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Kmart Slammed For Promoting Stereotypes In Boys And Girls Clothing

Kmart Slammed For Promoting Stereotypes In Boys And Girls Clothing

A disgruntled shopper has complained about how girl's clothes always tell them how to feel, while boys are told to seek adventure.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

A Kmart shopper has called out Kmart for continuing to institutionalise gender stereotypes on young kids.

The retailer sells literally thousands of products all around the country and they have a whole bunch of designs for boys and girls.

But Barbara Bryan was furious when she was browsing the children clothing aisles and found a stark difference between the messages that are promoted for each gender.

"What are we doing to our girls? Let's compare girls and boys shirts at Kmart," she said in a now viral TikTok video.

"Why are we telling girls how to feel via their clothing? They see each other's shirts telling them how to act - be happy, love, be perfect."

When she travelled a few aisles over, she noticed boys are urged to seek out the fun things in life.

"Oh look, these shirts encourage boldness, adventure, fun. There's no shirts telling them how they should feel or behave," she said.

There is a big difference between the two forms of gendered clothing. Girls t-shirts have slogans like 'bright as can be', 'take it easy' and 'Aloha'.

While these are only just a few examples, Barbara says it's emblematic of how girls are constantly told how to feel and to just smile as they go through the world.

On the flip side, boys are dared to be dangerous, to take like by the horns and ride it out. The t-shirts featured in Ms Ryan's video have slogans saying 'adventure', 'alpine trail' and one even had a picture of a bear.

letsgoaussie/TikTok

This isn't the first time Kmart has been accused of trying to instil gender stereotypes in children's clothing.

A petition was launched last month to get Kmart to stop separating boy's and girl's clothing.

Sarah Rogers was sick of seeing the shopping giant segregate clothing based on gender and was trying to drum up support to make a more inclusive area.

She wrote on her Get Up campaign: "Young children are told which colours, clothing styles and even interests they are permitted to have through the choices they have available in their respective gender's clothing department.

"Many parents of young boys will tell you their son loves pink, rainbows and flowers but simply cannot wear clothes in these styles like girls do without taking them from the girls' section, which sends them a strong message that the things they like are 'wrong'.

"Similarly, many parents of girls lament the lack of dinosaurs, trucks, and non-frilly styles in the girls' section."

The retailer told 7News the boys and girls section 'reflects a majority of the way our Kmart customers shop' and insists they aren't intentionally stereotyping the clothing based on gender.

Featured Image Credit: letsgoaussie/TikTok

Topics: Australia