Can we still talk about Hema?

In the category you-still-owed-it-to-me: the gender issue of Hema. Our family app suddenly buzzed with it. What I thought of Hema, which made children's clothing gender-neutral, my little brother wanted to know (or well, little, he now towers over me). My first brainwave gave a: well, yeah. The second one too, by the way, but then came a dissertation from the older and sometimes wise brother that he thought this was a good thing. Huh? Okay. Maybe he is right or not of course, but it was the spark of a discussion that is still being ignited at lunch. I threw the topic somewhere between the salad bowl and crackers and it was, everyone had an opinion about it.

In case you missed it, let me explain what's going on. Hema received a letter from Julia, twelve years old. When you think of Julia, think of the coolest girl in class, who wants nothing to do with fluffy bows and sequins on her shirt. Her question was whether Hema could ensure that there was also a less pink variant of the underwear on the shelf. We understand that, it could also be an excess of flowers and lace. She also posted the message on Facebook and quickly garnered thousands of likes. The Netherlands agreed with her. But instead of having the designer create a no-frills line, Hema got to work with scissors. To rid all clothing of the boy or girl label. It suddenly all has to be as gender-neutral as possible, so instead of a girls' dress, we will soon get the children's dress. Look, I find that quite extreme thinking. Political parties do that too, but they ultimately have to soften everything in a coalition. A bit of yours, a bit of mine added. Only Hema leaves that out here.

How many gender-neutral children and people are there in the Netherlands? Because the situations where a boy wants to be a girl or a girl wants to be a boy, transgender, are not part of this issue. I think. 4 percent of Dutch women and 5.7 percent of Dutch men feel gender diverse or neutral, according to the Social and Cultural Planning Office. Look, I understand that you want to create change in toilets. The form of address at stations too. But children's clothing from Hema? I don't know. The body of a boy is anatomically different from that of a girl. One needs more space in certain areas than the other, fit-wise. And everything that falls in the middle was unisex until recently. Right?

But in the meantime, everyone has an opinion about the public favorite, because that's also a bit of what's going on. Is that Hema's intention? It is of course no public secret that things do not always go smoothly. It borders on the marketing stunt of the century. Some find it absurd, others see a commercial success, the third raises a fist for a gender-neutral world. And me? I find it difficult. Not the gender-neutral or gender-fluid or transgender, I applaud that. But I still don't fully understand this move, Hema.