- which reflects my own experience -- that they were equally encouraged to play with boys and girls toys and never felt like they had to play with dolls or whatever if they'd rather be doing lego. Which I certainly did .)


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## xenon (Mar 4, 2013)

There's really boys vs girls Lego now? How odd. My younger sister always played with the same stuff I had. But chewed the trees.   We played a few of the same computer games but somewhat stereotypically I suppose, I played more of the shooting and hitting people variety.

Not being around kids much, I'd nyevely assumed that along with the traditional gender orientated dollies vs cars sorta thing, there'd be a greater proportion of nutral options. At least with toys and games.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

I was reading something last year about school and gender and ID, secondary school and the 'feminisation' of education they were talking about and that part of building an ID of being a boy was not just being boyish but being 'not a girl'.  It didn't mention part of being a girl was about being 'not a boy' so I don't know if vice versa is seen the same way. It was more about what personas boys take on to 'allow' themselves to strive at school.  eg decide that it was 'ok' to excel at certain subject which were seen as more male. 

If we want a less patriarchal society then we pretty much need to start with babies. 

The other oft cited study/set of studies was about putting grown ups with a baby dressed in either a blue romper suit or a pink romper suit and seeing how differently they treated them.  You can guess the outcome I'm sure.


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## StoneRoad (Mar 4, 2013)

Most of the stuff bought for my neice was non-gender specific stuff and now her nipperette will get the same (the most recent was a load of timber blocks - and not all cubes !)

Generally, I detest the girly / pink thing.....
At the Cumbrian Steam Gathering last year there was a little grey fergie tractor that had been painted pink.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60884630@N06/7686876216/in/set-72157630844224596
It stuck out a bit!


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## Greebo (Mar 4, 2013)

Sue said:


> <snip>I absolutely refuse to do all that gender-specific rubbish. I know it's all around but think it's really important children don't get the message their options (of toys or whatever else) are dictated by their gender. This of course applies equally to girls and boys.
> 
> (Know it's utterly unscientific, but I'm female, started as an engineer -- still work in tech stuff -- and know quite a lot of female engineers/scientist/tech types. It's quite interesting that whenever this comes up, they all say -- which reflects my own experience -- that they were equally encouraged to play with boys and girls toys and never felt like they had to play with dolls or whatever if they'd rather be doing lego. Which I certainly did .)


With you on that - more or less the only gender specific thing my dad insisted on was that most of the time I wore a dress or a skirt.  With the oh so predictable result that I more or less live in jeans or similar now.


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## Bernie Gunther (Mar 4, 2013)

Hmm what about ... Gender-transgressing strapon Barbie?


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## Sue (Mar 4, 2013)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Hmm what about ... Gender-transgressing strapon Barbie


 
Not sure she existed back in the day. (Mind you, never actually owned a Barbie so what do I know...)


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

xenon said:


> There's really boys vs girls Lego now? How odd. My younger sister always played with the same stuff I had. But chewed the trees.   We played a few of the same computer games but somewhat stereotypically I suppose, I played more of the shooting and hitting people variety.
> 
> Not being around kids much, I'd nyevely assumed that along with the traditional gender orientated dollies vs cars sorta thing, there'd be a greater proportion of nutral options. At least with toys and games.


 
With 3 seconds thought I'd say the more 'neutral' ones might be more boy oriented more often.  Up thread weepiper posted a pic of a marble run. You construct towers with bridges between them then drop marbles at the top and watch them make their way down.  When I saw them I don't remember seeing pink and purple ones but the colours used in the ones I saw were in 'subtly' coded 'boys' colours, i.e. bright yellow, red, blue, green and as a 'construction' toy probably bought for boys more often.  One of my boy gidgets does have a blue and silver kitchen oven thing.  IIRC the mum said it took her ages to find one which was not pink. 

And yes, the lego starter kit for younger children with bigger pieces comes in blue, green or pink boxes.


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## nogojones (Mar 4, 2013)

You can always find some sort of unisex games clothes that are fun. We bought one niece a coppers outfit (she's 4) when her brother was due up in court for being an idiot. She kept chasing him around trying to hit him with the her truncheon


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## mentalchik (Mar 4, 2013)

My eldest had a My Little Pony one christmas...........it was all he wanted when asked (much to the chagrin of his dad's parents)..he also had a doll with a buggy for a bit........seems to have grown up ok...............i was a tomboy through and through (still am in some ways) but i still had some dolls and i like make up and whathaveyou..............

i do find all this depressing.......tiny girls having make up etc.........it's all really about money and lazy marketing but we appear to be going backwards...telling girls at an even earlier age that what's important is to look 'pretty'..................


that said i do know a family that really, really ingrain all this rigid gender difference stuff, it hasn't gone away


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## weepiper (Mar 4, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> With 3 seconds thought I'd say the more 'neutral' ones might be more boy oriented more often. Up thread weepiper posted a pic of a marble run. You construct towers with bridges between them then drop marbles at the top and watch them make their way down. When I saw them I don't remember seeing pink and purple ones but the colours used in the ones I saw were in 'subtly' coded 'boys' colours, i.e. bright yellow, red, blue, green and as a 'construction' toy probably bought for boys more often. .


 
I actually took a picture of it because I was so wtf at it


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## xenon (Mar 4, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> With 3 seconds thought I'd say the more 'neutral' ones might be more boy oriented more often.  Up thread weepiper posted a pic of a marble run. You construct towers with bridges between them then drop marbles at the top and watch them make their way down.  When I saw them I don't remember seeing pink and purple ones but the colours used in the ones I saw were in 'subtly' coded 'boys' colours, i.e. bright yellow, red, blue, green and as a 'construction' toy probably bought for boys more often.  One of my boy gidgets does have a blue and silver kitchen oven thing.  IIRC the mum said it took her ages to find one which was not pink.
> 
> And yes, the lego starter kit for younger children with bigger pieces comes in blue, green or pink boxes.



The colour thing's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Strange how that pink for girls, blue for boys is so entrenched. Is it just a western thing I wonder. Have vague recollections about pink being an auspicious non gender specific colour somewhere.


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

pink used to be for a boy.


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## Greebo (Mar 4, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> pink used to be for a boy.


Yes, it changed (I think) in the 1920s or 30s.


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## cesare (Mar 4, 2013)

My niece (7) announced last year that she and her friends HATE PINK and it's been the devil's own job to find clothes and toys for her since. "It's cerise"


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## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2013)

Yay!   She's gonna be a goth though.


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## cesare (Mar 4, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> Yay!   She's gonna be a goth though.



As long as she doesn't do emo


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## oryx (Mar 4, 2013)

http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/


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## stuff_it (Mar 4, 2013)

weltweit said:


> Some parents try not to have toy guns in the house to prevent their boys from playing with them.
> Don't think you can keep a small boy from a shooting em up game though.


Well quite.


