Creepy Cabinet Children's Department: too short, too sexy, too provocative
My daughter needs new shirts and comfortable pants. So we are heading for the Swedish fashion house of our trust. The disillusionment follows us on the heels. Apparently my daughter at the age of six is too tall for child-friendly children's clothing. With dress size 134 it looks pretty bleak on the clothes rails of the girls department. Even darker in summer than in winter, which is due to the fact that children between 6 and 14 are shopping in the same assortment. Here, too tight hot pants, short mini-skirts, sexy bikinis, glitter tops and Lolita-style T-shirts line up. Jeans are available for girls in super skinny, with strange washes. Only the jogging pants look comfortable. Unfortunately, the t-shirts are not getting better. Hardly a top without comic cartoon character or hippem saying, let alone a color other than pink in all shades. The worst thing is that the clothes are sometimes so provocative that even with dress size 134 should be at least 18 years old.
Nobody should stare my daughter on the butt!
Child pornography is a crime. #Metoo is on everyone's lips and women around the world are fighting for their rights and against sexism. But the children's departments of the big fashion chains have nothing better in store than to impose even their smallest gender roles. Left pink, purple and possibly turquoise, right blue, gray and brown: These are still the common color patterns of the children's department. The prints are similarly unremarkable: Little Star, Sweet Princess and Little Bitch next to Wild Boy, Dinosaurs, Astronauts and Monster Trucks? Apart from the flood of merchandise clothing. Wild Border Crossers vs. sweet darling.
Why does a baby have to wear a bikini?
The larger the sizes, the tighter the fabric? at least in the girls section. You have to look for a normal shorts with the boys. Whether they fit is another question. This starts the gendern already in the baby department. Sure, at six months you should urgently wear a bikini on the beach! Then you finally realize that this is a little girl and not a unisex baby. But also skimpy jeans, ruffled hair bands and tulle skirts provide delighted cheers on Instagram followers, friends and family. But for what? Just the idea that I should force my own baby bacon in something tight, makes claustrophobia rise in me. Why do you do this to your baby, who also needs his whole little body to move at all?
Sexualization in childhood
A boy who goes shopping in the girls department is as rare as a woman who earns much more than her male counterparts. After all, there are Wendepailletten now with superheroes and Co. But mostly for boys OR girls. A boy in pink pants is still being laughed at, as is a princess robe? also and especially in the parents' house. The strict separation of boys 'and girls' fashion in department stores is not exactly progressive, but rather drives gender thinking much more. Best also standardized in exact dimensions and sizes. And what is really scary: Often we do not even realize that we are still pretty much stuck in these roles, because we pretend to have the (choice) to choose. Unfortunately we do not have them in the reality of the changing room.
