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Kid had a red (unicorn) t-shirt on today, and was wearing Spiderman sneakers. She has long hair, and yet all the moms at the playground immediately defaulted to calling her a little boy.

The whole thing fascinates me. My mom tells me you can only find red and blue at rhe boys' section at the store. I am amazed at how gender coded kids' clothing is... 😆

#gender #parenting #WTF
#WTF #gender #parenting
book dragon
wtf indeed. what would playground mums say if a kid shows up in all black 🤪
Kudra :maybe_verified:
my daughter has had a lot of grey in her wardrobe and that seems to confuse the heck out of people too.
Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág
As a Culture Studies researcher, what is fascinating to me is that "boy color" beat "long hair" in this context.
Kudra :maybe_verified:
yeah, it probably depends a bit on your location, I do see more boys with long hair these days, and more parents generally allowing kids to experiment with hair based on the child's preferences, so even younger girls with quite boyish cuts. I mostly have fairly gender neutral clothes for my daughter but I do put her hair in pigtails most of the time (it keeps hair out of her face, and yes it's cute), and regardless of clothes that tends to have people gender her as female.
Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág
I mused about pigtails too, but we are in a phase currently where she actively fights them because her hair is very curly and hard to wrangle :D
Kudra :maybe_verified:
my daughter always hates having her hair brushed, she only has gentle waves rather than tight curls, so it isn't too hard to put it up, and keeps it a bit neater than when I have it out. I do braids sometimes as well. But yeah those hairstyles are I guess are more strongly gendered than just long or short hair.
Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág
Also, interesting that "experimenting with hair length" is still more easily accepted than "wearing boy colors" :D
Alessia Visconti
This is not our experience (Italy, 1-year-olds). My short-haired daughter, regardless of what she wears, is always defaulted to male, while my long-haired one, again regardless of what she wears, is always defaulted to female

I experimented a lot with clothes because I find absurd that a genderless short-haired baby get misgendered even when they wear a pink glittery Minnie t-shirt while her long-haired sister can wear a blue construction crane t-shirt without issue
em dee (they/she)
I have wondered for a while why girls were assigned pink. Why not red? Can't girls even get an actual primary color?
Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág
All primary colors are in the boys' section, girls get the pastels.
David Penington
Brings back a favorite 25 year old memory of picking our 2yo child up from church creche & being told Richard & Adam were having a great time playing boys rough & tumble games together. That was our daughter Bridget, not "Richard". She's still great!
Ko-Fan Chen 陳克帆
we dressed our then 2yo daughter with blue puff coat with dinosaurs pattern, the playground peers keep thinking she is boy🤦
Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág
I take personal offense to people gendering dinosaur patterns, it's ridiculous... 😤
Ko-Fan Chen 陳克帆
Indeed, when we were in Nextkid session choosing it we got stared at by others..
Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág
someone needs to do a study on how the heck this got collectively decided...
Todd Ropog
It’s so absurd. Boys get red, blue, and camo. Girls get pastels, but mostly pink.

I always tell people, if you’re having a girl, keep it a secret until after the baby shower or you will get nothing but pink.
CindyG
When I had grandchildren on the way it was so frustrating to try to find infant clothes that weren’t strongly gender coded. It didn’t used to be this way. When the baby’s gender wasn’t known until birth, newborn clothes were deliberately neutral. I kind of miss that.
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