Spoiler


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## weepiper (Mar 4, 2013)

cesare said:


> My niece (7) announced last year that she and her friends HATE PINK and it's been the devil's own job to find clothes and toys for her since. "It's cerise"


 
my 9 year old went through wanting everything in pink and sparkly when she was smaller and is now coming out of the other side (thank fuck) - she recently complained that 'girl's pyjamas are all pink and purple with kittens and stuff on, why can't they be black with cool stuff like skulls on?'. She is deffo going to be a goth.


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## xenon (Mar 4, 2013)

mentalchik said:


> My eldest had a My Little Pony one christmas...........it was all he wanted when asked (much to the chagrin of his dad's parents)..he also had a doll with a buggy for a bit........seems to have grown up ok...............i was a tomboy through and through (still am in some ways) but i still had some dolls and i like make up and whathaveyou..............
> 
> i do find all this depressing.......tiny girls having make up etc.........it's all really about money and lazy marketing but we appear to be going backwards...telling girls at an even earlier age that what's important is to look 'pretty'..................
> 
> ...



Left to their own devices I think most kids will play with most things that don't have overt gender connertations. Until such things are embodied with gender specific connertations or a fuss is made I suppose. I've just recalled I used to play with my sister's Annacot kitchen thing a bit, fascinated by the miniturisation of bits. It wasn't pink though IIRC and I think had it have been, that explicit notice that it was a "girls" thing would have made me much more rettisent.


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## clicker (Mar 4, 2013)

I had hoped we were moving on, what with men no longer afraid of wearing pink....don't remember the pink thing when i was little, red was my favourite colour, either pink wasn't as prevalent or i wasn't indulged.But it was the hippy summers of love time and flower power being all around, the more colours you could wear the better and none had to match. my tank top was three shades of hideousness no doubt, but none of them pink.

But it's not just the clothes and toys nowadays, the bedroom stuff for girls is just a pink/purple pile of fluff and feather. maybe more opposite sex  kids shared rooms when we grew up, so the differentiation wasn't as marked.


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## cesare (Mar 4, 2013)

weepiper said:


> my 9 year old went through wanting everything in pink and sparkly when she was smaller and is now coming out of the other side (thank fuck) - she recently complained that 'girl's pyjamas are all pink and purple with kittens and stuff on, why can't they be black with cool stuff like skulls on?'. She is deffo going to be a goth.



Small girls' revolution  The kids are kicking back.


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## nogojones (Mar 4, 2013)

weepiper said:


> I actually took a picture of it because I was so wtf at it
> 
> View attachment 29769


 
rattling marbles for hours on end when you're trying to have an afternoon nap.

is it wrong of me, but for some parents I always make sure the kid/s get noisy presents


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## stuff_it (Mar 4, 2013)

I definitely don't remember it being this bad when I was a nipper - all my legos were primary colours, my marble run too, I don't remember any serious pink clothing on everyone female, my e-z-bake oven was olive green enamel, and I don't remember being made to feel odd about wanting 'boys toys' like scalextrix or mechano either. Certainly when I wanted sciency toys like that or a 1000-in-1 electronics kit people didn't ever remark on me being a tomboy because of it, just being a bit of a nerd. I learned not to put transformers in the barbie spa pool (rust) and that barbie herself could have an epic battle with my plastic dinosaurs. Pink was just one of the colours I could choose to wear from a wide range, not the epic pink-fest that you see today. 

And of course I had toy guns, and never grew up to be a violent criminal. I certianly had a few girly things (like barbies) that I am sure boys wouldn't have gone near but that was a small part of my collection. 

I definitely see that near enough everything from fisher-price age on up now comes in 'boys' and 'girls' versions. It's a real mess. One day I'd like to make a full on mech suit like you see in manga. One of the things it's not going to be is pink.


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## Balham (Mar 5, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> pink used to be for a boy.


I hadherd that, the story being it was like red or something so more masculine, manly and all that. Blue was more closely associated with the Virgin Mary, therefore the girls colour.There's some stuff about pink here.

Would draw the line at a Pink Taxi though - for either sex.


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## quimcunx (Mar 5, 2013)

Can someone remove their massive thumb from the previous page.  It made my internets come over all unnecessary.


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## stuff_it (Mar 5, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> Can someone remove their massive thumb from the previous page. It made my internets come over all unnecessary.


Spoilere'd for your internet freshness.


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## quimcunx (Mar 5, 2013)

I had two older brothers and not a huge number of toys, certainly not by today's standards.  I did have a couple of pippas (like small barbies) and dad made a dolls house for them, or maybe they were my sister's, and there was an action woman which we fought over.  I have a vague recollection of a baby that you could feed, or it cried and opened and shut its eyes.  and there was a shop till and an oven that had a light in it.  hmm other than that I had what was left of my brothers' lego and other toys, and mum's useful tins to rake through.  And I guess not particularly gendered toys.  I was more into books I think. 

(((me)))


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

@everydaysexism has a lot of tweets on this. They have initiated some successful Twitter storms (they're why WHSmiths and the supermarkets recently stopped splitting magazines by gender). @Sue because I fucking love the fact that she complained. If shops don't know why we don't shop there, they cannot change things for the better.

I had a twin brother and we were the eldest (actually, _I_ was the eldest; a very important fact for the firstborn twin ). I resolutely refused to play with dolls (apart from one that was nearly as big as me and had a mechanism to make her 'walk' if pushed correctly). I hated pink and refused to wear dresses (still do). Fundamentally, I'm not very 'girly', but I know that I was also convinced as a child that boys had it better than girls and I have no idea how much of my non-girlyness is 'me' and how much of it is that conditioning. I'm not gender-dysphoric, but I was well into my twenties before I really came to terms with being female. Which is a bit shit. Thanks dad. 



mojo pixy said:


> I had to check myself for real when my little boy had some minor surgery. He was 2 months old and he was very brave, all the theatre staff were impressed by how calm he was and he just fell asleep till they were done. I was very proud and afterwards was cuddling him and calling him a Big Brave Boy and .. I hesitated .. would I have said Big Brave Girl if he was a girl? I decided I would have, but it was a little wake up call in gender conditioning. Reminded me to be careful.


I think that's OK as long as you don't reserve that phrase for boys. I was called a big brave girl all the time (I pretty much didn't know how to cry as a child, it used to worry me quite a lot. I can be reduced to floods of tears easily as an adult. ).



quimcunx said:


> My impression is that it's less of an issue to get 'boyish' toys for girls than vice versa. I did buy the wizard and the princess book for a boy. I suspect a lot of the time people don't think to buy books for boys with female heroes.


My partner started a sentence with "the heroine of my crime drama ..." the other day. This is one of the things I love about him. Completely secure in his masculinity. 



xenon said:


> The colour thing's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Strange how that pink for girls, blue for boys is so entrenched. Is it just a western thing I wonder. Have vague recollections about pink being an auspicious non gender specific colour somewhere.


