Gender Division in Big W catalogues

Gender/sex divisions are really rampant in society. I mean, while sex divisions may occur for biologically reasons, gender reasons have no cause, I think. 

Below is a page from a Big W catalogue:

There is an immediate division. The girl is outfitted in pink (oh, yes, the only colour that little girls can wear, apparently. All things girls are all things pink!), and the two sets of pink (and kinda purple, but still in the same colour-area) on the same 'row' obviously are targeted - or rather - made for girls. Whilst the little boy gets the dark-blue colours (in the same way that all things girls are pink, people seem to think that all boys only like blue), and again, two sets of clothing on the same row directly correspond to a boy wearing it.
Other than the clothes, something else strikes me. Their poses. The girl has her knees bent in - a sign of cuteness, shyness, and her body is bent away from the camera. The boy, on the other hand has a firm pose, staring more-confidently forward. Again, what does this say about what girls and boys need to conform to. Girl = pink = 'weaker', boy = blue = 'stronger'.

Next up, from the same catalogue;

The boys are wearing darker colours - blue again, and it's close cousin green. The two girls are wearing pink (darker, but still pink-y) and innocent, innocent white.

By boy's faces are facing directly forward. Both of the girls' faces are facing the camera on an angle. Between the two youngest, the contrast in their pose is strong. The boy stands legs appear, arms by his side and looking forward. His head is also tilt up, a sign of confidence, pride, maybe superiority. The girl on the other hand has one hand tucked away, other hand shyly in the hair. Her face is facing partly away and looking down - She looks at the camera through her lashes. In short, compared to the other boy, her pose is somewhat playful, but meek, and, with her head titled slightly downwards, subservient. Any remnant of her stronger -legs apart-ness are ruined by the 'conveniently' placed words/price (in more ways than one)

You can't entirely blame Big W for doing this. Mainstream society does seem to see in this divisionalistic way. But you can blame them for continuing to promote it, especially on things that don't need a gender/sex division.

Girl = Dress

Surf Deviantart's Anime & Manga images, and what do you get? A disproportionate amount of girls are in dress -and where wielding a weapon does not automatically mean practical clothing. Mayhap my displeasure is erroneously placed - a lot of girls do like wearing dresses, after all. And I guess wearing a really short dress wouldn't hamper your movements as long as you don't care about panty shots and the like.

Something that strongly brought this to my attention was the proliferation of Black Rock Shooter fanart. Though, at least the characters aren't wearing scanty armour that would offer no protection at the weakest spots. Just scanty clothing.

[Above image from here]

What can I say? They're both wearing some armour. It's just that that it doesn't cover their heart, ya know?

[Above image found here]

This character might not be a girl as such. Maybe an extremely young adult? But you see, it is so dangerous that the guy finds it necessary to wear copious amount of armour, and yet this girl has barely anything on AND unsuitable footwear???

Not everyone does that to warrior girls though. There are works of girls/women in practical clothing. It's just really really rare...that's all.

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Female Clothing Habits

I remember hearing somewhere, someone saying -or writing- that women's (and girls')^[1] clothing is specifically designed such that the wearer is obliged to have a handbag. In fact, on the rare occasions when I actually do go browsing the clothes section at major retails stores, I find this generally and irritably true. There are exceptions, I think.

Clothing made targeting females often consists of tight clothing. As such, they either contain a) no pockets or b) pockets that useless because the clothing is so tight you can't put anything in the pockets [comfortably] and thus must only be there to look 'cool' ???

Oh no, don't forget that there are specifically loose clothing for women. Ya know, those sport-wear for the puny number of women who actually play sport or exercise or somethin' liek dat. Some contain no pockets, some do. My school sports tracksuit pants contained no pockets; my previous school had a little pocket. A little pocket --which is usable - is better than nothing, of course. Though, if you're exercising, there's not much point in lugging around a handbag.

Then what about loose women's clothing that’s not sport-wear? Of course they exist. Do they have pockets? I don’t remember a satisfying percentage (above 20% would be nice) of having pockets.  Obviously, according to my very limited knowledge, usable pockets in women’s fashion are a no-no.

Note: Hoodies and similar do often have big pockets, whether tight or not. However, on both women’s' and men’s', these pockets are for putting your hands in, because the shape and opening of the pockets themselves aren't made for keeping objects from rolling out.

Another big thing in women’s fashion. Dresses and skirts. The one small pocket on my school’s dress and skirt are laughable. Even though it’s not designed for it, I can’t fit my hand in one of them. I mean, what woman of the right of mind would want pockets on their dress or skirt anyway. Everybody knows that pockets are supposed to only appear on men’s clothing, and women are born to carry handbags. Really, I mean it. I mean, the majority of people (western, maybe) can’t be wrong, can they?

A bit further on skirts; I find that in popular culture and the media, that office women wear those tight-looking skirts. I write ‘tight-looking’ because I’ve never worn one myself, but they look tight because the material always looks like it’s stretched. I ask myself, how do they walk in them? By moving just their lower legs and taking lots and lots of tiny steps, I answer. Well, okay, then how do they go toilet? 0__0 Maybe they don’t. Maybe they wait until they change out of it to go? I do notice that on the train, a huge majority of office-working-looking women wear pants. So, a popular culture that likes seeing women in tight skirts, despite its evident impracticality?

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^[1] The terms woman, girl and female will be used interchangeably here. We all know girls aren't women but the media obviously portrays them as such, and a lot of girls, it appears, want to be older, like women, but when they actually become women, they suddenly want to get younger? ↑