Pages

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Stereotypical gender color assignments

Pink is for girls. Blue is for boys. It's just the ways of the world, right? I truly believe that for the most part. Girls can obviously wear whatever color they want to. The same holds true for boys. I mean, Drew wore a pink shirt on Easter a year or so ago. Furthermore, I remember very clearly in the 80s when every guy had a pink shirt in his closet. But, shouldn't those kids be given a choice if they want to wear such a TYPICAL gender-specific colored shirt?

I'm a mom of boys. Three of them. Two are in a private school. A private school that likes to make a new t-shirt for everything. Field Day was no exception. Pay $5 and your child can have their Field Day t-shirt and wear it on Field Day and it's so exciting. I'm thinking... a cardinal red t-shirt that says something like "FWC Field Day" on it. But it was something different altogether. Each teacher was able to select the color of said Field Day t-shirt and Josh's teacher. Yeah, she selected FUCHSIA!?! He saw the t-shirt and was mortified. These are young men... who are starting to develop a sense of style and of their own identity. They have to conform to uniform regulation day in and day out. This teacher is in a class in which the majority of her students are BOYS and she chooses FUCHSIA?!! I just think it's wrong. My son was mortified. Yeah, it's just a shirt color but if you're choosing something for an entire classroom -- there are so many other colors under the rainbow she could have chosen and different hues of each that's it's just... pathetic, at best... to force such a GIRLIE color upon these boys.

Flash forward to this morning. I went to a parent's meeting about a school trip for the 5th grade class. They leave in their red uniform shirt and then during the day one day, they're to wear their Field Day t-shirts. This trip went from awesome, to something he's simply going tolerate now. He hates pink THAT much.

And frankly, I don't blame him. I do, too.

We skipped Field Day the first grade year because the t-shirts were LAVENDER tie-dye. Seriously, people.... I'm sure that 95% of elementary teachers are women but just because they're estrogen factories sportin' mammaries, doesn't mean that 95% of students share the same anatomy. Do you students a favor.... pick something a little less GIRL.

I'm annoyed, so I wrote a note to the principal. I'm sure my kids will be blacklisted now but I've never been one to sit idly by when I see an injustice.

2 comments:

  1. Although my son is very close to graduation and we haven't been 'guilt-ed' into buying any class t-shirts lately I(we) remember the days... remembered but not missed.
    Good news, it gets better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My boy would be thrilled...he's all about different colors and thinks that blue is "boring." I think this could be a pretty powerful lesson in WHY we think certain colors are "girlie" and others are "masculine." Colors are just colors...What I'm not sure of is whether Josh is in a right age bracket for such a lesson...I'm entirely clueless as I have yet to reach this age and know not what the mindset is. All I know is if I told Jay he was going to get to wear a hot pink shirt, he'd jump up and down for joy and run right off to find some awful orange or yellow plaid shorts to wear with it! :-)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to show some love. I had to turn the comment moderation back on for the asshats that feel it necessary to spam blogs. Sorry for the interruption.