It's a gendered gendered world

And I guess I already knew that, so maybe the point of this story is how lucky we have been so far in mostly avoiding the princess industrial complex.  We do get plenty of pink clothes and dresses, but for the most part the girly stuff has been pretty under control (except for all those cheerleading outfits, but that is another story).

Last week, Ladybug's PT suggested getting her some more supportive shoes to see if that would help with her walking.  In our neighborhood you can buy baby soft shoes, but no other kind of kids shoes, and who knows where you can buy baby shoes in this city, so it was time for a trip to the mall.  One Zip Car later and we landed at Nordstrom's having misjudged the opening time of all the other stores.  We picked some inoffensive girly shoes and let LB try them out.  Then, avoiding all the pink monstrosities while we still can, we looked in the boys section and found some cute black and white sneakers.  I gave them to the salesperson and she became increasingly flummoxed, asking who we were getting the sneakers for and what size she should bring out.  When I told her that we would need a size 4, because we would also try these shoes on LB, she helpfully pointed back to the display of girls shoes, "But you didn't see anything you liked over there?"  I had a total 1970s flashback to the salesperson in the Buster Brown store telling my dad, "You know those are B-O-Y shoes," and my dad saying, "She can get whatever shoes she wants." I guess it never gets old.

Ladybug celebrating gender normativity.