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
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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 ( ... )
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Someone's just linked me to the Pink Stinks campaign, which I thought had some very good stuff on it.
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I refuse to buy anything pink or girly for little girls, and am thankful that I have a boy so I don't get challenged about why I won't buy pink/Barbies/princessy-type stuff.
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Do the recorders have sparkles?
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I hate the way classic girls' stories now have pink colours, but the booksellers/publishers say today's girls are more likely to buy them if pink ...
The nurse/doctor thing is appalling though, especially the doctor bit.
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I also hate the way that any classic story that involves the remotest bit of adventure is now packaged as "for boys." I was particularly cross about a recent "stories for boys" anthology that contained retellings of lots of my favourite childhood books. Though at least girls can get away with reading the "for boys" stuff. Woe betide the boy who wants to read the "for girls" books.
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