BAD patriarchy - NO biscuit
Sorry. I know you all know this stuff already. I just need to get it off my chest. Again.
I went clothes shopping for the forthcoming baby this afternoon, and then scouting for Oisín's main Christmas present. I came home seething.
So. First off, I don't know what sex my inhabitant is. I don't particularly want to know until it's born. It doesn't, frankly, matter all that much to me what sex people are. But it apparently matters to the manufacturers and marketers of mainstream baby clothes. A lot.
I went to Mothercare and Marks and Spencer (having done Dunnes the other day). I could've said "to hell with it", and bought some bluish things and some pinkish things and defiantly - or, I suppose, nonchalantly - cross-dressed whoever it turns out to be. But no. I'm stubborn, me. I went looking for gender-neutral gear.
And it's there, if you look. Carefully. Just about. In the boys' section.
For vests, babygros, etc., you can go for plain white, but if you want colour or pattern, everything basically follows the binary distinction. However, some of the boys' things are not dominated by blueness or specifically masculine slogans. (That is, they say things like "What's in Mr Mole's garden?" as opposed to "My pretty little garden" on the related pink-themed version.) You can tell they're really for boys, though, because of where they're hung, and because the iconography and slogans generally connote agency, as opposed to littleness, aesthetic appeal, passivity, etc.
As Oisín's Mama, of course, I've got used to dressing a boy (he used to wear pink socks - that was as far as I managed to take it). I haven't looked at girls' clothes in a while. I'm kind of glad - I've saved myself a lot of rage over the past three years. After gleaning a few scant pickings from Boys in each of the two shops, I ventured over to Girls, where I found ... absolutely ... nothing. It is, apparently, impossible to design a girls' garment in an arguably gender-neutral colour (which, as I and many of you have noted over the years, is in itself an infuriatingly problematic concept) without adding some sigil of femininity - embroidered flowers, puffed sleeves, frills.
Of course, the problem is circular, to some extent, because if it were gender-neutral, what would it be doing in Girls? (Clearly, it should be in Boys...)
And you know, part of my rage is that I'm so enraged by this. Because I like clothes, and design, and embellishment, and the colour pink, and so on. I honestly do. But it's just so ... RELENTLESS. I saw no girls' clothes today that could be said to fall sufficiently outside the narrow paradigm of femininity that they could be worn by a boy without exciting undue comment. It's like, boys wear clothes; girls wear fashion.
Unmarked = Male. Big shock, that, I know.
I'm just going to have to start making more of their clothes myself, that's all.
Turning now to the matter of Christmas presents for the Oyster, I next waddled down the road to the Early Learning Centre, with the intention of checking out dolls' houses and/or castles. (I know he'd love a dolls' house at some point; he's also beginning to be quite interested in dragons and the Olden Days.) I knew that the ELC's rather excellent plain wooden dolls' house staple had been replaced last year or so by a pink-and-lilac-themed version, which I'm pretty sure he'd be fine with but which would annoy me. However, I thought I remembered seeing a castle that might be a good bet.
Three minutes' browsing had me so enraged that I just walked out.
First of all, the castle I remembered (I think it must've been the Castle of Courage) didn't seem to be there. Instead, a display featured the Dungeon of Doom.
(Let me pause here to quote that product description from the ELC site: Dark dungeon to trap and store foolhardy attackers. With balcony for victors to survey their land, trap-door dungeon to surprise attacking warriors and rope ladder to wind up. Plus a hanging cage in which to swing prize prisoners until they feel a bit sick. Age range: 3-8 years.
Can I just clarify? My three-year-old son? IS NOT A VIOLENT SOCIOPATH, YOU BASTARDS.
Thank you.)
The shop also stocked the Rosebud Dolls' House, though there wasn't an assembled model on display. I was distracted from this, however, by a prominently featured range of music-making toys - keyboard, microphone on a stand, electric guitar, etc. - all available in either pink or blue. Because THAT'S not idiotic.
(Having gone to the ELC site to find the above links, I'm now all the more enraged. Do you see what they did there? With the PINK "let's pretend" section and the BLUE "action and adventure" section? Clevah.)
Early Fucking Learning Centre, indeed. Message received, loud and clear.