Used to be gender neutral white when bleach was the way to get clothes clean. Different colours came along for marketing reasons (originally pink for boys, blue for girls) - if boys and girls have different clothes and different toys, hand-me-downs are less useful and people buy more unnecessary shit.

When did girls start wearing pink?

(See also: When did men stop wearing high heels?)


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## Spark (Mar 5, 2013)

This is something I've been aware of but I hadn't realised write how prevalent it was until recently when pregnant with small spark.  Most baby clothes,  even for tiny newborns,  are rigidly split into boys and girls,  primarily in insipid pink and blue with small amounts of pale yellow and white as a token gesture towards neutral,  which we wanted to avoid a way. 

One of the standard questions I was asked was whether we knew if he was a boy or girl,  often followed by comments about it being useful to know so you could buy appropriate clothes (and decorate the nursery) . When I pointed out that he would just be a tiny baby who really wouldn't care what colour he was wearing most people saw my point,  but it did seem that it genuinely hadn't occurred to them that baby boys and girls are essentially identical and don't need gender specific clothes. 

We managed to find some nice bright bits and pieces.  While in hospital he was wearing an orange and red striped babygro.  The consultant actually asked us if he was a boy or girl as he couldn't tell from what he was wearing as he was so used to the ubiquitous pink and blue.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

I bought my baby nieces cool baby jeans and jackets rather than pink stuff. The two youngest are now very much into pink and princess outfits, the eldest is much more like me and prefers practical rough and tumble clothing.

[Irrelevant aside, but I see myself in her in so many ways. She's a lovely child so I was hesitant to mention this to my sister because I was a horrible one, but my sister's response was "Yep, I've noticed that too! It makes it so much easier to understand her and be a better parent for her!" Fair brought a tear to my eye. Mind-bending genetics though - my sister is nothing like me.]

My brother and sister both sprogged in unison twice, so it's a bit like having two sets of twins in the family and I buy their presents accordingly (shop assistants sometimes ask me if I'm buying for twins!). So it's always gender neutral gifts, although I did make concessions on the pink and blue cameras because there were no alternative colours and I didn't want to upset the older girl by buying her blue when the other girls got pink. I still don't know if that was the right decision; I liked being mistaken for a boy when I was very young, but it really upset me later on, so I erred on the side of pink. Fucking minefield when they don't offer anything else, I'd much rather have bought four different colours so they all knew whose was whose.


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## Greebo (Mar 5, 2013)

weepiper said:


> <snip>View attachment 29769


I think I'm going to be sick.

Although two of my youngest nieces share a very pink bedroom with their half sister, that's as far as the pink goes.  Being the redder side of auburn has its advantages, and one of them is far less social pressure on their mum to let them wear pink from head to toe.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

People on Twitter, please do tweet this stuff to @everydaysexism or with #everydaysexism. They have a lot of angry and piss-taking tweets about gendered stuff (for adults as well as children). Nothing will change unless we make it change, and this is one of the things that Twitter is amazing for. I'm not sure how long the gendered magazine section storm went on for, but it was a matter of weeks before the big players were apologising and changing their store displays (and giving timescales for doing it to shut us up).

Piss-taking works as well as anger. It's all good. Retweeting is good (especially if it's addressed to the company's twitter account), but original tweets are also important to keep the momentum (always copy in the company twitter account; they're run by PR people).


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## Mrs Magpie (Mar 5, 2013)

About a year ago I couldn't find 'New Scientist' in a large WH Smiths on a main line train station. It was in 'Mens Interest'. Having had kids born in the seventies and eighties I can tell you it's a whole lot worse now than it ever was. Certainly when I was a child toy shops did not have this level of gender separation.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

Mrs Magpie said:


> About a year ago I couldn't find 'New Scientist' in a large WH Smiths on a main line train station. It was in 'Mens Interest'. Having had kids born in the seventies and eighties I can tell you it's a whole lot worse now than it ever was. Certainly when I was a child toy shops did not have this level of gender separation.


Yep! The main theme of the gendered magazine tweets was New Scientist, The Economist, National Geographic etc all being in the men's section, with accompanying photographs. The women's section was all baby stuff, knitting and glamour mags.


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## dylanredefined (Mar 5, 2013)

weltweit said:


> Some parents try not to have toy guns in the house to prevent their boys from playing with them.
> Don't think you can keep a small boy from a shooting em up game though.


 
 My mum did that I stated that as one of the reasons why I joined the Army. She didn't see the funny side


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

We had toy guns, but frankly you don't need a toy gun to play at gun-fighting. There are many household objects which sit comfortably in the palm, and many more than can be taped together to make a reasonable facsimile.

It's not a boy thing. It's a human thing. Sadly.


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## Thimble Queen (Mar 5, 2013)

ymu said:


> Yep! The main theme of the gendered magazine tweets was New Scientist, The Economist, National Geographic etc all being in the men's section, with accompanying photographs. The women's section was all baby stuff, knitting and glamour mags.



That makes me feel quite cross. Good that its stopping in smiths at least.


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## Mrs Magpie (Mar 5, 2013)

MrsDarlingsKiss said:


> That makes me feel quite cross. Good that its stopping in smiths at least.


I have a friend who works in WH Smiths (a science undergrad). She said none of that should be in the 'Mens Interests' shelf but the staff are so conditioned that that's where they think they belong.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

MrsDarlingsKiss said:


> That makes me feel quite cross. Good that its stopping in smiths at least.


And all the major supermarkets. They were all targeted and (IIRC) they all caved. Asda tweeted photos of their new display to prove it was happening.


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## fakeplasticgirl (Mar 5, 2013)

Mrs Magpie said:


> About a year ago I couldn't find 'New Scientist' in a large WH Smiths on a main line train station. It was in 'Mens Interest'. Having had kids born in the seventies and eighties I can tell you it's a whole lot worse now than it ever was. Certainly when I was a child toy shops did not have this level of gender separation.


*vomit*


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## _angel_ (Mar 5, 2013)

ymu said:


> @everydaysexism has a lot of tweets on this. They have initiated some successful Twitter storms (they're why WHSmiths and the supermarkets recently stopped splitting magazines by gender). @Sue because I fucking love the fact that she complained. If shops don't know why we don't shop there, they cannot change things for the better.
> 
> I had a twin brother and we were the eldest (actually, _I_ was the eldest; a very important fact for the firstborn twin ). I resolutely refused to play with dolls (apart from one that was nearly as big as me and had a mechanism to make her 'walk' if pushed correctly). I hated pink and refused to wear dresses (still do). Fundamentally, I'm not very 'girly', but I know that I was also convinced as a child that boys had it better than girls and I have no idea how much of my non-girlyness is 'me' and how much of it is that conditioning. I'm not gender-dysphoric, but I was well into my twenties before I really came to terms with being female. Which is a bit shit. Thanks dad.
> 
> ...


You still get white clothes for little babies.

I know the new colourings in toys is a bit mad - what if you have a girl and a boy and want to share something?

