shoes

["Nancy Whittier" <nwhittie email smith edu>]

And the boys' shoes are just less fun than the girls', I think.  They
are drab, vs. the colorful decorated girls' ones.  I buy whichever our
older son prefers, but my partner is much more reluctant to buy him
girls' shoes or clothes, so if she takes him shopping, he gets the navy
and olive green.  

I think there is much less gender-neutral stuff than there was even a
few years ago.  We shop at consignment stores a lot, where there is a
larger selection and where some of the older clothes seem more neutral
and varied to me.

Nancy 

>>> "Susan Tomalin" <susan_tomalin hotmail com> 01/19/04 4:03 PM >>>
Hi All,

I took my two shoe shopping yesterday and they had lots of fun looking
at 
all the shoes.  Both of them seemed particularly keen on a pair of
bright 
pink shoes with butterflies on.  My immediate reaction was "you can't 
possibly have those, they're GIRLS shoes".  They both ended up with
'boys' 
shoes- dark blue.  It struck me that there were no gender-neutral shoes
in 
the shop- they were all either fancy with sparkles and pink bits, bows
etc 
or blue/black with dinosaurs/robots etc.

Any thoughts?  I'm in the UK so I don't know if American shoe shops are
less 
stereotyped!!  It's not a huge issue, but it just made me think about
the 
culture we're in that keeps boys and girls think so separate, even for 
toddlers, and my own attitude towards the pink shoes that I assumed were

inappropriate for twin boys.

Susan in England,
Joshua and Caleb, 19 months.