A concerned father has taken to Twitter to air his grievances over clothes being sold in Asda – clothes he believes are outright sexist.
Considering the climate of today’s world where gender equality and doing away with gender labels is an important – albeit polarising – agenda, some issues surrounding the subject can be seen as tedious and often ‘trigger’ people who refuse to adapt their train of thought for the sake of progression.
Case-in-point, the response received by one father after he criticised the supermarket giant for their ‘gender-biased’ clothing designs.
[media-credit name=”Jaggery/Georgraph”AlexSelf-described poet, Richard Osmond spotted two long-sleeve shirts in Asda’s clothing section, both of which were clearly designed for a boy and girl.
However, Osmond’s issue wasn’t with the gender labelling (per-se), it was more to do with their seemingly innocuous designs, which clearly labelled which top was for which gender.
Taking a picture of both tops, the burgundy top said ‘Future High Flyer’, while the pink top had a mouse design with the phrase ‘adorable’.
I’ll let you guys figure out which top is for the boys and which top is for girls:
The designs offended Osmond who sent a strongly worded Tweet to Asda, writing:
Baby clothes aisle has a boy side and a girl side. Here’s a sample from each. Because boys achieve great things for themselves and girls are sexy sexy mice.
Can we give Asda some tweet shame over this? #notonmybaby
While the jury remains to be seen whether his discontent with, what he sees as Asda’s gender-biased designs are justified or not, his post nonetheless sparked a debate – as these things tend to do.
He had many supporters who joined in with him, lambasting the supermarket retail giants for their ‘outdated’ and ‘sexist’ ideals for clothing.
Those on Osmond’s side felt Asda’s designs helped reinforce gender roles, where only men can succeed and a woman’s chief concern should be solely focused on her looks.
There were also those who felt Osmond’s argument was flawed in the debate for gender equality – some even thought he was purposely looking for something to be offended by and he just happened to find the most tedious thing in Asda.
They also pointed out to him how no one is forcing him to buy the clothes and the company is ‘simply meeting a demand’.
In between the arguments of whether Asda’s clothes are sexist or not, some found it odd that they, and by extension Osmond, found cartoon mice attractive.
That’s right, the debate on gender roles is nothing compared to the question of: ‘Does Richard Osmond find mice sexy or not?’.
The sexualisation of cartoon mice aside (that’s a phrase I thought I’d never write), Asda released a statement saying:
We offer a wide range of children’s clothing. Our intention is to make clothes people love, never to offend.
If Richard isn’t happy with Asda’s clothing options and is looking for a more gender-neutral range for his kids he should consider shopping at John Lewis, who’ve done away with gender labels in a bid to progress with the times.
