Having been male for my whole life I honestly had no idea how privileged I have been (for just about everything) but in this particular instance I wish to take a quick look at clothing. I admit to having been selfish in the past and not being too perturbed when female friends have waxed wroth on the lack of pockets in their clothing or tight, tailored jeans and many other items of clothing that force women to display their figures.
It all hit home to me fairly recently when during a daddy/daughter day I took my little gingersnap clothes shopping at a local department store (that shall remain nameless). Diving in to the toddler section and making my way to the girls section I was confronted by a wall of glitter, pinks, pastels and cloyingly banal sayings like “Too Pretty to Care”, “I’m a Little Princess!” and so on – now if these were part of a larger range that included blacks, navy blues and t-shirts with sharks saying “I’m Jawsome!” (I actually grabbed that from the boys section for her as well as a Nirvana band t-shirt*) then it would not be much of an issue, but sadly going solely by clothing currently on offer in all major stores, little girls are precious, fragile and obsessed over their looks as opposed to the boys who are supposed to be rambunctious (fantastic word) and preparing to conquer the world.
I will not lie – it made me angry! I tweeted about it and a mini tweetstorm over gendered clothing took place
Clothes shopping for my little ginger nut – had not realised how gendered clothing is ? girls get pink glittery stuff and that's it
— Matt Imrie (@mattlibrarian) July 1, 2017
The responses I received makes for some interesting reading.
Why have I written this now you may ask – well mainly because I saw news that John Lewis is introducing a gender neutral range of clothing for children in its stores – and anything that has raised the ire of Piers Morgan is more than likely something positive and good! Frankly if he is so scandalised by the thought of a store offering gender-neutral clothing then, whenever he gets on his high horse about fragile snowflakes he needs to take a look in the mirror first!
I have thought about designing my own range of clothes for my girl celebrating powerful women of history (seriously there are loads)
* I did pick up a light pink t-shirt dotted with pegasi from the girls section because it looks awesome and I am not against pinks and pastels
Did you watch the TV documentary on recently about trying to stop the stereotyping of children from a young age? It was very interesting.
What was the name of the documentary, Pat?