My ex-girlfriend buys men’s jeans because they just plain fucking last longer. A real pity when women’s jeans cost more. The only problem with the idea that I see is that Fox News (by which I mean a vocal section of the population) will wage all out war on it.
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It’s also worth noting that most women’s clothing departments (unlike the girl’s clothing departments) feel like they allow for more flexibility in my interpretation of what my gender means to me. I.e., There are color options other than pink. In fact, unless it’s a really weird fashion season, most things are not pink.
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I think for the little girls, it’s all about what the moms want to dress them in. Those who might think (for instance) that pink ruffles on a newborn make them look like a baby pig seem to be in the minority. And when they hit the peer influenced ages, it does seem like they go out of their way to wear the “uniform”, however they conceive it.
But worst of all , the “boy’s” clothes and girl clothes have totally different color schemes. So mixing and matching is difficult.
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They should use the pile method. That’ll give you a head start on finding the stuff at home.
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Back 10-15 years (I think that’s about right) my wife spent several years buying around-the-house jeans in the men’s department. Basically it was easier for her to find relaxed-fit men’s jeans that provided ample hip room, than it was to find women’s jeans, because all of the fashions for women were those low-riders, not meant for anybody past puberty.
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From reading friend’s facebook statuses something needs to be done about shoes as well. It would appear that “girls”’ shoes from shops like Clark’s are pretty unsuitable for any sort of adventurous play. One friend found the shoes her daughter had were pretty much ruined after her first full day at school.
In what way are a hyper-muscled Superman and the remnants of a dead human better then the glittery Hello Kitty outfits and pink princess-y crap? For me and my wife, both alternatives seem equally inappropriate for 3-year-olds.
Colorful, non-branded, fun. Is that so hard (actually, it is, I know)?
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It’s shocking how many stores carry mostly little girl shoes have high, and some very high heels. They are crazy unsafe for running around on the playground. My own daughter had a pair of boots that I think had no heel or a very low one since not only would I not buy her high heels I think she thought they were stupid as well. She was the only kid allowed on her playground without tennis shoes because she refused to wear anything but the boots. Finally the school put their foot down on the boots and we found her a pair of rubber soled Buster Brown Mary Janes that were appropriately feminine (she did not do tennis shoes). It was darned hard to track down a shoe store that carried a suitable sole for play in a girlie shoe, and I paid a lot of money for those shoes because I did at least know she’d wear them enough to get my money’s worth -and because at that point I’d resigned myself to not ever finding a sensible shoe at Target or Penny’s or Payless. It is unbelievable how impractical the girls shoes are.
@Martin_Beldin, I have talked about this elsewhere on BoingBoing, but my daughter around the age of 3 or 4 became so gender identified that she had almost the entire world divided into boy things and girl things. She refused to wear “boy” colors (green and blue mostly - red, orange, pink, and purple were “girl” colors). No pants, only dresses. No tennis shoes. No “boy” music, only opera with high soprano voices. For realz. AND she loved to play with boys and run around and play with blocks and radio kits. I definitely had not encouraged it; I thought it was pretty weird but she was just so insistent - and I mean she only wore dresses long after the other girls were wearing jeans, up until she was about 9 or 10. It definitely was not me fulfilling some fantasy through her; I have no idea how she came up with it all, we didn’t have commercial TV in our house so no commercials (we did have DVDs and access to PBS in the car). I think it’s already out there in the culture of the preschool and kindergarten set.
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Violence does seem to be a common theme in children’s clothes. But that’s mostly a reflection of the pop culture that is aimed at children. Even something that could be shown in a positive manner, like robots, are usually shown fighting and blowing things up. Of course the characters the children have printed on their clothes are the “good guys” so it’s OK. 
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A fact I thank the FSM for daily. I have hated the color pink for as long as I can remember.
No kidding. Mine is in the thick of the ONLY DRESSES phase. My friend’s daughter did it too, but grew out of it in a few years. I can only hope; but for now, I buy her dresses and keep offering pants.
We’re still waiting for ours to get over it. Peer pressure is the worst, I was recently informed that purple could not be a boy color and that there was no way that I could possibly like pink because it was for girls.
Sigh.
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Pink and I had a brief fling when I was about 10 and my stepmother was playing Trudy in “Steel Magnolias” and I wanted pink to be my signature color, too.
That was how I learned that pink (especially deep pink) clashes terribly with carroty ginger hair.
I don’t think I have a signature color these days, but if I do, it’s probably kelly green or electric blue.
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That’s what we try to tell our coppertop troublemaker, but she won’t hear of such heresy. Pink! Of course, she also puts ketchup on hot dogs, so what does she know about anything?
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While expensive we like to rock the Run Kai Runs. They have half off sales twice a year that they should watch out for.
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I think it’s already out there in the culture of the preschool and kindergarten set.
I hate to say it, but other parents are the worst. They’re making my job so much harder with their television and weird gender specific things. The amount of pink we have ever exposed our daughter to is minimal but she came home one day with all the colors gendered. Totally bums us out.
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Pinkish reds and deep pinks clash pretty badly with my beige-y skin. Somewhat fortuitous that I can’t stand 'em. Pretty much the only colors that I couldn’t wear even if I wanted to.
You can’t go wrong with black. Considering they still don’t make Granimals for adults, Imma gonna stick with that one for error-proof wardrobe building.
Yeah, the one that really bothered me was the one time she declared “I don’t like boys”, totally parroting some kids in the playground who were having a little boys v.s. girls thing going on. I made clear it was NOT okay right there and then. I pointed out that Daddy, her favourite uncles and many of her favourite characters are ‘boys’ and that they rock, so that was absolute nonsense.
Many people seem to think that little boys and girls claiming that each other are gross and vile is quaint or something. I don’t think it’s any more cute or wholesome than letting kids running around saying they don’t like black people or kids with red hair. I’m letting my kid know exactly how stupid and arbitrary that crap is.
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Agreed - I wear jeans almost exclusively, unless it’s summer and I’m wearing (usually cargo) shorts. I find track pants to be far too baggy, and I imagine I would find leggings insanely uncomfortable on the ol’ package area (see also: why I wear boxers instead of briefs).
In response to the original post: We don’t seem to have any trouble finding non-pink, non-sparkly clothes for our 18 month old daughter, even when shopping in the girl’s section. We have a lot of pink sparklies too (because she likes them, pink is the colour that she invariably picks when given a choice between two options), but we have a TON of purple, green, brown, blue, and orange stuff that has all been purchased in the girl’s section of the store. And it’s not like we’re hitting special hippie stores either, this is all mass market produced stuff (Children’s Place is our source for a lot of stuff, which probably has its own issues as a store and certainly has its fair share of princessy stuff, but it’s cheap, and the clothes last reasonably well in our experience)
She is clearly far more intelligent than you are giving her credit for. Ketchup is the only acceptable condiment on hot dogs.
I will not stand here and listen to this pro-ketchup heresy.
Heresy I say!
