Like many other parents who have children around Jaxon‘s age, my son loves Paw Patrol. Having read something that popped up on my Facebook timeline, I asked Jaxon who his favourite character was. On this occasion, he told me Rubble. However, on another occasion, he told me, Skye. As part of the discussion, I told him that Everest was my favourite. (To me Skye seems a bit girlie whereas Everest is a bit more of a tomboy).
While watching Paw Patrol (Again!), earlier this week, it crossed my mind about boys vs girls clothes and how the pups in Paw Patrol were included.
If you don’t follow Paw Patrol, there are five pups and a 10-year-old boy. The boy is called Ryder and he’s in charge of everyone. Then there are five pups in the main Paw Patrol team. There’s Chase, Marshall, Zuma, Rubble and Skye. When it comes to Mountain/Cold Weather rescues there’s also Everest who joins the gang. Each dog has a specific role based on a real-life profession. There’s Marshall is a firefighter, Chase is a police officer, Rubble is a builder or construction worker. Skye then drives the helicopter and completes the air rescues. Each dog has their own equal part to play in the team to help save the day and rescue the residents of Adventure Bay.
I guess in a way there is a bit of an unbalanced aspect when it comes to the split between girls vs boys in the team but with the addition of Everest part way through Season 1. This did counteract that a little bit (2 girl pups to 4 boy pups).
Now maybe I could be overthinking it. However when I look at boys clothes that are Paw Patrol themed. Skye (and/or Everest) are missing from the boys clothing and on the girl’s clothing the boy pups are missing. I had a look at Asda specifically and having searched for Paw Patrol, I picked four items – two for girls and two for boys.
From left to right: Girls waterproof coat – Skye and Everest – no boy pups included. Girl’s pyjamas – Skye on the front pair, Marshall, Skye and Everest on the back pair. But that raises the question of “Why just one of the boy pups?”. Boy’s dressing gown – Chase, Marshall and Rubble (Where’s Zuma?). Boys pyjamas – all the boy pups no girls. So minus the girl’s pyjamas (Second from the left), why are the clothes so gender-specific? Can girls not like the boy pups and vice versa?
Admittedly this is just one supermarket and it’s always possible that there are products out there that are less gender-specific so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
If I took Jaxon shopping and he had the choice between the two sets of pyjamas and chose the girls pair (second from left) over the boy’s pair (far right) would that bother me? Nope probably not. I think I might make the conscious decision to mainly dress him in the stripy set but I’m sure we’d still use the Skye set anyway.
When I purchase some more pants for Jaxon (as we attempt our way through potty training) I selected on pack of supermarket own brand pants (more pairs for the money etc) they were plain bold colours. I also picked a pair of Paw Patrol ones with the hope that Jaxon would want to wear them. The boys pants that I purchased for him all featured the boy pups and none of the girl pups.
Am I just being silly? Is this a nothing rather than a something? What do you think?