However if I had a girl I suspect she'd end up with tons and tons of clothes now even more than the lads. I was brought up wearing horrible brown flares in the seventies and now wear nowt but dresses.


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## Thora (Mar 5, 2013)

_angel_ said:


> However if I had a girl I suspect she'd end up with tons and tons of clothes now even more than the lads. I was brought up wearing horrible brown flares in the seventies and now wear nowt but dresses.


I find it quite hard to get bright/colourful clothes for boys - all the high street shops seem to have loads of lovely girls stuff and then two racks of green/brown/blue boys stuff.  Even H&M which I think used to be quite good for bright unisex stuff a few years ago seems to be reduced to brown cords and navy jumpers for children out of baby grows.  I end up buying lots of second hand Boden etc because it's only expensive places that do interesting boys clothes.  And shoes!  Clarks have nothing that isn't in navy or brown, the only snow boots I could find him are brown/navy/greem camo.  Dull.


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## RubyToogood (Mar 5, 2013)

Thora said:


> I find it quite hard to get bright/colourful clothes for boys - all the high street shops seem to have loads of lovely girls stuff and then two racks of green/brown/blue boys stuff. Even H&M which I think used to be quite good for bright unisex stuff a few years ago seems to be reduced to brown cords and navy jumpers for children out of baby grows. I end up buying lots of second hand Boden etc because it's only expensive places that do interesting boys clothes. And shoes! Clarks have nothing that isn't in navy or brown, the only snow boots I could find him are brown/navy/greem camo. Dull.


I get so sick of seeing little boys in miniature jeans and rugby shirts!


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## _angel_ (Mar 5, 2013)

Thora said:


> I find it quite hard to get bright/colourful clothes for boys - all the high street shops seem to have loads of lovely girls stuff and then two racks of green/brown/blue boys stuff. Even H&M which I think used to be quite good for bright unisex stuff a few years ago seems to be reduced to brown cords and navy jumpers for children out of baby grows. I end up buying lots of second hand Boden etc because it's only expensive places that do interesting boys clothes. And shoes! Clarks have nothing that isn't in navy or brown, the only snow boots I could find him are brown/navy/greem camo. Dull.


Yeah I had to work quite hard getting James anything but I did find it that's back in 1997 though!
Adams used to have nice things for boys. But are they still going?


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## wayward bob (Mar 5, 2013)

it's _all_ just to make us buy more, so we can't possibly hand stuff down from girl to boy or vice versa. the vast majority of clothes/toys i bought for the first 4 years were neutral or "boys" colours/styles, until kid2 came along. after which i can't say it bothered me overmuch.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

If there's any wannabe shopkeepers/ebay sellers on this thread, "not pink, not blue" would be a fucking brilliant theme for kid's clothes and toys. 

I'm sure there's a cool name for it in there somewhere too.


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## killer b (Mar 5, 2013)

ymu said:


> If there's any wannabe shopkeepers/ebay sellers on this thread, "not pink, not blue" would be a fucking brilliant theme for kid's clothes and toys.


you sure about that? it's a niche market right now... i doubt anyone could get rich on it.


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## mentalchik (Mar 5, 2013)

Thora said:


> I find it quite hard to get bright/colourful clothes for boys - all the high street shops seem to have loads of lovely girls stuff and then two racks of green/brown/blue boys stuff. *Even H&M which I think used to be quite good for bright unisex stuff a few years ago* seems to be reduced to brown cords and navy jumpers for children out of baby grows. I end up buying lots of second hand Boden etc because it's only expensive places that do interesting boys clothes. And shoes! Clarks have nothing that isn't in navy or brown, the only snow boots I could find him are brown/navy/greem camo. Dull.


 
Yes, my eldest was born in 1984 and i loved Hennes (as it was called then)...........would make special trips to the nearest branch (Milton Keynes) and my son had loads of very brightly coloured clothes.......in those days it wasn't so much pink and blue though.............even got my then MiL (who is a fab knitter) to make him loads of jumpers and cardis in bright colours (i would buy the wool)........i didn't have any girls so the pink issue never came up !


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## wayward bob (Mar 5, 2013)

i worked in a mate's baby shop for a while, it was a hippy-type slings and cloth nappies place and most (all?) of the clothing was organic ranges. we did okay for gender neutral baby stuff but toddlers up was still very much delineated and yes, gendered stuff aways sold better.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

killer b said:


> you sure about that? it's a niche market right now... i doubt anyone could get rich on it.


Who needs to get rich? Making a living would be quite a nice thing. For some of us, anyway.


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## Spark (Mar 5, 2013)

A lot of the nice gender neutral stuff is pretty pricey anyway.  It seems that there's a premium some are willing to pay.


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## killer b (Mar 5, 2013)

Not even sure how feasible making a living is atm tbh. There used to be a few indie kids clothes shops round here with an interesting range of kids clothes, all closed in the last couple of years.


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## EastEnder (Mar 5, 2013)

It is *way* more fun buying toys for little boys than for little girls. I've bought my nephew a toddler sized motorbike (with realistic vroom-vroom sounds), a construction crane set with working pulleys and extendable jib, a my-first-scaletrix set, a chainsaw with revolving rubber blade & authentic chainsawey type noises... Girls toys are complete wank by comparison. Usually involve stuff like dressing up, pretending to be a princess, pretending to cook stuff in a plastic oven...

Fortunately I've got 3 nephews & 1 niece, so can buy decent fun stuff at least 75% of the time.


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## Sue (Mar 5, 2013)

EastEnder said:


> It is *way* more fun buying toys for little boys than for little girls. I've bought my nephew a toddler sized motorbike (with realistic vroom-vroom sounds), a construction crane set with working pulleys and extendable jib, a my-first-scaletrix set, a chainsaw with revolving rubber blade & authentic chainsawey type noises... Girls toys are complete wank by comparison. Usually involve stuff like dressing up, pretending to be a princess, pretending to cook stuff in a plastic oven...
> 
> Fortunately I've got 3 nephews & 1 niece, so can buy decent fun stuff at least 75% of the time.


 
Of course you *could* just buy interesting toys rather than ones based on gender...


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## Ms Ordinary (Mar 5, 2013)

EastEnder said:


> It is *way* more fun buying toys for little boys than for little girls. I've bought my nephew a toddler sized motorbike (with realistic vroom-vroom sounds), a construction crane set with working pulleys and extendable jib, a my-first-scaletrix set, a chainsaw with revolving rubber blade & authentic chainsawey type noises... Girls toys are complete wank by comparison. Usually involve stuff like dressing up, pretending to be a princess, pretending to cook stuff in a plastic oven...
> 
> Fortunately I've got 3 nephews & 1 niece, so can buy decent fun stuff at least 75% of the time.


 
20 mins of silence while people try & work out if that was a joke or not 
Loads of toddler girls would love a motorbike,a construction set & toy chainsaw...


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## Sue (Mar 5, 2013)

Ms Ordinary said:


> 20 mins of silence while people try & work out if that was a joke or not
> Loads of toddler girls would love a motorbike,a construction set & toy chainsaw...


