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View Full Version : Gap CEO Promises More ‘Gender Neutral Clothing’ After ‘Girl Who Likes Boy Stuff’ Complains



Teh One Who Knocks
04-03-2017, 12:11 PM
By Jillian Kay Melchior - Heat Street


http://i.imgur.com/o9GfVNfh.jpg

The chief executive of Gap sent a personal letter this week replying to a 5-year-old girl who asked the retailer to carry less gendered children’s attire.

Alice Jacobs, 5, is “a girl who likes boy stuff,” refuses to wear dresses “and “doesn’t mind being confused for a boy,” wrote her mom, Beth, in a Washington Post op-ed published in early March. Instead of ribbons and curls, she’s into dinosaurs, planets, bugs and reptiles.

The piece included a letter dictated by Alice, where she complimented Gap’s “really cool” boys’ shirts. “Can you make some cool girls’ shirts please?” the tomboy said. “Or, can you make a ‘no boys or girls’ section?”

Alice’s entreaty was picked up by other national media, and it eventually ended up on the desk of Gap’s top executive, Jeff Kirwan. “You are right, I think we can do a better job offering even more choices that appeal to everyone,” Kirwan wrote to Alice, also enclosing some t-shirts for her. “I’ve talked with our designers and we’re going to work on even more fun stuff that I think you’ll like.”

Kirwan also noted that some of its existing t-shirts for girls include firetrucks, dinosaurs, sharks, footballs and superheroes.

Teen Vogue—which has increasingly made gender identity a priority in its coverage-—reported that Gap is creating a gender-neutral clothing line. By deadline, Gap neither confirmed nor denied that claim.

The magazine also noted that a handful of other brands have changed their children’s offerings to meet culture’s increasingly bendable ideas about gender; Target and Land’s End already include “more inclusive options in their kids’ section.”

Muddy
04-03-2017, 01:01 PM
I like it. Not all girls are prissy pink.

DemonGeminiX
04-03-2017, 03:37 PM
If she likes more boy stuff then why doesn't she just wear the boy stuff? Really easy, Mom. If she points and says, "I want to wear that!", then just buy it for her and let her wear it. Does it really matter if it has 'boys' stitched on the frickin' tag?

Muddy
04-03-2017, 04:41 PM
If she likes more boy stuff then why doesn't she just wear the boy stuff? Really easy, Mom. If she points and says, "I want to wear that!", then just buy it for her and let her wear it. Does it really matter if it has 'boys' stitched on the frickin' tag?

Boy and girls clothing are constructed differently. It's not just a label.

DemonGeminiX
04-03-2017, 05:18 PM
The little girl doesn't give a damn how it's constructed. Neither should anybody else.

Muddy
04-03-2017, 05:30 PM
The little girl doesn't give a damn how it's constructed. Neither should anybody else.

You don't know what you're talking about. Children's clothing is not simply cookie cutter with a different sticker stamped on the front or a different color scheme.

DemonGeminiX
04-03-2017, 06:24 PM
Or maybe that's what you've grown accustomed to believe. Take your fatherly bias out of it and look at it objectively. Scientifically speaking, at 5 years old, there's not a whole lot of difference between a boy and girl's bodies, aside from the obvious primary sex characteristics that makes a boy a boy and a girl a girl, namely their sex organs. The differences in secondary sex characteristics (body shape, breasts, hips, shoulders, etc) don't come into play until puberty, and even then, how clothing is constructed is kind of a sketchy issue. I've seen guys wearing women's clothing and have it fit well (90s in the city... pretty common place), and I've had plenty of girlfriends that have stolen my shirts (and even one that stole a pair of my Levis) and have worn them well.

Muddy
04-03-2017, 06:44 PM
It's not bias.. It's first hand experience.. The cuts are different.. girls sleeves are generally cropped and higher, boys t-shirts typically stop above the elbow and inch or two. The same is with the undergarments and such. All the article basically says is they want to make clothes that are gender neutral meaning if someone wants a longer cut in the sleeves they don't have to get a dinosaur to go with it. I understand what you mean about youths bodies being similar at that age and I agree.. The realty is though that the clothing companies (in general) dont construct that way.. They build according to the image they are trying to present.

Muddy
04-03-2017, 06:54 PM
Check it out.. Here's a simple search... I just screen capped the first results as not to unfairly cherry pick.. I think you can see the general gist. In cut, color, and message..

http://i68.tinypic.com/jrp3bk.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/ztcikl.jpg

DemonGeminiX
04-04-2017, 12:14 AM
So you're going by what the industry markets as gender acceptable clothing? Who cares what the industry says what a girls t-shirt should look like? This particular little girl liked the boys' shirts better. What's the crime in letting her wear them?

Muddy
04-04-2017, 12:27 AM
This story is bigger than that one kid..