My powers were waning by this stage (in point of fact, the whole outing was a bit mad, pelviswise), but fuelled by teh_rage, I limped down to Banba Toymaster to see if Playmobil could soothe my troubled breast. I remember many precious hours in my lost youth, playing with kulfuldi and her sister and their knights-and-castles Playmobil gear, which featured things like, oh, furniture and plates and goblets and candlesticks, as well as weapons and horses and armour. (You know, almost as though castles were places where people actually lived, or something.)
But unfortunately, no. The Playmobil on display included a number of magnificent box sets, among them two castle sets: the Knights Empire Castle and the Magic Castle with Princess Crown. Yes, boys and girls can both play castles, but boys get the one with the defensive structures and the range of characters (including two females: (1) queen, with big eyelashes; (2) milkmaid) and the vaguely realistic furnishings, architecture and colour scheme, while girls get the one with the pink and gold fantasy theme, the focus on relationship (prince and princess) and interior domestic space ... and the free bonus hair ornament. Yes. (Don't even read the blurbs. You'll vomit.)
(A side-issue here is that the girl-castle cost 150 euros, and the boy-castle cost 200 euros. Clearly, the latter has more stuff. But the discrepancy, I think, neatly underlines my general theme.)
So I left and came home. I've just ordered a wooden castle online, which we'll probably populate with a selection of Playmobil figures and accessories (because they are very pleasing toys in themselves, without the rhetoric, and this way we can balance defence and domesticity).
Why do we do this to our children? Why do we say, "Here, look: here is the world. This is your bit. You can tell because it's handily colour-coded for your convenience (check your genitals if you're confused). Don't cross this invisible line to explore the other bit unless you want to invite ridicule, hatred and contempt. Get used to your own section, because the rules you learn here will apply throughout your life, relationships, career, etc. OK, any questions? Right. Good. Away you go." It makes no sense.
Also, I don't think it was quite this bad even a couple of decades ago. Which is deeply scary and depressing - or at least, tonight it is. Tomorrow, I might have mustered enough oomph to think of a way of poking the ridiculous edifice in a manner I find satisfying.
I've said it before, but you know, there are days when I wonder if I'll ever finish dismantling the patriarchy.
I went clothes shopping for the forthcoming baby this afternoon, and then scouting for Oisín's main Christmas present. I came home seething.
So. First off, I don't know what sex my inhabitant is. I don't particularly want to know until it's born. It doesn't, frankly, matter all that much to me what sex people are. But it apparently matters to the manufacturers and marketers of mainstream baby clothes. A lot.
I went to Mothercare and Marks and Spencer (having done Dunnes the other day). I could've said "to hell with it", and bought some bluish things and some pinkish things and defiantly - or, I suppose, nonchalantly - cross-dressed whoever it turns out to be. But no. I'm stubborn, me. I went looking for gender-neutral gear.
And it's there, if you look. Carefully. Just about. In the boys' section.
For vests, babygros, etc., you can go for plain white, but if you want colour or pattern, everything basically follows the binary distinction. However, some of the boys' things are not dominated by blueness or specifically masculine slogans. (That is, they say things like "What's in Mr Mole's garden?" as opposed to "My pretty little garden" on the related pink-themed version.) You can tell they're really for boys, though, because of where they're hung, and because the iconography and slogans generally connote agency, as opposed to littleness, aesthetic appeal, passivity, etc.
As Oisín's Mama, of course, I've got used to dressing a boy (he used to wear pink socks - that was as far as I managed to take it). I haven't looked at girls' clothes in a while. I'm kind of glad - I've saved myself a lot of rage over the past three years. After gleaning a few scant pickings from Boys in each of the two shops, I ventured over to Girls, where I found ... absolutely ... nothing. It is, apparently, impossible to design a girls' garment in an arguably gender-neutral colour (which, as I and many of you have noted over the years, is in itself an infuriatingly problematic concept) without adding some sigil of femininity - embroidered flowers, puffed sleeves, frills.
Of course, the problem is circular, to some extent, because if it were gender-neutral, what would it be doing in Girls? (Clearly, it should be in Boys...)
