He has ideas, she has smiles
Morrisons, are you serious?
Boys’ top: “Little Man, Big Ideas”
Girls’ top: “Little Girl, Big Smiles”
Boys’ top: “King Of The Castle”
Girls’ top: “Pretty Little Me”This has to be a joke, right?
Sexism? I don’t see any sexism, do you see any sexism?
We have gone backwards. Seriously, kids’ stuff was a lot less genderized 25 years ago when we were buying this kind of thing. What the hell happened?
Also note that girly smiles seem to cost 50p more than boyish ideas. I have no idea how to interpret that.
@Steve Watson – at a guess long sleeve vs short sleeve?
But you’re right about increased gendering of clothing, I don’t remember this kind of crap when I was a little girl. Sure there were frou-frou girls clothes with lace and pink and stuff like that, but for girls like me there were also shorts, dungarees (man I loved me some dungarees) and pants and t-shirts in bright colors without shitty slogans on them. I also had shirts that had Superman and Transformers and Star Wars logos on them which may “technically” have been for boys but when you’re prepubescent it doesn’t really matter, which is part of what makes this so stupid.
Why can’t we just have kids clothes, and let the kids decide what they like, rather than these artificial divisions? Even in adult clothing, I wonder if we need the distinction. As a curvy woman it’s tough for me to wear clothes cut for men (which is annoying because men’s pants have better pockets) but some men have trouble too. A Nigerian friend of mine complains constantly that compared to back home, UK and US men’s pants don’t leave enough room for his rather curvy butt, so maybe we rethink the whole men/women divide on clothes too.
Instead of ‘men’ and ‘women’, have cuts for straight waist to hip (which would correspond to most men and many women), and then some different degrees of hip/butt curve. Same with tops, but I guess some women might not appreciate buying shirts labeled ‘flat-chested’ and I’m not sure what you’d call shirts that have room for those of us with a fuller bust. Maybe there are too many body shapes to make this practical, I don’t know. Still, seems like a language problem as much as anything else.
I was in kids’ publishing for years. It was of the utmost importance that you knew whether you were dealing with a girl book or a boy book. And this was all nonfiction!
Re #3 – As far as cuts of clothes go, it’d be a big and easy (from a tailoring POV!) step “just” to make nothing of people wearing clothes that are cut for the other sex (by shape). If you women don’t have trouble with the hips wearing “men’s” pants, enjoy the pockets; if some of your sweatshirts fit me well enough and they’re on clearance, I’m, uh, going to buy them because I am cheap and my gender identity is “shrug”.
And he’s little man, while she is little girl.
This is a perfect example of the backlash I’ve written about before. Kids in the late seventies, eighties and early nineties were raised in brightly-coloured unisex clothing of dungarees, jeans or shorts with plain or striped T-shirts and sweatshirts. When these people entered the workforce, they expected the same equal treatment that they’d had at home and in school, and this infuriated the Old White Men who own most of business. Since few people these days have the time, equipment or skills to make their own children’s clothing, backlash is simply a matter of manufacturing getting back at the egalitarians through their kids.
For tween kids, it’s even worse. A few years ago I had immense trouble finding clothing for girls, particularly summer wear, that wasn’t sexualised. Trousers which barely reached the top of the buttocks, tops which didn’t come down to the waist, T-shirts with words made out of sequins that spelled ‘Porn Star’… As for swimwear, what about bikinis that were little more than string with three or four tiny triangles?
My generation rejected patriarchy, and raised our kids to reject it, too. So patriarchy has sharpened its claws and gone after our granddaughters.
tiggerthewing, there may be even more to it than that. When second kids can wear their siblings hand me downs, they sell fewer clothes. If they convince everyone that you need totally different clothes for different sexes, or if they sexualize the clothing to a particular sex, then a second child of the opposite sex will need their own clothes. So more sales.
I don’t think your assessment is wrong, but I think when you add the incentive of added profit, it just makes these manufacturing types have palpitations of excitement, and their eyes start to glow.
I agree that the profit motive helps drive the gendering of toys and clothes; but it doesn’t require the belittling of female children.
No, it doesn’t. That’s why I think the two things are interlinked. The urge to belittle females, coupled with the profit motive, is like a freight train with no brakes.
I like that simile. It’s rather appropriate.