Daughters Can Be Rad Just Like Their Dad: Asda’s Think Not

The definition of RAD generally is awesome, so when I saw a range of clothes at Asda’s the other day, I instantly thought, yes my one twin girl, R, would love these. However, my heart instantly sank, and you may ask why?

While some retailers in the high street have now done away with girls and boys clothing departments namely John Lewis, many supermarkets still refuse to accept that gender dividing clothes is quite honestly unacceptable to most parents.

The truth is not all girls are princesses and love the colour pink, and not all boys love the colour blue and are rough and boisterous. However they still refuse to cross over the clothes or shoes to both genders, instead they make a point of dividing the departments without shame, trying to influence girls one way and boys the other.

This also makes parents uncomfortable because they have to do as I do and go to the boys shoe department because one of my twin girls simply doesn’t like sparkles etc. She is also starting to realise that her shoes and some of her clothes are being picked from the boys department. This could ultimately have a detrimental effect as she grows up. My big question is why bother with separate boys and girls department? What is achieved by it? Just put it altogether as a children’s department.

While walking through the ‘boys and girls’ department, I came across this absolutely amazing range of clothes with the use of the word ‘Rad’, but there was no doubt they were totally aimed at boys with the colour and design etc. They had boys clothes stamped all over them. Why did they not come in a selection of colours? My twin girl M loves pink and those sort of colours so why not make them in that colour too? She simply doesn’t wear grey or black, and just because it’s in pink does that not make her Rad like her dad? I have been known to wear pink on occasion!

RAD is of course a word that was originated in America, so it’s no surprise to me that Asda are starting to sell children’s clothing with reference to the word RAD, because Asda is owned by the massive American retailer Walmart.

The main reason we went to Asda was to get our five year old twins new shoes and trainers. R took one look at the girls section of shoes and instantly said I don’t like any of them, so we went off to the boys section for shoes. R instantly saw a pair of Star Wars trainers and loved them. This is the bit I struggle with.

Why oh why weren’t these shoes in the girls section as well? The new Star Wars film is the Last Jedi which the girls have seen. The film has a very strong female lead in it namely Rey. She is an independent and determined woman and easily an equal to any men, actually possibly better than a lot of men. So if Star Wars can can show a woman as a positive, strong female. Of course, where men can achieve women can as well. So why are supermarkets still driving the belief that Star Wars is only for boys, because it’s not, girls love it too!

Gender stereotyping is unfortunately not changing in some areas of our lives and this is not helped by marketing policies of large corporations, who seemed determined to split the children’s departments into boys and girls. Let’s do away with this labelling of our children, and just let them be children and wear what they like, and also play with any toys they want.

We need to raise our daughters to be strong girls to develop into strong women, where absolutely anything is achievable, and society removing all restrictions and boundaries to the females of the world, so our daughters can become leaders and follow their dreams without risk of being held back.

I would love to know what you think.