PINK
Last week I visited the retail paradise that is Crown Point North. Do you remember? It's the one where you can drive your car up, park outside River Island and walk right in. And there's H&M and TK Maxx next door.
But I was in (non food) Tesco trying on blokes' hats which had been slashed in price.
I was trying on one like this .....
.... when I noticed a young woman standing on my left trying to speak into my deaf(ish) ear which was completely covered by the ear flap. She was showing me a baby pram suit a bit like the one in the picture but with only one teddy.
Gradually I realised to my astonishment that she was asking MY opinion - on baby clothes ??!!
Did I think it looked boyish ?
Thinking that she was worried about her little boy looking a bit soft, I reassured her that it was a neutral colour and would look fine on either a boy or a girl. Looking unconvinced, she showed me inside the pram. It was 100% pink with pink toys, pink pillows and pink bedding. The child was in pink with a pink ribbon in her non existent hair.
'I don't want anyone to think she's a boy' she said anxiously.
The poor young woman has been brainwashed.
This is NEXT in Manchester.
This is Jordan's daughter Princess Tiaamii.
We are going back to the bad old days.
click to bigKAZ
Labels: 40 years of feminism?
posted by KAZ at 7:28 am
55 Comments:
I'm first, I'm first!
I'm so completely first I have no idea what the post was about!
I heard a mother on the bus t'other day saying to her "3-year old?" - you don't want a teddy - you're a boy - you want cars.
well, I can speak from personal experience on this one. . .
. . .and my experience is that one's young child listens to (and thereafter believes) its peers*
eventually they come out the other side; and in the middle period it's very frustrating!
(*I always put it down to some kind of basic primordal desire to belong to/identifty with a group, for safety reasons)
NO NO NO! This is wrong. On so many levels.
Oh, bugger! You've got me going.
Sorry. I'll go away and bang my head on the wall....
...OK, feeling more lucid now. Mothers (and fathers) who force such imagery on their children do more harm than most people can imagine.
Serious psychological damage looming in that poor kid's future.
I played with Hornby trains and Meccano, learned(from my carpenter Dad) how to drive a nail, how to mend a fuse, from my mother always to sew a hem with several short threads, how to line a cake tin. And from the boy down the road I learned - oops! wrong place!
Seriously, if people are still stereotyping poor little children it might be time to reconsider capital punishment.
see, dinah I learnt to sew, line cake tins and change fuses and rewire plugs from my mother. . .
(and I'd still play with Meccano if I could!)
I started to write about a young lady who asked me to change the fuse in a plug for her the other day. then I remembered she's a reader here, so have re-written my comment.
She was wearing blue at the time.
Hope this helps.
I'm sure in Victorian times boys were always, always dressed in pink. It is only in recent times that we have seen this "pink is for girls" ethos. Personally, the wife and I ignore all of it and dress our children in clothes that simply compliment their skin types. As for toys, our youngest loves dinosaurs and vehicle but at nursery loves playing with the pretend cooker and ironing board. If he's happy, I'm happy.
Plugs? Who needs plugs,just stick the wires into the holes in the wall,push matchstick in alongside to make them stay there.
I'm with Geraldgee on that one. I used to live in a mountain top house where the matchsticks flew out of the wiring every time it thundered.Both my parents taught me to sew, carve, cook and look for agates.
zIggI:
And you win a GOLD medal!
Gerald:
It works both ways doesn't it. Poor kid.
View:
Ah yes the tribe/group thing. I always wonder who influences the leaders of the peer group.
Dinah:
Hope it didn't hurt too much.
My mum was the mender, fixer and meccano addict. Dad taught me to read etc. and the woman down the road taught me to sew.
I only really understood the true problem when I read The Female Eunuch.
View:
Lego just isn' the same is it?
Dave:
Perhaps she was trying to make you feel manly. :)
Steve:
Pink is for girls has come back with a flourish over the last few years - bikes, lunch boxes everything.
They sound very well adjusted.
Gerald:
I see you aren't of the generation that respects the Health and Safety laws.
Rosie:
Sounds very Wuthering Heights.
Agates sound good.
I don't understand why people still want to do this? It's not 1975, now you can be whatever you want to be.
Why does it matter if people think your a boy or a girl if your happy. My brother Lesley spent years getting girls presents as a child and it never did him any harm. ( Well not much anyway, apart from he hates his name )
I wonder what the mother was wearing?
And did you buy the hat with the ear-flaps?
I said DID YOU BUY THE HAT WITH THE EAR-FLAPS?