And you know, part of my rage is that I'm so enraged by this. Because I like clothes, and design, and embellishment, and the colour pink, and so on. I honestly do. But it's just so ... RELENTLESS. I saw no girls' clothes today that could be said to fall sufficiently outside the narrow paradigm of femininity that they could be worn by a boy without exciting undue comment. It's like, boys wear clothes; girls wear fashion.
Unmarked = Male. Big shock, that, I know.
I'm just going to have to start making more of their clothes myself, that's all.
Turning now to the matter of Christmas presents for the Oyster, I next waddled down the road to the Early Learning Centre, with the intention of checking out dolls' houses and/or castles. (I know he'd love a dolls' house at some point; he's also beginning to be quite interested in dragons and the Olden Days.) I knew that the ELC's rather excellent plain wooden dolls' house staple had been replaced last year or so by a pink-and-lilac-themed version, which I'm pretty sure he'd be fine with but which would annoy me. However, I thought I remembered seeing a castle that might be a good bet.
Three minutes' browsing had me so enraged that I just walked out.
First of all, the castle I remembered (I think it must've been the Castle of Courage) didn't seem to be there. Instead, a display featured the Dungeon of Doom.
(Let me pause here to quote that product description from the ELC site: Dark dungeon to trap and store foolhardy attackers. With balcony for victors to survey their land, trap-door dungeon to surprise attacking warriors and rope ladder to wind up. Plus a hanging cage in which to swing prize prisoners until they feel a bit sick. Age range: 3-8 years.
Can I just clarify? My three-year-old son? IS NOT A VIOLENT SOCIOPATH, YOU BASTARDS.
Thank you.)
The shop also stocked the Rosebud Dolls' House, though there wasn't an assembled model on display. I was distracted from this, however, by a prominently featured range of music-making toys - keyboard, microphone on a stand, electric guitar, etc. - all available in either pink or blue. Because THAT'S not idiotic.
(Having gone to the ELC site to find the above links, I'm now all the more enraged. Do you see what they did there? With the PINK "let's pretend" section and the BLUE "action and adventure" section? Clevah.)
Early Fucking Learning Centre, indeed. Message received, loud and clear.
My powers were waning by this stage (in point of fact, the whole outing was a bit mad, pelviswise), but fuelled by teh_rage, I limped down to Banba Toymaster to see if Playmobil could soothe my troubled breast. I remember many precious hours in my lost youth, playing with kulfuldi and her sister and their knights-and-castles Playmobil gear, which featured things like, oh, furniture and plates and goblets and candlesticks, as well as weapons and horses and armour. (You know, almost as though castles were places where people actually lived, or something.)
But unfortunately, no. The Playmobil on display included a number of magnificent box sets, among them two castle sets: the Knights Empire Castle and the Magic Castle with Princess Crown. Yes, boys and girls can both play castles, but boys get the one with the defensive structures and the range of characters (including two females: (1) queen, with big eyelashes; (2) milkmaid) and the vaguely realistic furnishings, architecture and colour scheme, while girls get the one with the pink and gold fantasy theme, the focus on relationship (prince and princess) and interior domestic space ... and the free bonus hair ornament. Yes. (Don't even read the blurbs. You'll vomit.)
(A side-issue here is that the girl-castle cost 150 euros, and the boy-castle cost 200 euros. Clearly, the latter has more stuff. But the discrepancy, I think, neatly underlines my general theme.)
So I left and came home. I've just ordered a wooden castle online, which we'll probably populate with a selection of Playmobil figures and accessories (because they are very pleasing toys in themselves, without the rhetoric, and this way we can balance defence and domesticity).
Why do we do this to our children? Why do we say, "Here, look: here is the world. This is your bit. You can tell because it's handily colour-coded for your convenience (check your genitals if you're confused). Don't cross this invisible line to explore the other bit unless you want to invite ridicule, hatred and contempt. Get used to your own section, because the rules you learn here will apply throughout your life, relationships, career, etc. OK, any questions? Right. Good. Away you go." It makes no sense.
Also, I don't think it was quite this bad even a couple of decades ago. Which is deeply scary and depressing - or at least, tonight it is. Tomorrow, I might have mustered enough oomph to think of a way of poking the ridiculous edifice in a manner I find satisfying.
I've said it before, but you know, there are days when I wonder if I'll ever finish dismantling the patriarchy.