I’m not in the least an anti-gendered baby clothes maniac but people are truly taking it too far with pink vs blue.
Klara has many pink outfits. But she also has clothes in other colors because we’d both go nuts if it were only pink all the time. So today I put powder-blue pants and a grey onesie on her for her walk.
Outside, we met a woman with a 6-month-old granddaughter. I told her I also had a girl and that my daughter’s name was Klara. Still, throughout the conversation, the woman kept referring to Klara as “your boy” and “son.” I’d gently correct her, and she’d look at Klara’s blue pants. Every time. (She didn’t see anything but the pants because Klara’s upper body was shielded from the sun by a muslin sheet.)
Her granddaughter’s name is Emerson, like in Ralph Waldo. Yet I managed to retain the information that she’s a girl on a first try. It’s weird that people would be so enthralled by the color blue that they would disregard clear verbal clues as to a child’s sex in favor of what they think the color of the clothes tells them.
Clarissa's Blog 
It’s not the color. It’s the woman’s listening skills.
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One time I saw a baby wearing a blue onesie covered in footballs and a pink Disney princess bib. How would this woman have reacted to that I wonder
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It’s amazing how some people process information when you’re talking to them.
When I was stationed in Germany, I once went into a German store and started talking to a saleswoman in fluent German. Apparently noting my accent, she answered me in English. I kept talking German and she, English as the conversation moved on.
Finally, another clerk said to her, “Why are you talking to him in English?”
The first saleswoman blinked, looked startled, and then said, “Why, hasn’t he been speaking English?”
BTW, Klara looks best in her green outfits — like a little leprechaun.
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It’s also amusing how many people throughout much of Europe (especially western Europe) think their own English is superior to any foreigner’s command of the local language.
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The first saleswoman blinked, looked startled, and then said, “Why, hasn’t he been speaking English?
I can’t tell whether the first clerk was being extra snotty or genuinely didn’t register that she was having a bilingual conversation with you.
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It was obvious from her manner that she was clueless.
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It’s true, I love her in green.
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Yet I managed to retain the information that she’s a girl on a first try. It’s weird that people would be so enthralled by the color blue that they would disregard clear verbal clues as to a child’s sex in favor of what they think the color of the clothes tells them.
If the stereotype is powerful enough, people will disregard competing information in favor of what’s in their head. It’s comical, if frustrating.
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Exactly. And it’s almost scary to observe how a person literally bars information that contradicts the learned stereotype from reaching her mind.
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My 10 month old daughter doesn’t have much hair and wears a lot of her older brother’s perfectly good old t-shirts, so is very often mistaken for a boy. The other day, we were in the park and she was entertaining a small crowd of older children (maybe 8 yr olds). To my amusement, they started debating intensely whether she was a girl or a boy because she was wearing pink pants and a blue shirt – how terribly confusing! (I am never offended by the misidentification, but it does confirm how just how early these labels start.)
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