BUYING clothes for the grandchildren is one of the few shopping trips I enjoy. The rails of brightly coloured dresses, the super-soft hoodies, kick-ass shoes and velvet pumps, the baseball-style joggers and Scandinavian sweaters are inspirational, a rebuke to those of us who generally stick to North Sea colours.

Thanks to such variety, a child’s closet is turned into a Narnian wardrobe, transforming the boring business of getting dressed into something creative and self-expressive. In this new world of feel-good fashion, you’d have a job finding something drab.

Dreary would be infinitely preferable, however, to some of the items on offer. Primark has come under attack for a range of girls’ outfits bearing toe-curling slogans such as “Grateful, humble and optimistic”, “Be kind” and “Be good, do good”.

Boys’ clobber, on the other hand, comes with exhortations to “Change the game. Rewrite the Rules. Go for it. Born to win”, and “You are limitless”. To be fair, a couple of sweatshirts for older girls are embossed with “You can be anything you put your mind to”, and “Fearless and courageous”. But while it’s clearly considered necessary to cheer them on even at this age, the (far fewer) messages posted on stuff for teenage boys are tongue-tied – “Dude” and “Goal!”.

Even less controversial sentiments carry unsubtle guidance on what is expected when you’re female: “love”, “be happy”, “believe”, “dance on the rainbow”, “shine every day”.

Why is it that children are expected to walk around as if they’re carrying a sandwich board advertising the end of the world, or that day’s menu? It’s not just that plenty of boys might be as happy to “dance on the rainbow” as their sisters, but that by pulling on these garments they are unwittingly promoting the hidden and undermining rules that still, shamefully, underpin society.

I try to imagine the product planning conference during which Primark’s latest line was passed. Was it an all-male conclave? Or were the women present simply too “grateful” to have a job, or too “kind” to criticise some else’s lousy ideas? Were they just “optimistic” that nobody would notice, and a future generation would not recognise their juvenile indoctrination when spelling out the words “humble” or “be good” emblazoned on their front?

One shocked observer suggested Primark’s slogans are more appropriate for the 1950s. I’d put them further back, somewhere before the suffragettes or the early pioneers in America and the Antipodes (or, as recently discovered, the Bronze Age female immigrants who colonised the Orkneys).

Quibbling over a century or two is not, of course, the point. What matters is that antediluvian though they are, these mottos tap into many people’s attitudes today. Indeed, I have a horrible suspicion that such an outlook is buried so deep in the human psyche it will take generations beyond ours fully to address it.

When I was a girl, the word I most loathed, which was intended to keep tomboys or rebels in check, was ‘ladylike’. It was the psychological equivalent of a straight-jacket. Fortunately, you could choose not to be confined or constrained, so long as you could handle the fall-out.

Given that lots of girls won’t care what’s written on their jumpers, is the backlash against Primark a big fuss about nothing? Should we rather be amused that, in an age of female presidents and astronauts, when the professional glass ceiling is as much a myth as Cinderella’s slipper, diehard sexism continues to lurk in the corner? Wouldn’t it be better to laugh and mock, than feel enraged?

Well, there will be time enough to laugh when women are no longer expected to be passive, docile and submissive. However much we try to wipe the old mental soundtrack that insists on us not being assertive, ambitious or bolshy, we are indelibly shaped by the expectations that dominated our upbringing.

Why do so many men get away with harassment, violence, rape and murder? It’s not just that they are physically stronger and more threatening, though that plays a part. It’s that women grow up believing they are meant to be well-behaved and compliant. Their first response to trouble often is not to make an ear-splitting fuss, but to try to defuse the situation, or take the blame.

That the words “love” and “dream” are deemed appropriate for our fluffy pink cardigans, but not for our brothers’ t-shirts says it all. Primark’s inscriptions reinforce the sad truth that even today, girls are raised to think of themselves as home-makers and nurturers rather than potential front-runners, record-breakers and innovators.

There is an echo of The Handmaid’s Tale about such crassly gendered labelling, as if even four-year-olds need to be reminded of their path in life. Meanwhile, boys who might go on to become nurses, florists or infant teachers, run around in jackets announcing that they are embracing the qualities necessary for launching hostile take-over bids or colonising Mars.

Obviously, countless women defy age-old prejudice to show themselves the equal – or superior – of any man. Yet doing so is neither easy nor as common as you might think. Such high achievers are still exceptional. Despite decades of equal opportunities legislation, and the fact that many men are enlightened, society is shaped in the image of the male, geared towards his advancement rather than hers.

From a very young age, women absorb the rules – sometimes explicit, more often subliminal – that to be liked, admired but above all loved, you have to be gentle and nice. The same applies to the workplace where, rather than confidence and competence, your finest assets are modesty, self-effacement and the ability to work like a dog.

On paper, there is nothing holding women back from achieving whatever they wish. The law in this respect is ahead of reality which, given how slowly its wheels grind, shows how dreadfully slow real social change can be. Because, regardless of the statute books, when it comes to gender equality, respect and opportunity, we are no closer to a level playing field than a ski slope.

Tags such as Primark’s are a Trojan horse, getting inside children’s heads and influencing their sense of identity. If you grow up believing it’s men who are born to win, neither legislation nor opportunity will encourage you to think otherwise. “Dream on”, as the motivational mottos neglect to say.

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