 
Let's hope it was...


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## Fozzie Bear (Mar 5, 2013)

There's a problem with the colour pink but actually it's what goes with it that gets my goat.

A few years ago we went to buy my daughter a bike. Obviously all the girls bikes were pink  but the bigger problem was that they were more delicate than the boys ones - tassels off the handlebars and a fucking SHOPPING BASKET too.

Ditto clothes - if you dress your girls up as fairies in pink then there is an implicit idea that they will not be getting muddy or climbing trees.

My daughter is fine wearing "boys" clothes in the main. And has a proper black bike. 

On the plus side I think Hamley's recently stopped having gender specific floors.

Pink Stinks veers towards smugness but they do good stuff too: http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

killer b said:


> Not even sure how feasible making a living is atm tbh. There used to be a few indie kids clothes shops round here with an interesting range of kids clothes, all closed in the last couple of years.


It's really fucking difficult to make a living. Which is why lots of people have several jobs on the go. It's a way for internet-based sellers to come up on searches which return fewer hits, and a way to get free social media exposure because there are lots of people who will love it, if you know how to find them.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

EastEnder said:


> It is *way* more fun buying toys for little boys than for little girls. I've bought my nephew a toddler sized motorbike (with realistic vroom-vroom sounds), a construction crane set with working pulleys and extendable jib, a my-first-scaletrix set, a chainsaw with revolving rubber blade & authentic chainsawey type noises... Girls toys are complete wank by comparison. Usually involve stuff like dressing up, pretending to be a princess, pretending to cook stuff in a plastic oven...
> 
> Fortunately I've got 3 nephews & 1 niece, so can buy decent fun stuff at least 75% of the time.


All my nieces have received remote controlled-vehicles from me. What the fuck are you on about? Or were you under the impression that these categories are real?


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Pink Stinks veers towards smugness but they do good stuff too: http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/


They prospectively stole my idea.


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## Plumdaff (Mar 5, 2013)

Why can't your niece have some of the fun toys? Even my very girly niece loves drawing, science, and lego. All have very cool toys involved (and I wouldn't dream of buying her bloody pink versions of them, even though her mum is very into encouraging the whole pink Disney princess stuff).

I do worry for my little one. I don't even object to pink in moderation, I'll happily dress her occassionally in something fuchsia, or electric pink and cool - it's just often the only choice is constant insipid pastel pink with glitter and princess/fairy bollocks - just a depressingly narrow and passive definition of what a girl is. We have managed to assemble a colourful wardrobe using lots of second hand and posh places sale buying. It's doable but much harder, and I expect when she starts nursery and school she'll look at her peers and want some pink and purple too (I think a lot of the reason this stuff sells is a feedback loop  - you can't constantly say no to a growing person's preferences).


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## wayward bob (Mar 5, 2013)

killer b said:


> Not even sure how feasible making a living is atm tbh. There used to be a few indie kids clothes shops round here with an interesting range of kids clothes, all closed in the last couple of years.


 
yup, my mate had to quit, which is a real shame because we weren't "just" another clothes shop, we did all kinds of informal support/advice for new/expectant parents who often found themselves quite isolated.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

Gender identity is very important to young children. The difficult trick is to make sure it has no permanency when surrounded by marketing shite designed with the help of traitorous child psychologists.


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## Ms Ordinary (Mar 5, 2013)

ymu said:


> *Gender identity is very important to young children*. The difficult trick is to make sure it has no permanency when surrounded by marketing shite designed with the help of traitorous child psychologists.


 
Absolutely - there's an age (around 4/5/6-ish?) when it can be *really* important to them. And a pink bicycle with purple glitter streamers might be the best thing ever and heaven help the small boy who 'borrows' it and then hurtles it downhill and crashes it into a muddy puddle *.
But equally important to let it pass in due course.

*Actually happened - at least said small boy was secure enough in his gender identity to ride a pink bicycle .


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## EastEnder (Mar 5, 2013)

ymu said:


> All my nieces have received remote controlled-vehicles from me. What the fuck are you on about? Or were you under the impression that these categories are real?


Oh I try my best, I bought my niece a kiddies video camera amongst other things. But it's much harder to find cool girls presents than boys ones. And yes, yes, I know you're all wonderfully right-on and trendy, and there's _no such thing_ as a "girls present" but you've clearly never met my sister-in-law. She would not appreciate me buying her daughter a chainsaw. She _likes_ to see her little princess dress up as a little princess.

And I'd like to see the look on my sister's face if I bought her little boy a Barbie doll.... "Well, erm, you see there's these people on the internet who said I should ignore gender bias in toys....".


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## Sue (Mar 5, 2013)

EastEnder said:


> Oh I try my best, I bought my niece a kiddies video camera amongst other things. But it's much harder to find cool girls presents than boys ones. And yes, yes, I know you're all wonderfully right-on and trendy, and there's _no such thing_ as a "girls present" but you've clearly never met my sister-in-law. She would not appreciate me buying her daughter a chainsaw. She _likes_ to see her little princess dress up as a little princess.
> 
> And I'd like to see the look on my sister's face if I bought her little boy a Barbie doll.... "Well, erm, you see there's these people on the internet who said I should ignore gender bias in toys....".


 
Not about 'right on and trendy'. (My parents were about as far from right on and trendy as it's possible to be but still had no truck with all that gender-based crap). You could be the cool aunt/uncle who gives your neice a bit of a wider view than bloody pink and girly and sparkly princess shit. (Non-pink) lego? Meccano? Why not?!


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

I think it is actually cruel to give boys 'girls' toys outside of a safe context (I totally approve of giving them the kinds of things girls are expected to play with, just not stuff explicitly marketed for girls).

From a girls perspective (IME, as I am only one girl), they are second best and getting boys stuff is a treat and proves that they are strong, independent future women, unlike all those third best girls who don't get to do any boy stuff.

For boys, they are better than girls and there is no humiliation worse than being compared to a girl.

Growing up to be confident in their gender identity (ie not acting out annoying stereotypes to 'prove' they're a real man/woman) means being allowed to get to grips with it in the first place. That doesn't have to includes being told that they are better/worse than girls/boys.

My brother is a horrible insecure prick who puts his wife down at every possible opportunity and pulls this ridiculous stern father act on his very young and very sensitive son when he's doing absolutely nothing wrong. We had a sexist father (product of a tyrannical father and imprisoned mother) and his two sisters went to university when he failed his A Levels (which no one cares about but him, we all knew he'd suffocate if he tried to do more studying, and he earns more than the rest of us put together so he's not exactly a failure). He's rich, but he has lost all the pleasures of life to terminal insecurity, and he'll lose his amazingly lovely wife if he's not careful (or he'll abandon her for a slimmer model now that the baby weight is there. )


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## mentalchik (Mar 5, 2013)

EastEnder said:


> Oh I try my best, I bought my niece a kiddies video camera amongst other things. But it's much harder to find cool girls presents than boys ones. And yes, yes, I know you're all wonderfully right-on and trendy, and there's _no such thing_ as a "girls present" but you've clearly never met my sister-in-law. She would not appreciate me buying her daughter a chainsaw. She _likes_ to see her little princess dress up as a little princess.
> 
> And I'd like to see the look on my sister's face if I bought her little boy a Barbie doll.... "Well, erm, you see there's these people on the internet who said I should ignore gender bias in toys....".


 
see i those type of situations i would go for books..................


