Thanks to The Business Show

Thank you to The Business Show for their share on their page!

The Business Show and Virgin Start Up

Update from yesterday. I emailed The Business Show on Facebook and asked if I could have a full size photograph of me that they used in their cover photo. They were amazing and got back to me this morning and here it is! Photograph credit of Justin Orwin at Orwinstudio (www.orwinstudio.com).

If you can't read the envelope it says "Gender neutral clothing and products. Clothing and toys should be for EVERYONE!!!" 

Everyone keep an eye out on the Virgin Start Up Facebook page to see if our photo goes on their #BackOfAnEnvelope photo album.

★Star★

Photograph credit of Justin Orwin at Orwinstudio (www.orwinstudio.com)

The Business Show Cover Photo

I have been on the Virgin Start Up Facebook page all day waiting for updates of their #BackOfAnEnvelope album to see if our envelope has been uploaded. Nothing yet, but they have said there will be more photos to come, so keep your eyes open!

I then decided to have a look at The Business Show Facebook page to see if they had uploaded any photos of the event. They have updated their cover photo, with a photo of me at the Virgin Start Up Stand! 

I'm in the bottom right hand corner proudly holding up my sign that reads "Gender neutral clothing and products. Clothing and toys should be for EVERYONE!!!"

★Star★

The Business Show Facebook page

The Guardian - Rebecca Atkinson: "Why I wont be buying my daughter a Barbie for Christmas..."

Spotted by ☼Sun☼: An article on The Guardian by Rebecca Atkinson about why she wont buy her daughter a Barbie for Christmas.

"What are you hoping for?" I asked her. 

"A Barbie," she said.

The girl in me can still see the appeal - the glossy hair, the sparkly outfits, the glamour. You don't see the sexualisation as a child. You just see a doll and pretty things. I get why my daughter wants her, but now I get why my parents didn't - the unachievable body ideal, the dumb, passive face, the feet on permanent tiptoes. 

I go to John Lewis to buy one, only to discover that Barbie has subtly changed while we've been apart. Every doll is wearing pink, every trim is sparkly, every skirt is obscenely short, every pair of shoes disablingly high. Maybe I'm wrong but I remember Barbie having jobs, wearing a range of clothes and colours. You could get a riding outfit that looked like the real thing - beige jodhpurs, flat back riding boots. Now horse-riding Barbie wears a pink glittery jacket over pink jodhpurs so fleshy in colour that you could be mistaken for thinking she's mounted her horse with no trousers (or knickers) at all. I thought Barbie was meant to be about childhood? 

I go to an independent department store hoping to find a more sensible Barbie. All I find are Barbie princesses and fairies. 

That night I ask my daughter what she wants to be when she grows up. "A princess," she replies. I explain that just sitting in a nice dress all day is very boring. I tell her she could be a princess who goes out to work. "I'll be a princess firefighter." she says. 

I search online for a Barbie with a job. To my delight I find the "I Can Be a ..." range. I find that Barbie still has a multitude of jobs. She "can be" a doctor, a nurse, a vet, a palaeontologist, a teacher, a magician assistant, an astronaut ... but only if she wear pink, high heels and a teeny-tiny short skirt again. 

But what's wrong with that? Should't a doctor be able to wear a miniskirt to work without judgement? If a vet wants to treat ill dogs in a low-cut glittery blouse that's her choice. But that's the problem. Barbie has no choice. Somehow she's become trapped on the set of The Only Way is Essex, shackled in a world of pink. 

Eventually I find the most innocuously dressed Barbie I can, the one that most resembles the Barbie that as my childhood friend. The "I Can Be ..." an architect Barbie. She's not wearing pink. She's got glasses and a skirt that reaches her knees. She actually looks as if she's going to an office to do more than just satisfy the male gaze. I order her. Then I decide she will need some clothes. What fun is a doll without a change of clothes? I pick out a set of emergency service clothes - a firefighter and a police officer. Barbie can be that princess/firefighter we'd talked about. Barbie can be kick-ass and heroic.


Then the outfits arrive and I'm horrified. If your house was on fire would you want to be rescured (in anything other than a sexual fantasy) by a woman in nine-inch high silver platforms, sparkly blue trousers and a PVC skin-tight red jacket vaguely resembling something fireproof? Oh, and a jaunty little firefighter's hat? And the police officer who turns up to investigate the fire is in a skin-tight sparkly pencil skirt and a low-cut blouse. That's Barbie at work.

But what does this say to kids? "I can be," but only if I dress like a firefight-cum-stripper? What does this say to my son? His sister can play his rescue games with her sub-standard doll who can't run when the burning building falls because of her platforms? the uniform for Barbie is pink. She can't have the real thing because she's a girl. She "can be" anything, so long as she wears bum-baring, tit-tastic pink clothes. Where's the choice in that? 