I was going to say what Steve said about the Victorians.....it must have been an interesting period when we crossed over from that way round to the current and parents weren't sure which colour they should force their kids to where in order to totally stereotype and control them.
Our youngest's boyfriend (17) wears a lot of pink so maybe there's still hope.
Personally I hate both pink and blue.
well. . .there is pink and there is SHOCKING pink. I do hope it was just delicate pink for the poor bubz little eyes.
Elle x
I wondered the same things that Christoper asked.
I am doing my best to redress the balance - I bought my granddaughter a train set for her first birthday. Unfortunately, when I asked her what she's hoping for for her 5th in a few weeks, she said "Barbie".
It's a strange fear, not wanting a girl to be mistaken for a boy - usually it's the other way round, the parents are terribly anxious that their sons shouldn't be perceived as girlish.
I think this post makes a good case for the androgynous look!
PS: Does this white shirt make my ass look big?
People used to congratulate my mum on her gorgeous baby boy. I grew out of it; I'm still gorgeous though.
Sx
My niece, when she was four, saw that Bob the Builder was on my parents' telly and said: "Huh! That's only for boys!" "She didn't get it off me," said her father...
Kerrie:
Did you give him the girly presents so you could have them for yourself?
Christopher:
She was very plain and drab.
Ha Ha - I heard you the first time.
Yes - but not that one. It was a black one with more streamlined ear flaps.
NiC:
Well - you only like red don't you. Very misguided.
Elle:
No - there was nothing very delicate about it.
Z:
Barbie - oh no.
Like you, I assumed the child in the pram would be male and require a gun or a train on the suit.
xl:
I'm working on it.
Scarlet:
It was probably the moustache.
Yes you are still gorgeous.
Kevin:
Well - I can't stand that Neil Morrissey either.
You see, a large portion of lady brain pops out during delivery of baby. A quick-witted midwife can catch it and pop it back in if she's wearing cotton-backed latex gloves in a neutral shade. If not, then the mother will remain effing stupid for the rest of her life and ask questions of strangers in supermarkets.
Deep breath.
Everyone, girls and boys, should own an Elmer Fudd hat.
Yep, role models. A volte backwards. Some of the younger are that conservative, incredible. They have no idea how reactionary it is. People's reactions on women's day were strange. And many younger women even had no idea what it is about. Some day they'll wake up in the kitchen again.
As it is International Women's Day I just want to say bravo Ladies, well done! In Canada there are now more women employed and enrolled in Universities.
It is only a matter of time until Gaia is rightfully reclaimed by her daughters. Hopefully one of my sons or grandsons will be kept as one of the few sperm donors preserved to keep the whole thing going. Sorry about that whole Eve being made out of Adam's rib thingamabob..bad choice..'womb'man..seriously? I didn't make that sh*t up!
Well then carry on, I'm running off to the hills to hide my boys until the bounty is called off.
So why not dress the child in colours that are neither pink nor blue...
Problem solved :D
Nice hat btw.
I don't have any problems with gender divisions of labour. I think they work really well.
I try and get Boy/male guests to tackle the things I don't want to/can't be arsed to do.
It's a feminist stance, because it's my house, my rules and I say so.
PS. The only toys not available to Boy when he was tiny were guns and other weapons of mass destruction. It meant he then had to build them out of lego, or make swords out of sticks.
My father taught me how to spell 'miscellaneous' and my mother taught me fear. I dressed my children in my sister's boy's outgrown clothes and they never seemed to mind. Their favourite toys were outside, a climbing frame, swings, trampoline, bikes and the dog. They made endless camps indoors when it was too wet or too cold out of old curtains, sheets and dining chairs. They did like lego which has been passed on to son of Himself, but we never had any meccano. I wonder if this ha damaged them in anyway?!
if God Had Meant Women to Hunt, HE would have made the Agates Pink.......
Arabella:
Fascinating - I didn't know you had medical training.
mago:
There has definitely been regression over the last few years.
I blame Britney and Beyoncé.
donn:
I don't think you need worry. The daughters of Gaia are too shattered by trying to be superwoman.
WR:
But the pram suit was beigeish.
Over the last few years girls must be dressed in pink and be princesses ... or Barbie dolls.
Yes - wish I'd had it during the cold spell.
Roses:
Re the guns - they all do that - but you made a good point.
zIggI:
It all sounds so Swallow and Amazons - great fun.
Meccano is very retro - not sure it's still around.
ebdon 88:
Ah yes - the agates.