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## Thora (Mar 5, 2013)

Ms Ordinary said:


> 20 mins of silence while people try & work out if that was a joke or not
> Loads of toddler girls would love a motorbike,a construction set & toy chainsaw...


Except you'd have to get a pink motorbike, construction set and chain saw


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

For fuck's sake.

I will be stealing some of these pics and tweeting them. Apologies in advance for plagiarism. PM me with a via request if you want acknowledgement.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 5, 2013)

weltweit said:


> Some parents try not to have toy guns in the house to prevent their boys from playing with them.
> Don't think you can keep a small boy from a shooting em up game though.


 
Or a small girl. Or an older girl, say.... 34 years old.

*boots up a shooter on her pc*


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## 8ball (Mar 5, 2013)

This is pretty crap - I have nephews and no nieces, so get to buy cooler presents, but a friend of mine had a little girl recently and I found Mothercare good for non-pink non-uber-girly clothes as presents and the nipper really likes them (especially the winter skiing-type hat with the dinosaur head).  There was definite girl/boy stuff too but it wasn't in demarcated sections.


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## Thora (Mar 5, 2013)

mentalchik said:


> Yes, my eldest was born in 1984 and i loved Hennes (as it was called then)...........would make special trips to the nearest branch (Milton Keynes) and my son had loads of very brightly coloured clothes.......in those days it wasn't so much pink and blue though.............even got my then MiL (who is a fab knitter) to make him loads of jumpers and cardis in bright colours (i would buy the wool)........i didn't have any girls so the pink issue never came up !


I was born in 1984 too and I just don't think the boy/girl blue/pink thing was so prevalent.

Toy garage in 1986:





Toy garage in 2012:


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## 8ball (Mar 5, 2013)

A pink _garage_?


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## Spark (Mar 5, 2013)

I've been wondering how much of this stuff is marketing - have 2 versions of everything in order to sell twice as much - and how much is part of a backlash against greater gender equality.  It seems the more concrete restrictions on what men and women can do are removed the more restrictive gender identities seem to be imposed via convention and social norms.


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## Thora (Mar 5, 2013)

8ball said:


> A pink _garage_?


Of course, because girls can't play with blue/red/green/yellow garages.  This is the "boys" version:


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## 8ball (Mar 5, 2013)

Thora said:


> Of course, because girls can't play with blue/red/green/yellow garages. This is the "boys" version:


 
Just seems to me like whoever decides to make a pink garage hasn't quite understood the message of the gender-stereotyping committee.


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## aqua (Mar 5, 2013)

pickle got a cash register from elc for xmas, why do you need gender specific coloured cash registers ffs? 

e2a pics:






 or 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




also e2a she go the blue one, given it has a) more colours to it and b) like FUCK is she having a pink one


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## Thora (Mar 5, 2013)

8ball said:


> Just seems to me like whoever decides to make a pink garage hasn't quite understood the message of the gender-stereotyping committee.


Do a pink version of everything = sell twice as much.  Same as blue versions of play kitchens, shopping trolleys, toy prams, vacuum cleaners.


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## Thora (Mar 5, 2013)

aqua said:


> pickle got a cash register from elc for xmas, why do you need gender specific coloured cash registers ffs?
> 
> e2a pics:
> 
> ...


They do pink and blue versions of a TOASTER - apparently anything can be made gender specific.


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## 8ball (Mar 5, 2013)

Thora said:


> Do a pink version of everything = sell twice as much. Same as blue versions of play kitchens, shopping trolleys, toy prams, vacuum cleaners.


 
Well, not twice as mich but it certainly dissipates the 'hand me down' market.  Though it seems to me that if the choice of toys converges it seems after a while pink could just become another colour rather than a marker of anything significant.


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## 8ball (Mar 5, 2013)

Thora said:


> They do pink and blue versions of a TOASTER - apparently anything can be made gender specific.


 
Razors, even.


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## ymu (Mar 5, 2013)

And Bic pens. For women.

Some excellent reviews of them on Amazon somewhere.


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## 8ball (Mar 5, 2013)

ymu said:


> And Bic pens. For women.
> 
> Some excellent reviews of them on Amazon somewhere.


 
Yeah, saw those reviews.


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## Spark (Mar 5, 2013)

Biros too
http://www.amazon.co.uk/BIC-For-Her-Medium-Ballpoint/dp/B004FTGJUW


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## Garek (Mar 5, 2013)

I wish I could find but I remember seeing a chart from I think the 20's which was how American departments stores gendered there children's products. It was when the lines were still fuzzy. Some did pink for boys blue for girls and some the other way round. It was an interesting chart.


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## Spark (Mar 5, 2013)

We have photos of my grandpa as a baby from around 1905. He's indistinguishable from his sister as they're both in very frilly bonnets and smocks which appear to be white.


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## Cloo (Mar 6, 2013)

Gosh, how did I miss this - it's a bugbear of mine.

On one level, I sometimes think 'Oh, it doesn't really matter that much', but on another one, I think we have seen increased 'pinkification' for girls because it suits advertisers and manufacturers, and this pinkification is the 'entry drug' to the world of gender roles that are pressed on both men and women throughout their lives. We have tried not to buy our daughter 'girl versions' of stuff that exists in a more neutral form, and where our daughter has been given pinky toys, we're not going to get our son a more 'macho' versions of the same thing until such a time, and it will come, that he complains about it. I've also generally avoided super pinky clothes and accessories, and left it to other people to buy them if they want - I don't mind her having them but I just didn't want her getting to the point where she believes that somehow pink is all that she is permitted to have because she is a girl. I expect she's old enough to have moved past that point now, but I want to basically keep things so that she knows her options do not have to be limited by her gender.

I'm a bit nervous about this Friday, as I'm planning to buy her trainers and this is the first time we'll have gone shopping like this since she could read - so if I try to get her boy trainers, which would be my preference, she will know and she will probably complain and I might have to end up getting bloody pink because that is definitely girl trainers. She has got the idea from somewhere that blue is for boys and pink for girls, and although we've tried to disabuse her of this notion, she still brings it up now and then - it's a bit scary how pervasive it is, and it started from before school.

I suppose the gender stratifying thing ultimately bothers me because it's a ruse that serves the purposes of advertisers and sellers and reinforces rigid ideas of gender from the word go, when young children are very vulnerable to these messages. So somewhere along the lines messages like 'Little girls are all princesses' becomes 'If I get too into sports I'll be seen as a bit butch' or 'I'm rubbish at maths and science and it's just for geeks anyway' etc.


