Is it my imagination, or is this self-contradictory.

"If a custom becomes near universal there is a danger that we stop noticing it, so we never consider whether there might be an alternative. The colour coding of baby girls and toddlers is becoming such a custom; one that says a great deal about the way we socialise our children and what we teach them about gender."

On the one hand, the author wants us to believe that we no longer give the matter any serious thought - that we "stop noticing it", in fact.

On the other hand, this lack of interest "says a great deal about the way we socialise our children and what we teach them about gender."

The only "great deal" that I can think of, is that we are socializing them to be indifferent to clothes colour (as we ourselves are), and furthermore, we are teaching them that the gender stereotype of clothes colour is nothing to which should be given any serious thought.

(Works for me, by the way.)

Given that it is the punchline of the article, it is somewhat ambiguous. Which goes some way towards explaining the lack of gravity in the article as a whole.

Haha Piper,

I've dressed my daughter in all black before and I reckon she looked awesome! She was a miniature French chique movie chick. Got some strange looks though maybe some of the mothers thought I was raising an emo. They obviously don't know her character.

'
It might have something to do with the dolls dressed as street walkers with attitude.

Like Bratz (which I call Slutz) dolls?

'Wish they had written about physical play, people are much rougher with baby boys although baby girls love really physical play too. And little boys love playing with toy kitchens and dolls same as girls. '

I don't know. I used to think that, but my daughter is obsessed with prams and babies even before my wife had a second. And instead of watching the rugby she just dances to the Haka then goes away once the game starts. The haka really is pretty girlie. But all the little boys I know, only 1 of them likes anything to do with dolls and their mothers have babies in the house. They all want to throw stuff and bash trucks together.

She is a lot rougher with me than I am with her. She's merciless and doesn't care where her feet are stamping when she attacks me. Maybe I'm turning her into a butch lesbian because I don't have any boys to wrestle with. But it wears her out and she goes to sleep easier, something my partner doesn't seem to get.

Houellie,

"Like Bratz (which I call Slutz) dolls?
Yeah, exactly like that. (I call them Tartz)

My daughter was totally into Lego when she was young...all the pirate stuff and knights and castles. They didn't have much in a line of "feminine" Lego then. I've noticed, however, that they do these days - and most of it is pink.

Why has there been such unmitigated nastiness in response to this essay?

After all she is not inciting anyone to commit acts of nastiness, nor is there any nastiness in her essay.

Who knows she may be on to something really important about our understanding of sexuality and gender in 2010. There is a huge amount of ignorance and confusion re this very important matter. The popularity of Vampire films and novels is also indicative of this confusion.

This is a very important matter because our emotional-sexual patterning, and our social indoctrination by the media, especially TV, determines how we respond to quite literally every body and every thing, with no exceptions.

I would suggest that in one way or another this pinkification process is very much related to the sexualization and pornification of everything, especially of little girls. Pornification brought to one and all by TV and "girls" magazine such as Teen Magazine and Girlfriend (published of course by "conservative" media interests)

This is a send up yeah?!

Good griefness. Pink is just a colour. Wear pink, don't wear pink - it doesn't matter.

Will there be an anti-pink movement funded by government to ensure girls are no longer stereotyped by this insidious colour. Some evidence based policy found in comments like "isn't she a pretty one" to justify a new schools based programs for boys and girls where there will be a requirement for 50/50 boys/girls in blue/pink. Where does the madness end?

So what if girls and boys are stereotyped somewhat by coloured clothing. Girls and boys are different. Are we going to become some bland milk society where we won't be satisfied until we are all homogenous robots.

Then we will have articles decrying the lack of individualism and whatever happend to Pink? And thus the roundabout begins again.

C'mon this was a send up really wasn't it?

But Poirot,

the pink lego was brought in by feminists because the harsh masculine functional lego was thought to be a barrier to the caring nurturing (superior) nature of women being allowed fully into the male-dominated domain of building houses and spaceships.

Why cant girls build something not about nasty male war and tall phallic symbol buildings was the cry!

It's a bit rich now to then blame men for patronising girls with pink lego. The serious hard-core stuff is still available to them.

HoHum,

'The popularity of Vampire films and novels is also indicative of this confusion.'
There's no confusion. I think it's pure honesty of the sexual lust of women for The Beast. Taming him with feminine ways and desire, and at the same time abrogating all responsibility for having slutty thoughts.

As for the rest about indoctrination, do you think that if the media decided being gay was cool (hang on... thinking of all the reality TV hosts) that people would change their sexual orientation.

Nope, the media mirrors us. It serves us and it is desperate to give us what we want so we will buy stuff. We want sex!

pelican,

'C'mon this was a send up really wasn't it?'

Oh, if only. It is the state of feminism today. I think it's instructive though, that pink is assumed by the author as derogatory or limiting. The alternate assumption could easily be made that boys are being denied the most desirable colour, because they are not deemed worthy of it. Through a feminist eyes, the whole game really is one of grass is greener. ie penis envy.