Tuesday 15 March 2016

Transport Of Delight?

Just a couple of incidents which have lightly irritated me recently. I may be rapidly turning into a Grumpy Old Granny.
The first was a couple of weeks ago. Liz was in labour, nothing I could do except wait, and I wandered into Marks and Spencer. There on the sale rail was a cute tee shirt. It was exactly the same shades as the Gidday cardi I had recently knitted. So I pottered up to the counter with my 99p. 
"Is it for a special baby?" asked the assistant "My new grandchild" I said "Ooh, when was he born?" "Not here yet, my daughter's still in labour - and we don't know if it is a boy or a girl""Oh...well, I suppose you can give a girl a teeshirt with a car on it..." "Why not? I drove here in my car, there are lots of famous women drivers, women like cars too you know. Look at Susie Perry..""I suppose so. Hope the baby arrives OK""Thankyou, goodbye"
I cannot find a picture of the exact teeshirt - that one is a similar Boden design. But why are all the teeshirts with vehicles on in the boy's section? Boden currently has a cute bicycle teeshirt, and a motorbike one too, in the boys range - and [please don't tell Ruth, Pip or Pat Archer] a tractor one too. Not every little girl wants to wear pink frills and pictures of guinea pigs in party hats, surely? [Not that I can see Liz shelling out £14 for Rosie's tee shirts] M&S are as bad as Boden - pretty frilly pink for girls and cool blues and greys for boys. Pink does not suit everybody!

The second incident was posted on Facebook by a very good friend in Leicester. She said 
"Was waiting for a bus in Kirby Muxloe this morning, when a car with Arriva personnel stopped. The woman got out, explaining that they were picking up passengers and taking them to Hinckley Road as the road into Kirby is impassable with floods. A very kind gesture, I thought. Then the woman remarked, looking at the girl in the back: 'You are of the younger generation, you can look Arriva up on Facebook, and comment' I continued into town, completely deflated!"

OK, my friend is retired - but she comes from a great family of extremely computer literate people, she uses Facebook and reads blogs.

I think it is a little insulting to Senior Citizens to imply that they are not able to access social media. After all, Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the www is in his sixties now. Mind you, I am not sure how often he has to travel on buses in Leicestershire villages... [T B-L was a contemporary of Bob at Queen's College, then came to work here in Ferndown before moving on to CERN. I can't see us ending up in Geneva]

Women drive cars, older people use the Internet. Don't patronise us. OK!! Rant over.






10 comments:

  1. My 85 year old Mother could tell you all you want to know about Formula 1, snooker, rugby and tennis! Do you have an 'Original Factory Shop' near you, Angela. They do 'branded' name stuff at knock-down prices. I totally agree with you about M&S prices. Scandalously over-priced and don't even get me started on Boden pricing!

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    1. There's an OFS near us when we are in Norfolk. I shall check it out after Easter. Thanks for that tip x

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  2. Well said! The days of 'Little lady' are over, although I do love pink!

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  3. There is a Pinkstinks campaign that specifically targets the way media and marketing stereotypes young girls with all things pink, princesses and fairies. It used to be quite prominent but they don't seem to have updated their website for a while. I remember when I had my daughter (she is now 8) how hard it was to get baby clothes that weren't pink. I remember seeing one baby grow, bright pink, with the slogan 'does my bum look big in this?' on it and feeling utter disbelief that anyone could think that was funny. I know it was meant to be funny but the humour left me cold. Needless to say I didn't buy it. I also remember wanting to get her some toy gardening stuff when she was 3 or 4 and the Early Learning Centre sold garden stuff in either pink or blue! I found some in Tescos that was green and yellow.

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    1. Pinkstinks is here http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/ and also here https://twitter.com/pinkstinksuk
      for anyone interested. Thanks MMC for mentioning them. Liz tells me that Joolz Oliver does a fairly gender neutral range for Mothercare too.

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  5. Wasn't there a Flanders & Swann song with that title? Cheers from Carole's chatter

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  6. Yes there was , and they took it from a line in the hymn "the king of love my shepherd is" which is a paraphrase of psalm 23.

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  7. This may not be helpful but would it be a possibility to buy a "boy's" blue item and give it to a girl? What makes it a boy's item?

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  8. Social stereotyping is irritating!!!x

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