Casual sexism of the sort I thought was long since past...

[bookwormsarah]

I stopped in Sainsbury's last night to pick up a couple of bits on my way home (note to self: their own brand meat-free kievs are a bit...weird. Don't get them again). On the end of an aisle there was a rack of children's fancy dress costumes. Thinking 'Awww' I stopped to look at them, and was utterly horrified to see that the 'doctor' costume

Comments

[lyndagb]

While wee boys tend not to be interested in nursing (not cool enough!) plenty of girls want to be doctors from very early ages.

I concur with your letter-writing!

[bookwormsarah]

I wanted to be a doctor from four until I was about sixteen. Nurses I can see why they aim it at girls, but doctors surely are widely seen as a cross-gender profession? I have almost finished my letter. It is a good letter, and cites examples...

Should your bean be a girl I hereby vow to buy her a doctor's kit when she is old enough to play with it.

[lyndagb]

Hee!

James has already decided it's going to be a doctor whatever the sex! Oh yes, and it won't go to a London uni (not the place for students he thinks) and will firmly be pushed towards Edinburgh!

I await with baited breath how he copes with a real teenager...!

[bookwormsarah]

*grins*
Is he going to be an overprotective Dad at all? The bean should go to Trevs (of course) and will have to put up with stories from a whole batch of pseudo-relatives...I nominate myself as mad-but-slightly-cool-in-a-mildly-scary-way-spinster-pseudo-aunt

[nineveh_uk]

*bashes head against desk in frustration*

[bookwormsarah]

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is probably turning in her grave.

The letter is written and will be posted at lunchtime. I shall update with any reply I receive...

[tree_and_leaf]

AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!

If I see them in our local branch, I will write and complain also.

[wellinghall]

See ladyofastolat's recent post ...

[ladyofastolat]

Popping by after wellinghall linked us both to each other's posts. Hope you don't mind!

I'm a children's librarian, and one of the books I often read in pre-schools involves looking for a monster who might be hiding behind flaps. Lifting the flaps reveals no monster at all, only various children who are dressing up as pirates, astronauts, princesses etc. etc. One picture shows a girl dressed as a nurse, but children often identify her as being a doctor. (I don't correct them if they do this. Some children identify her as a vet. There seems to be some confusion about medical iconography all round.) However, I have several times had a boy sternly say, "No, it's a nurse, because it's a girl. Boys are doctors." Usually several other children chime in to agree.

They also tend to be adamant that the children of intedeterminate gender who are dressing up as pirates and astronauts must be boys. I always stress that it could just as easily be a girl, "because girls can dress up as pirates, too," but children have often corrected me. "Girls dress up as

[bookwormsarah]

Rant away, I get so wound up about these things and then wonder whether it is just me. Do we seem to be going backwards with this? Or was my feminist mother just wonderful at keeping me convinced that I could do absolutely anything? I do remember other girls in the class wanting to be nurses, but I was very definite that I wanted to be a doctor. I know we didn't have nearly so much *pink* in the eighties...

[ladyofastolat]

Oh, we're definitely going backwards in this. I see it in the realms of books, and I'm sure it's even worse elsewhere. I've been a children's librarian for 15 years now (15 years! *whimpers*) and when I started, there were a load of books for the 5 to 8 year old market that were just books, appealing to both sexes. Now the 5 - 8s section is dominated with pink - very few books in there that boys want to read, which is another problem all by itself - and I'm constantly hearing children express the opinion that there are "girls' books" and "boys' books", and never the twain shall meet.

Someone's just linked me to the Pink Stinks campaign, which I thought had some very good stuff on it.

[bookwormsarah]

When I was six or seven I went through the Argos catalogue crossing out 'Boy's Toys' and 'Girl's Toys' replacing them with 'Children's Toys' (it took forever). The only pink item of clothing I owned was a second hand Minnie Mouse sweatshirt and a pair of pixie boots (which I adored). Apart from that I was pink free, and it was easy! One of my LJ friends had problems finding a non-pink bike for her eight year old girl - I can't remember pink bikes (I had a red and then a blue). Aggh!