....and black!
(And I don't like red if it's Man U)
Yes Meccano is still around. Didn't you see James may making a swing bridge from it - he did it in some obscure Northern city. Manchester I think.
I have been trying to persuade my sister that they should insist on us all wearing Burberry deerstalkers at her wedding. She didn't seem keen.
NiC:
But grey is the new black.
You could try grey and black stripes to get used to it.
Dave:
I used to like Bayco
Kevin:
I believe they do them in pink.
If Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves is a feminist anthem the sisters have only themselves to blame.
Or was it I Will Survive?
Girl Power! You go, girlfriend! Put a ring on it!
Cheryl Cole's had plastic surgery, you know. She knows how to keep her man.
Yes, we're regressing.
I agree it does seem to be all going wrong and reverting back to the 1950's .
I am still waiting for you lazy assed women to hold the door open FOR ME ! I dont care if you do it in an ironic post femenist way
Hmmm...I think Mrs.Planarchy had something with black and grey stripes on the other day. I said it looked like something out of a Tim Burton fillum........which is not a bad thing.
Meanwhile, I've just found out that Warfarin comes in his and hers packs.
This brings to mind your hopes for Michelle O. Last I saw she appeared on the Iron Chef or some other food guru show and is campaigning against childhood obesity. Not to diminish her efforts but it's not the breakout we were expecting, is it?
I'm giving up my wide screen and getting a long screen so I can get all your comments in xx
Geoff:
We can only hope for a reverse of the regressing.
I suppose the word is progressing.
Perhaps Cheryl will see the light.
Beast:
I shall kick your arse as you go through the door in an ironic post feminist way.
NiC:
I would love to look like Mrs Tim Burton.
Just saw the Warfarin packs - how sweet (vomits).
leazwell:
Childhood obesity is such a problem over here as well.
Just as long as she wasn't demonstrating her cookie making skills.
Gerald:
Just get scrolling - it's good exercise.
(I just got back from your place)
Hmm that's interessting but actually i have a hard time figuring it... wonder how others think about this..
medal hasn't arrived yet, just idly mentioning . . .
Having red hair, I avoided the pink thing as a child. I remain grateful to my genes for removing such a fate. I did however wear a lot of black, which for a two year old was rather a departure. A goth toddler in Glasgow.
Anon:
You may need help.
zIggI:
It's a virtual medal - you will need imagination.
Madame:
Two year old in black - amazing.
Kev has two goth nieces with flaming red hair.
We had nothing like Bayco or maccano, but Lego for the poor - it was not the original but a cheap derivate, not so firm and not exactly fitting sometimes a little smelly.
What is that about "Warfarin"? Sounds like "warfare" and wikipedia says it's rat poison?
I'm sure you must have had Meccano.
Warfarin is certainly rat poison - but is also used as an anti coagulant for people who have had blood clots.
A very high percentage of people take it every day.
....it's yummy on toast with marmalade!*
And, yes, Mrs Tim Burton......I like her.
*If prescribed by a doctor!
Oh for blood-thinning, like Marcumar or anything salycyl ... never have an open wound. Side effects of rat poison. Strange.
I keep popping back to check out the comments and it's a fraught experience when faced with that awful picture of Princess Tiiami - or whatever the hell spawn of Jordan is called. Freak.
*shudders*
Yay, 48th!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Coincidentally my own age, and I'm now comfortable enough with my own gender issues to wear pink t-shirts.
(obviously with pictures of Bulls and Motorbikes on)
mago:
The warfarin kills the rats by thinning the blood. They try not to overdo it with the humans.
Roses:
I totally sympathise - new post soon when I stop procrastinating.
Of course I check the comments more than anyone and the one I really couldn't stand was a pic of Richard Branson in his harness.
I did a new post very quickly that time.
Rog:
Can't imagine what they made of a 48 year old bloke in a pink t-shirt up in t'north.
This child has a nose like a boxer.
Nice hat. Does it come in pink?
Mago:
She should wear that hat and rearrange an ear flap.
UG:
Ha Ha.
I shall contact Tesco on your behalf.
I had a baby girl in 1986. 19 months later her brother came into the world, we were poor, so I put him in pink or yellow baby grows... he is a strapping young man with girlfriend. He didn't turn out queer.... Having said that I was a tom boy as a child, I'm celbrating the big one next year... (I'm gay!) I ride &own a big motorbike and love women!!
Hi Indigo.
Great story - thanks for sharing.
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