A bit too pretty in pink?

Who says that all little girls want to live in a pink world? In an era of aggressive gender-specific marketing, ITA O'KELLYlooks at the dangers of stereotyping children

I AM WALKING hand in hand with my four-year-old to Montessori school. She is her usual bubbly self, but I have the air of a woman who has concluded a successful mission. In the larger scheme of things I have not done a great thing, but to me I have achieved the impossible. I have managed to purchase a winter coat for a pre-school girl that is green in colour. I repeat, the coat is green and not pink.

I only realise the significance of my feat when another mother asks how long I have been designing and making children’s coats. After I have recovered my composure at being mistaken for a woman who can sew, I announce that I bought it in a shop. All eyes then settle on my lips to hear where such treasure can be found.

Like most people who have a small girl in the house, we live in an almost exclusively pink world, whether we like it or not. As I am not a naturally frilly person myself, I have tried to avoid this gender-definition dictate which states that all things female must be pink. But toyshops and clothes shops are thwarting my efforts – a quick jaunt through many of them reveals a sea of pink merchandise.

When I was a small girl, my gender was conveyed to the world by my long hair and nothing else. But today my daughter, just like all of her friends, has pink bedding, pink bedroom furniture, a pink bike and scooter.

Before I became immersed in a pink world myself, I used to wonder whether it was women themselves who wanted to brandish the pink and parade their own inner princess through their daughters. To some extent it is. I have met women who told me that they couldn’t wait for the moment when their daughters would start ballet. They have also confessed that they bring their girls to the supermarket in the ballet gear, to prolong the pleasure. I have met other women who, after three boys and a world of khaki, navy blue and sludge brown, have then had a girl, and say: “Pink. Bring it on please. The more the merrier.”

The lure of the tiara is an integral part of this pink world for under-eights. Princess mania began in earnest about seven years ago when a Disney consumer products executive noticed that the little girls at one of Disney’s ice shows were arriving in their own makeshift princess outfits. He had the idea of rounding up some of Disney’s better-known heroines, including Cinderella and Pocahontas, and marketing them as a separate line called Disney Princess. The result has been princess idolatry around the globe, with toothbrushes, DVDs, jigsaws, books, lip gloss, princess clothing, and thousands of other items on the market.

I do wonder about the merit of such stereotyping at such a young age. The message here is that the role of a girl, like the pink princess, is to use all her charms to attract a boy, Prince Charming. And the underlying message is that the prettier you are, the more likely you are to live happily ever after in the castle.

Prof Sheila Greene, director of the Children’s Research Centre in Trinity College Dublin, says that gender-specific marketing at children is now at an all-time high.

“There is no doubt that by accepting this marketing message, your child is conforming to a set of rules that determines what being a girl is about. It is certainly good preparation for becoming a mini Posh Spice. I think that the biggest problem with this type of gender stereotyping of children is the possibility of bullying that could arise for those children who cross the boundaries and don’t conform. I think that parents need to resist it and bring their dissatisfaction to the attention of the shops.”