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## weepiper (Mar 6, 2013)

Spark said:


> We have photos of my grandpa as a baby from around 1905. He's indistinguishable from his sister as they're both in very frilly bonnets and smocks which appear to be white.


I've got one of my grandpa in 1909 in very frilly lacy jacket and shorts with hair below his shoulders.


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## weepiper (Mar 6, 2013)

Cloo the shoes thing drives me mad. 'boys' shoes have rubber toe bumpers and practical materials. 'girls' shoes are white/pink/sparkly and will be ruined the first time the child gets them muddy or climbs a tree and scuffs them.


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## Ms Ordinary (Mar 6, 2013)

Cloo said:


> I'm a bit nervous about this Friday, as I'm planning to buy her trainers and this is the first time we'll have gone shopping like this since she could read - so if I try to get her boy trainers, which would be my preference, she will know and she will probably complain and I might have to end up getting bloody pink because that is definitely girl trainers.


 
The annoying thing is, you probably don't really want to get her 'boy trainers' any more than she wants them - you just want neutral ones. Though I know exactly what you mean - the 'boy' ones are more likely to be 'neutral' than the girl ones. Actually as an adult, I always end up buying men's trainers not women's ones not just because I have big feet but also I'd rather have grey & silver ones than grey & pink/pastel green ones.


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## Ms Ordinary (Mar 6, 2013)

weepiper said:


> Cloo the shoes thing drives me mad. 'boys' shoes have rubber toe bumpers and practical materials. 'girls' shoes are white/pink/sparkly and will be ruined the first time the child gets them muddy or climbs a tree and scuffs them.


 
Little girls coats are usually crap as well - no warmth or proper pockets, unless they come from an outdoor shop. Which would be not so bad if the boy's coats were plainish & acceptable to a girl but they mostly aren't.


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## bi0boy (Mar 6, 2013)

Meanwhile in Sweden:


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## Cloo (Mar 6, 2013)

Ms Ordinary said:


> The annoying thing is, you probably don't really want to get her 'boy trainers' any more than she wants them - you just want neutral ones. .


Exactly.


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## quimcunx (Mar 6, 2013)

Ms Ordinary said:


> The annoying thing is, you probably don't really want to get her 'boy trainers' any more than she wants them - you just want neutral ones. Though I know exactly what you mean - the 'boy' ones are more likely to be 'neutral' than the girl ones. Actually as an adult, I always end up buying men's trainers not women's ones not just because I have big feet but also I'd rather have grey & silver ones than grey & pink/pastel green ones.


 
What gets me is you don't _need _to have a section labelled 'BOYS TRAINERS, TRAINERS FOR BOYS, BOYS THIS WAY, BOYS ONLY, GIRLS NOT ALLOWED!!!'   Have exactly the same selection of trainers/toys/clothes on display and the parents and children will mostly be already trained to go for the subtly colour coded trainers for boys or girls  and if a few don't then so what.

The problem is that it's reinforcing the message that girls must dress pretty and not mess up their pretty impractical shoes (like weeps says) and that girls, not boys, do housework because housework is pink, looking after babies is pink - and boys, far more importantly than vice versa,  really really must _*NOT*_ be girls or girly. 

As for boys stuff being more likely to be neutral, male is seen as default normal and female at a remove from that.


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## Cloo (Mar 6, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> As for boys stuff being more likely to be neutral, male is seen as default normal and female at a remove from that.


 Yes, this is another issue - women are always 'the other'.

I'll never be able to find it now, but on Twitter the other week, some feminist tweeters were showing a scan from a book mentioning some research in American midwest (I'm not sure when, but it looked not that old) asking middle school kids what they'd do/think if they woke up one morning and found they were the opposite sex. Results were pretty shocking: girls expressed mild disappointment, but then said maybe they'd try being baseball stars, scientists if they were a bloke (these evidently being out for girls); for the boys, the overwhelmingly common response was 'I'd kill myself'

Wow.

It certainly suggested that girls felt that as men, they'd have more choice, and boys felt that, as women, they might as well not even be alive.

Gendered stuff for kids does overall suggest that it's much more a man's world than a girl, that 'boy activities' are not suitable for girls, and 'girl activities' are downright demeaning for boys.


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## Greebo (Mar 6, 2013)

Ms Ordinary said:


> <snip>Actually as an adult, I always end up buying men's trainers not women's ones not just because I have big feet but also I'd rather have grey & silver ones than grey & pink/pastel green ones.


With you on that one.  Hence the silver shadows.


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## bi0boy (Mar 6, 2013)

Cloo said:


> It certainly suggested that girls felt that as men, they'd have more choice, and boys felt that, as women, they might as well not even be alive.
> 
> Gendered stuff for kids does overall suggest that it's much more a man's world than a girl, that 'boy activities' are not suitable for girls, and 'girl activities' are downright demeaning for boys.


 
Exactly, it's seen as shameful for a male to act feminine, because to seemingly willingly abandon the masculine ideal of strength and power implies that what other men use to define themselves isn't actually that valuable.


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## Ms Ordinary (Mar 6, 2013)

Cloo said:


> It certainly suggested that girls felt that as men, they'd have more choice, and boys felt that, as women, they might as well not even be alive.


 
Or that boys can't (be seen to) admit to anyone that they might be OK with being a girl in any way? & death would be preferable to this.

Still - wow indeed.


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## nogojones (Mar 6, 2013)

bi0boy said:


> Exactly, it's seen as shameful for a male to act feminine, because to seemingly willingly abandon the masculine ideal of strength and power implies that what other men use to define themselves isn't actually that valuable.


He should be ashamed for those insurance adverts


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## purenarcotic (Mar 6, 2013)

Thora said:


> Of course, because girls can't play with blue/red/green/yellow garages. This is the "boys" version:


 
But the child in that picture looks like a little girl to me.


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## spanglechick (Mar 6, 2013)

I grew up before the pink-ubiquity thing. (My lego were lego coloured) and my mum was a right on social worker, so we had toy cars and sciency stuff... and none of that bothering me. I climbed trees and built forts and hung round with boys...  BUT

But the things i did percieve as being gendered were furiously important to me.  I remember very, very clearly when I was 5 or 6, and we were making a simple hand puppet at school.  You could choose a cat or a dog, and I needed to make a cat because I've never liked dogs... but actually, the logic of that, to me, was that dogs were for bys and cats were for girls.  Anyway, there weren't enough cat shapes and the teacher made me be the person who didn't get their choice and i don't think I had an upset like it the whole time at primary school.   And it was all about gender, to me.  I was distraught, and felt humiliated because I couldn't cope with having a 'boy thing'.  Despite playing with gender neutral toys etc etc.

I think for some people, and some children, gender is very important.  I don't think it's just little boys who find things that threaten their gender identity upsetting.


