Kids’ Shoes Aren’t Sexist

Every week a different store comes under scrutiny for allegedly being sexist or promoting gender stereotypes. This week, Clarks the shoe shop is under fire from several serial offenders over the names of some of its kids’ shoes.

The shoes in questions are a pair of girls’ school shoes called “Dolly Babe” to which the boys’ equivalent is a pair of football themed shoes called “Leader Game”. Sure, to some it may seem that Clarks are implying that it’s boyish to be a strong leader while the poor girls can only now aspire to be Dolly Babes (whatever that means). However, what wasn’t mentioned is that Clarks have several pairs of girls’ shoes that have so-called empowering names. It didn’t take any more than a few words typed into Google to prove that all the girls’ shoes aren’t called “Kitchen Time”, “Glass Ceiling” or “Get Married To A Rich Man and Have A Few Kids”. Why didn’t the people complaining dig a little deeper and see that some of the girls’ shoes are called things like “cool”, “preppy” and “hero”?

Most of the shoes’ names are just gibberish anyway for both genders.

If you scrutinise anything enough, you can come up with something to get upset over. For example, why aren’t these social justice warriors advocating for disabled children? Clarks sell a pair of boys’ shoes called “Comic Walk” which, one might say, could exclude people with any sort of physical impairment from being able to buy them as it ridicules their condition.

Ask any kid what kind of shoes they have on and none of them will reply “Oh well these are Clarks Fizz Wizz Tinkles 3600”. Instead, most kids would probably say “Dunno… black ones?”. The only people bothered by this are people who clearly have so few actual problems in life they have the time and energy to whine about names of shoes that are only really for the benefit of stock management. If your kids are so bothered by the names of their shoes to the point that it causes any hindrance in life then they’re going to fall flat on their face when they encounter a real problem.

Look, if you’re going to take time out of your day to complain about something as trivial as footwear that’s up to you. If you’re willing to spend your time and effort tweeting and writing to companies then why not complain about something a bit more relevant, like companies using zero hour contracts or councils refusing to empty the dog poo bins regularly enough. Stop calling everything “sexist”- it takes strength away from the word when it is used in genuine situations.