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LEWISHAM: Sainsbury's supermarket removes 'sexist' children's clothes

9:10am Friday 26th March 2010 in News By Dan Keel

Abi and Emma Moore from Pinkstinks Abi and Emma Moore from Pinkstinks

A CAMPAIGN group has won its battle to persuade a major supermarket to remove "sexist" children's clothing from its 500 stores.

The Lewisham-based organisation Pinkstinks complained to Sainsbury's three weeks ago about a range of children's clothing which included a doctor's coat with the word 'boy' written on it.

Other items included a pilot, superhero and soldier outfit labelled 'boy' and a 1940s nurse outfit labelled 'girl'.

Pinkstinks co-founder Abi Moore said: “We asked what sort of sexist message this was sending to girls about what they are fit for and what their aspirations might be.

"As far as we are aware, there are more women at medical school than men nowadays."

She added: "One of our most popular role models is Flight Lieutenant Kirsty Moore, the RAF's first female Red Arrows pilot.

"This is an amazing achievement and yet Sainsbury’s pilots’ outfits were also labelled ‘boy’, as were the army outfits - even though women have been fighting alongside men at the front line for years.

“We simply drew to Sainsbury’s attention the fact it would be a hugely confident and independent little girl who would dare risk the ridicule of her friends by asking for a costume in-store clearly ‘meant’ for boys."

This week Sainsbury's agreed to remove this range of clothing and announced it will use "non-gender specific" labels on its new children's costume range on sale in July.

A spokesman for the company said: "We made the change as we feel it isn't acceptable to suggest that certain professions are the reserve of any gender."

Pinkstinks

Pinkstinks is a campaign group which strives to "challenge the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls' lives".

In November last year it called for a boycott of all Early Learning Centre stores, claiming it is one of the worst offenders of the “pinkification” of girls’ toys.

Comments(21)

porkpie says...
9:35am Fri 26 Mar 10

She added: "One of our most popular role models is Flight Lieutenant Kirsty Moore, the RAF's first female Red Arrows pilot.......
But she needs help reversing into a parking space.

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Biscuit says...
10:15am Fri 26 Mar 10

And the award for the most annoying bored housewives goes to...

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LNN says...
10:53am Fri 26 Mar 10

Maybe a more worthwhile campaign would of been to rid this and other stores of the tacky little underwear sets they sell for 5 - 10 year old girls...

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eleanargh says...
11:14am Fri 26 Mar 10

This is excellent! Well done Pinkstinks!

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derekhope says...
11:42am Fri 26 Mar 10

But is wouldn't be a little boy or girl who would (Because of ridicule)be afraid to ask for something if it had the opposite gender shown on the "Label", only the parent would know. It's upsetting that pressure groups seek to change the world (On behalf of others). It's the PC brigade again, and I bet this Pinky lot consists of mainly women.

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Sayso says...
11:46am Fri 26 Mar 10

LNN wrote:
Maybe a more worthwhile campaign would of been to rid this and other stores of the tacky little underwear sets they sell for 5 - 10 year old girls...
I completely agree.
Jumping on their feminist soapboxes and screeching about such a trivial issue as 'boy' and 'girl' being written on some clothes hardly qualifies these self-appointed moral guardians as modern heroines.
A far more worthy campaign would be if these women targeted supermarkets and clothing stores that sell extremely provocative clothing which sexualises young girls.
Some of the skimpy outfits on offer and some of the slogans on t-shirts would shock me if I saw them on grown women never mind seven or eight year old girls.
I don't have any respect for these Pinkstinks women at all right now after this trivial 'sexist' campaign and their pathetic anti-pink grumble. However, I might hold them in some esteem if they persuaded shops to treat kids as kids instead instead of suggesting to parents it's ok to dress your little girl as a glamour model.

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It's Me again ! says...
1:03pm Fri 26 Mar 10

I can understand this actually, although I do think this group really needs to get a life !

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Erastus says...
1:55pm Fri 26 Mar 10

What absolute nonsense all this is. Obviously boys are going to want to dress as soldiers and girls as nurses. It's a shame it's not the case in real life, what with women getting in the way in the armed forces and men entering into the nursing profession. I think that if my son were to turn to me and tell me and say that he would rather dress as a nurse than a soldier, I would quickly come to the conclusion that he was more of a Martha than an Arthur and start flicking through News Shopper for local ballet classes.
Why can't girls be allowed to be girls and boys to be boys? Childhood is short enough as it is without kids having to be politically correct!

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Erastus says...
1:57pm Fri 26 Mar 10

Oh, and it is only right that boys should play the doctor role; if only THIS were indeed the norm in real life too ...