So I return the Barbie clothes and I cancel the order for the architect doll. Barbie and I have just fallen out. Big time. 

It's time to find a new best friend. Lottie. She's a Barbie but without the bullet boobs and cinched waist. Launched in 2012 by Arklu Toys, Lottie has a body based on an average nine-year-old girl. She doesn't wear makeup, high heels or jewellery, but she does have a long glossy hair to style. Her shoes aren't cripplingly high and she can stand up by herself. She's got clothes and accessories - some are pink, some aren't. This girl's got choices. There's a princessy Lottie and a ballerina. But Lottie is also a pirate queen, a lighthouse keeper and a geeky robot girl - all inspired by real women such as computer programmer Ada Lovelace and lighthouse keeper Grace Darling, neither of which had to wear a pink uniform. 

Read the full article here: Rebecca Atkinson: "Why I wont be buying my daughter a Barbie for Christmas..."

★ Star ★

Virgin Start Up - Your business idea here!

Copyright Virgin Start Up

On Facebook today Virgin Start Up put up this post up:

Choose Yourself will be attending The Business Show on Thursday and can't wait to write our business idea on an envelope! 

★Star★

Copyright Virgin Start Up

BBC News - Rizzle Kicks: "Hip-hop is misogynistic and homophobic"

Spotted by ★ Star ★: A great article on the BBC news website about Rizzle Kicks views on hip-hop music today. 

Photograph from BBC News

"I can't listen to hip-hop at the moment," says Jordan Stephens. "I really struggle." "The stuff I'm hearing in the mainstream... it's overly-misogynistic and it's still homophobic," he says. "It does my head in.".

Rapper's Delight, the first rap song to make the US top 40, featured a bizarre put-down of Superman: "He's a fairy I do suppose / Flying through the air in panyhose". But, as recently as last month, Eminem's Rap God won five star reviews despite lyrics like: "You fags are all the same". "But when it's vicious, I don't understand why you'd bother. Think of somethign more inventive to say. It's a culteral thing that needs to piss off, basically.".

The article goes on to discuss the attitude towards women:

"I think it's even worse for women. I had an ex-girlfriend who was seriously up on her hip-hop and I played her this song Clique with Jay-Z, Kayne and Big Sean. The first lyric is 'I tell a bad bitch do whatever I say'. And she just turned around and said, 'what's that?'". "I don't think we know any women - smart women, who you'd want to be friends with, that would proclaim themselves as a bad bitch," he adds. "If anything, the only women I've seen saying 'bad bitch' seem pretty insecure." 

"I don't want a bad bitch," spits Stephens over a thundering drum loop. "I want a chick that would slap up a guy if he calls her a bad bitch." His anger feeds into the song This Means War, which opens the band's second album, Roaring 20s. 

"We wanted to use our platform to mention some social observations." he says. 

Read the full article here: Rizzle Kicks: "Hip-hop is misogynistic and homophobic"

★ Star ★

Reading's Baby and Toddler Event

Saturday 17th August 2013:

We are now back from the Baby and Toddler event at the Penta Hotel in Reading. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who visited our stand and bought things from us. We met some lovely people, both customers and sellers and we got lots of positive feedback on our new range of Make Your Own kits.

If you would like to view our new range please click here: Make Your Own.

★ Star ★

Who are Choose Yourself?

Who are we?

The real names of the people who are behind Choose Yourself are not important, what is important is our message. Currently, there are two people behind Choose Yourself. We call ourselves ★ Star ★ and ☼ Sun ☼ as we are both one of the same. All of our products are for everyone, it does not matter if you are a man or woman, black or white, gay or straight. 

We like to think of ourselves as equalists. We are not feminists and we are not about 'girl power'/'boy power', 'black power'/'white power' or 'gay power'/'straight power'. We are about power to everyone. It is about encouraging everyone to feel happy within themselves and to stop negative stereotypes in todays society. 

We are here to make a difference. 

At Choose Yourself we offer gender neutral clothing and products for any age. 

Here at Choose Yourself, we would like to give the choice back to you, the customer. 

We do not feel that blue should represent boys and pink should represent girls, therefore, all of our clothing comes in a variety of different colours to choose from. We know that people come in different shapes and sizes so for our adult range of clothing we go from small to XXL and our child range goes from 1 years up to 14 years. 

Why are we only gender neutral? We aren't happy with the way certain shops and manufacturers aim different toys and clothing at a certain gender. A colour is a colour, colours don't belong to a gender, they belong to everyone. A toy is a toy and should be played with by any child. We are giving you the opportunity to choose your colours and products without being told this is for a 'girl' or this is for a 'boy'.

If you like what we do then please follow us on Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

More importantly, if you like what we do then show your support by visiting our website and proudly showing off your Choose Yourself designs.

Who are we? We are Choose Yourself! Join the revolution!

★ Star ★ and ☼ Sun ☼