Love your blog, came across it reading a review of women’s work by Barber, but i can’t find your review.

@Lydia: The ghettoisation is terrifying, isn’t it? What really sticks in my craw is the way advertisers can say, with total accuracy, that this is what kids want – as if those desires hadn’t been carefully manipulated from before they were born.

@Lucy: Yay, a subscriber! I’m really interested to hear about your step-sister, because of course the notional girl imagined by the product designers presumably doesn’t exist – everyone chooses some aspects of what they’re offered and rejects others. But the stereotypes are still harmful, I think.

It’s particularly interesting to me because I’ve watched this stuff in action while being a helper with Brownies (seeing the variety of things the girls wore when not in uniform, some totally unsuitably sparkly or frilly) and because I have an 11-year-old step-sister (I’ve known her since she was who’s into some stereotypically girly things and not others. It’s good to be reminded to think carefully about these things and to consider what messages I reinforce to the children and young people I’m in contact with.

In a way it’s almost a forced ghettoization. We are branded from a very young age, a time before we are able to fight back. Terrifying.

Like you, I think craft leads to greater topics. I spend a lot of time writing about the broader implications of craft in our everyday lives. It’s a meaty topic, so I hope you continue on with posts like these. Will you? Let me know!

It’s good to know that there are some people who think for themselves on this little island welive on. Thanks – I will have a look at Aibhe’site.

@Ailbhe: Oho, yes. Anything I’ve got O and F from the Girl section has tended to be flimsier and less generously cut than their Boy clothes. Every little helps, of course – as we hang and fold our little girls’ skimpy, delicate garb we get to reflect on how frail and precious they are.

@Lupin: Thanks for stopping by! Yes, I worry about the sexist messages that are thrown at my boys, but I can barely imagine what a shrieking harpy I’d be if I had girls. My boys will grow up to be beneficiaries of the patriarchy, and as long as I can teach them to be aware of that, and not to be entitled arses (often), I’ll probably feel relatively OK. Which doesn’t help you, of course! I thoroughly recommend reading Ailbhe’s blog (linked above), by the way: she has two girls, and is very wise.

@Caro: Yeah, I got the wholesale rejection of Girliness too. I think it was a byproduct of 70s feminism. It’s harder to make a case for valuing the unvalued than it is for allowing greater access to the loci of power, innit.

@Amber: I have the dilemma of how to react to my sons’ desires too, but in the other direction – the Oyster is big into swords and bows and arrows. I have a strong reaction against weapons of any kind, but I feel that if I banned them, they’d gain cachet and mystique. Plus, I remember enjoying playing with a bow and arrow when I was a kid. So I talk myself around. (Guns are another question. I don’t know the answer to that one; fortunately, it hasn’t arisen yet.) It helps that he loves pink and purple, and has been thoroughly brainwashed by my rants about the designers of children’s clothes

@Andrew: Oh, the infantilisation of women is a WHOLE other cauldron of rageousness! It’s all about boxing in – as Kate says above. If you start young enough (and they DO), the chances of people challenging their conditioning are lessened.