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## Thora (Mar 6, 2013)

To most young children from about 5ish gender is very important, and they police themselves and each other ruthlessly.


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## quimcunx (Mar 6, 2013)

I'm not sure it would be possible to construct a society where gender ID was not important to children as they develop. 

For me dog characters were boys and cat characters were girls.  Not entirely sure where that came from.


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## nagapie (Mar 6, 2013)

My son at 3 is a terrible gender fascist. His favourite colour is red and if he wants something and it's in pink he will insist that it is not pink but red so he can justify having it.


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## Greebo (Mar 6, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> <snip>For me dog characters were boys and cat characters were girls. Not entirely sure where that came from.


Hector's house?


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## Cloo (Mar 6, 2013)

Interestingly enough, this evening my daughter (5 in June) said 'I don't want to be a girl' and I asked why, so she said 'It's so boring'.

She didn't really elaborate why. I don't read _too_ much into things like that - they're not necessarily final statements of belief with her, but it  still bespeaks of an attitude that girls and boys can't/aren't allowed to do or be certain things. I did try explaining a bit about that to her, but I think she was more interested in brushing her teeth by then!

I certainly remember finding girls a bit dull when I was a kid - I hung with boys because the girls just seemed to sit around doing one another's hair, whereas with my male friends, we got to play games where we pretended we were ninjas and came up with inventively gruesome deaths for one another. Plus girls generally played with dolls, whereas I was more interested in transforming plastic robots, especially ones with bits that lit up and made sounds.

That said, I did have some dolls, and, contrary to what boring old relatives who rarely saw me assumed, I did wear skirts, dresses and even pink.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 6, 2013)

The colour thing has definitely got much worse over the last few decades - toys were very heavily gendered when I was young, and have been for a long time, but going into toy shops and seeing what are effectively pink and blue zones is new.

Incidentally I think that while there is certainly a marketing problem with "doing" toys being boy-gendered, in terms of acceptance of "gender-bending" (in fact natural) toy preference boys come out worse. Girls with boy toys are fine and even admirable, boys with girl toys are kind of odd and may be gay or trans.


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## quimcunx (Mar 6, 2013)

Absolutely, the 'tomboy' is far more socially acceptable than the 'girly boy' IME. 

We're a long way from boys being able to wear pink dresses.  Apart from a very young boy trying on big sis's princess outfits* when playing you just don't see boys in anything girly.  Girls in trousers hasn't been considered cross dressing for a very long time.  It's much easier to let your daughter dress in boys colours and designs, some of the time anway. 


*and kilts.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 6, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> I'm not sure it would be possible to construct a society where gender ID was not important to children as they develop.
> 
> For me dog characters were boys and cat characters were girls. Not entirely sure where that came from.


 
Dogs are always the lovable, scrappy, dopey ones or the heroic, brave ones, and cats are either slinky and sophisticated or, well, catty and sly.

So yeah, it matches pretty well with other gendered stereotypes about men and women too.


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## quimcunx (Mar 6, 2013)

Also cats are smaller and more sexual and prettier.


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## weepiper (Mar 6, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> Also cats are smaller and more sexual and prettier.


 
...and fickle, and flighty. Dogs are bold and heroic.


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## quimcunx (Mar 6, 2013)

Greebo said:


> Hector's house?


 
Never seen it.


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## spanglechick (Mar 6, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> Also cats are smaller and more sexual and prettier.


The cat dog thing for me was overwhelmingly that cats are pretty and dogs are not.  Pure aesthetics.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 7, 2013)

I always used to hate Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds because, apart from the animation being shit and the story boring, all the good guys were dogs, and cats were supposed to be evil. (The "femme fatale" element hadn't really occurred to me at the time.) I didn't like Mighty Mouse either.


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## Puddy_Tat (Mar 7, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I always used to hate Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds because, apart from the animation being shit and the story boring, all the good guys were dogs, and cats were supposed to be evil. (The "femme fatale" element hadn't really occurred to me at the time.) I didn't like Mighty Mouse either.


 
 at speciesism


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## ymu (Mar 7, 2013)

Danger Mouse.


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## xenon (Mar 7, 2013)

There were no birds in Danger Mouse were there?

Just a bunch of bumbling Oxbridge educated rodants defending patriarchal impirialist interest from revolutionary foreign anarchic ampibious upstarts.


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## xenon (Mar 7, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I always used to hate Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds because, apart from the animation being shit and the story boring, all the good guys were dogs, and cats were supposed to be evil. (The "femme fatale" element hadn't really occurred to me at the time.) I didn't like Mighty Mouse either.



Cardinel Rishlou (phonetic) was evil, mail, and black.

Pip was the embodiement of the inteligent working class hero. Used, manouvered and exploited by the powerful through manipulation by anti revolutionary conservative forces.


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## 8ball (Mar 7, 2013)

xenon said:


> There were no birds in Danger Mouse were there?


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## seeformiles (Mar 12, 2013)

weepiper said:


> When I was in Toys R Us buying Christmas presents I came across 'girls' and 'boys' marble runs. This kind of thing
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Those look really good - my god-daughter's birthday is coming up in June - I might just buy her the "boy" version!


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## Mrs Magpie (Mar 12, 2013)

Thora said:


> I find it quite hard to get bright/colourful clothes for boys ...........  Dull.


Dylon machine dye is your friend.


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## punchdrunkme (Mar 12, 2013)

Garek said:


> I wish I could find but I remember seeing a chart from I think the 20's which was how American departments stores gendered there children's products. It was when the lines were still fuzzy. Some did pink for boys blue for girls and some the other way round. It was an interesting chart.


 
Was on socio-images I think. I also remember seeing it. Would find it for ya but on the phone


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## punchdrunkme (Mar 12, 2013)

Ms Ordinary said:


> The annoying thing is, you probably don't really want to get her 'boy trainers' any more than she wants them - you just want neutral ones. Though I know exactly what you mean - the 'boy' ones are more likely to be 'neutral' than the girl ones. Actually as an adult, I always end up buying men's trainers not women's ones not just because I have big feet but also I'd rather have grey & silver ones than grey & pink/pastel green ones.


 
Can be a bit annoying trying to buy womens trainers, 90% of womens trainers are pink or purple or baby blue. Crap colours for trainers, lot of the sportswear is the same. Oh Im doing something sporty I must make an extra effort to look feminine. The people who design womens trainers can get to fuck.


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## equationgirl (Mar 16, 2013)

punchdrunkme said:


> Can be a bit annoying trying to buy womens trainers, 90% of womens trainers are pink or purple or baby blue. Crap colours for trainers, lot of the sportswear is the same. Oh Im doing something sporty I must make an extra effort to look feminine. The people who design womens trainers can get to fuck.


Skechers do lots of trainers in black


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## Smyz (Nov 19, 2013)

I hope this is the right place to post this. The video is excellent even if it is an advert.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto...beastie_boys_urges_young_girls_to_pursue.html


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