Recently shopping, i picked a cute dress for my newborn granddaughter. My son and daughter-in-law put down the one in pink i selected for our baby saying, they did not favour the typical pink colour associated with girls. Embroidered on the front was the word ‘princess.’ My grownup kids found it too sexist and vain to their taste. Who says blue is the colour for the boys and flowers are for girls. The clothes I observed, they went for, were kind of unisex. This was not the first time I heard on the relevance of going for gender-neutral clothes from the young couple. They tell me how the discrimination started right from a child’s infancy with pink dresses and baby dolls given to girls, and the shorts and shirts and cars being boys’. My children are also against introducing brands to kids which is why they insist, they would have to forego ‘Barbie’ doll for their daughter. It’s important that the playthings or toys would not be gender-specific. From Walt Disney to Pokemon, the young people said, they would try to keep their baby away. Instead, unbranded animations and books on wildlife and nature would be introduced. . Which is why they opted for a neutral name for their baby as well. Well, my granddaughter goes by a tree name. Her middle name is an exotic African wild animal going extinct. Her surname is a concept or way of life. There is no religious hint to the name. This way the couple who have adopted plant-based dietary habit, cut through genders, races and nationalities, saying they do not believe in borders.
Born and raised a vegetarian in India, ideas such as crossdressing and freethinking do not go down readily with me given my conservative background. It remains to be seen how successful the new parents are going to be in carrying out in principle, their kind of universal ideology.
Looks like more guys are on the block sharing the neutral perspective. However, one of my friends opinioned that even this kind of lateral thinking, and even activism which is one step ahead, can be luxuries unaffordable to masses. You have to be privileged to afford the ‘unbranding’ exercise and be choosy about consumerism.
vijiravindran's 