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SE9,10,18 says...
2:48pm Fri 26 Mar 10

The members of this campaign group need to find something far more productive to do with themselves. 1. I am proud of our women on the frontline and also happy to have a male nurse treat me. The fact is that when a woman/man enters a world dominated by the opposite sex, they have to deal with it. Why try to pretend that the majority of nurses are male? Clearly they aren't. Why pretend most soldiers are women? It is not true. Get over it. 2. When young we automatically take on the view that women are nurses, teachers, pop-stars, hairdressers, dancers and florists. Men are soldiers, footballers, builders, pilots and boxers . Thats just the way the world is. Why over complicate it? That doesnt mena that we cant choose to be what we want to be. Everyone is individual. But we have to have some gender distinction. We cant be this wishy washy race of butch women and feminine men. I like the fact my partner is a mans man. I am a girly girl. Nothing wrong with that. I watch football with him and enjoy it (sometimes!). He does the dishes and he will watch trashy TV with me. Dressing me in pink as a child really done me no harm! 3. I like my girls to be girls. I like to dress them pretty. I like buying them pink and sparkly toys. BUT they will also play in the mud and kick a ball around. I think the group is making a problem when there isn't one!

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Erastus says...
4:53pm Fri 26 Mar 10

How I yearn for the good old days, when men were men and women were women.
These days men are women, women are men and some still haven't made up their minds.
I think the rot well and truly set in when Lily Savage had the operation. Still, I suppose a stint fronting Blankety Blank is enough to turn anyone.

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madras says...
5:14pm Fri 26 Mar 10

pink stinks? try telling that to a 6 year old girl who's fallen for the 'magic' of the disney princesses!

get a life - this just isn't worth worrying about - go find something useful to do...

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Biscuit says...
8:44pm Fri 26 Mar 10

Pink Stinks? This must be very upsetting for little girls who like and wear the colour to get told by these two dreadful women that what they are wearing stinks?

A pair of adults resulting to playground-type bullying.

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Nikki Thatcher says...
8:55pm Sat 27 Mar 10

Yawn.....yawn.....ya
wn....get a life pinkstinks!
It's stupid people like you that actually makes it an issue.
Why don't you use this energy of yours and focus on something that actually is important!

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ksc says...
12:47pm Sun 28 Mar 10

Yes love... what's for dinner.

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The southerner says...
1:37pm Mon 29 Mar 10

Agree with most of the comments above. How about education to provide an informed choice rather than the removal of choice? Just because you disagree with something, doesn't mean your should get it removed.

How about devoting your time to a much more worthwhile cause, rather than such drival as this pointless campaign?

The smug, self-satisfied picture speaks volumes of these two misguided "guardians."

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YaYaYa says...
2:09pm Tue 30 Mar 10

These 'campaigners' are hypocrites.

By getting these clothes removed from the supermarket shelves, they are dictating what our children can and therefore cannot wear.

So our girls are not allowed to wear pink and our boys can't dress as soldiers??

I disagree and think that Sainsbury's comes to it's senses and puts the clothes back out on sale - oh and if they could tell me when they've done it I'll pop down and have myself a little shopping spree.

Pinkstinks is not a 'campaign'... it's a sexist witch hunt led by bored housewives with gender issues.

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Shopperholic says...
3:21pm Tue 30 Mar 10

YaYaYa wrote:
These 'campaigners' are hypocrites. By getting these clothes removed from the supermarket shelves, they are dictating what our children can and therefore cannot wear. So our girls are not allowed to wear pink and our boys can't dress as soldiers?? I disagree and think that Sainsbury's comes to it's senses and puts the clothes back out on sale - oh and if they could tell me when they've done it I'll pop down and have myself a little shopping spree. Pinkstinks is not a 'campaign'... it's a sexist witch hunt led by bored housewives with gender issues.
Who is saying that girls are not allowed to wear pink? Isn't this campaign about reducing, not removing entirely, the amount of pink stuff branded as being especially for girls? As a parent of two girls I completely agree that some shops become a sea of sickly pink and lilac in the girly aisles whilst the boys products are a nice mix of blues, greens, reds etc. Small girls just get brainwashed into wanting pink all the time because that is what is relentlessly marketed to them.

Boys are perfectly allowed to dress as soldiers - no one is saying they can't. But why should soldiers/doctors be boys only? Make them unisex, don't put them in the boys section and everyone can choose what they want. That's not sexist - it's limiting children to certain gender-specific products that's sexist!

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thescientist says...
10:45pm Wed 31 Mar 10

Although I don't agree with the entire Pinkstinks campaign, I do agree that the outfits should not have been labelled 'girl' or 'boy'.

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GODUPERE2 says...
11:41pm Wed 31 Mar 10

Where are the husbands? They must be mad to sit at home waiting for their tea. These women should be with them asking them what they were going to watch on tv tonight!

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RamJag says...
5:39pm Sun 4 Apr 10

Some people have way too much time on their hands. Shame that they can't use it more constructively instead of attempting to strong-arm stores, and their customers over something that was never a problem.

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