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Lame. None of the girls shirts say anything meaningful., The boys shirts show to be dominant and overpowering of the girls.

Overall Score: 4 points

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Target had a lot to say. Only few shirts and silly cute messages and most of them were in good taste. Apparently Target is doing a new thing where they will give both gild and boys shirts that have the same messages. OMG options!! Thank you target. Always cute and classy. Of course the boys clothing was a little stronger in giving the impressions that boys are out to do big things. Exploring, inventing and whatnot. Fortunately the gals have their fair share as well. Love it.

Overall Score: 9 points! Always room for improvement but definitely the best i've seen.

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God, this store is the absolute worst. I spent 20 minutes trying to find some sort of message that was positive towards women. Nothing. Appaarently girls now a days have a thing for very random things. Llamas, unicorns, texting, emojis and style. This store has no possitive thing to say to little girls, if anything its giving them the impression that the way they have to be is texting llamas, drinking coffee?, sending emojis to unicorns and just being random and as useless as Justice's clothes is. Gross.

Overall Score: 1 point for trying

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Okay, Gap kids kind of sucks. The difference between the boys and girls shirts is that the nearly all the boys graphic tees had inspirational messages. Go the distance, raise the bar, take charge are all motivating. Few others just established some sort of dominance. As for the girls, there was little variation in the kinds of messages the were giving small girls. Paris Paris Paris, wow, xo, and unicorns. Nothing saying much and all kind of lame in my opinion. Fortunately gap kids didn't have any girls shirts with food on them. But on the other hand the small amount that were inspirational were few but sweet.

Overall Score: 6 points but can do way better.

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Dont buy your kids gendered clothing!!!

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In October 2013, Jennifer Muhm's 4-year-old daughter declared she wanted to be an astronaut for Halloween. But when the mom and daughter flipped through costume catalogs and saw only boys dressed as astronauts, the little girl changed her mind.

Muhm's friend Malorie Catchpole had a similar experience. She was unable to find train underpants for girls, which her toddler daughter had requested for Christmas -- they were only available for little boys.

Muhm and Catchpole took matters into their own hands and launched buddingSTEM, their own line of science-themed clothes for girls. Their hugely successful Kickstarter campaign has raised over $60,000 since its creation in March 2015.

BuddingSTEM is part of a growing trend of crowdfunded clothing brands with a gender stereotype-bashing mission. Frustrated by the lack of variety in boys' and girls' clothing -- particularly when it comes to science-themed shirts for girls -- at least a dozen different parents have launched their own small lines of inclusive, empowering kids' clothes. Often, parents turn to sites like Kickstarter to fund their businesses.

These clothing lines work to combat the gender norms that seem so pervasive in kids' wardrobe options by offering pinks and purples for both boys and girls, as well as designs with trucks, dinosaurs, planets and other traditionally "boy-ish" images for girls.

Though these small clothing lines produce similar products, Handsome in Pink founder Jo Hadley told The Huffington Post, "We do not see each other as competition but rather as inspiration to keep moving the gender empowerment movement forward for boys and girls."

And small as the brands may be, the movement they support is slowly reaching more mainstream companies. J. Crew is currently selling a series of science-themed graphic tees for both boys and girls, as part of a partnership with the American Museum of Natural History. Lands' End responded to a mom's viral complaint about its gender stereotyping shirts with a line of STEM-related options for girls.

Without further ado, here are 12 parent-founded kids' clothing lines that challenge gender stereotypes one shirt at a time.

Texas mom Sharon Choksi launched Girls Will Be with her siblings David and Laura Burns in 2013 after her daughter Maya lamented the lack of clothing options fitting her adventurous personality. In March 2014, she successfully raised over $30,000 in Kickstarter donations to fund production. From shirts with robots, sharks, and other fun designs to non-"shorty" shorts that leave room for running around, Girls Will Be offers clothes that show "there is more than one way to be a girl."

As Choksi told The Huffington Post, "Girls Will Be designs clothes with colors beyond pink, no sparkles or frills, stereotype-busting graphics, and a fit that lets girls be kids."

Handsome in Pink is the brainchild of mom Jo Hadley, who launched the Oakland-based clothing line in 2007 when her toddler son was going through a big "pink and purple phase." As the brand's website states, "We believe that colors (such as pink and purple) and active imagery (such as firetrucks, tool belts, and electric guitars) belong to everyone and should be mingling, not dividing up along gender lines."

With a constantly growing line of empowering clothes -- like a "Forget Princess, Call Me President" shirt for girls -- Handsome in Pink is still thriving today, the mom told The Huffington Post. And as for Hadley's son, the now-10 year old still counts purple as his favorite color.

Jaya Halepete Iyer of Oakton, Virginia created a clothing line called Svaha in honor of her 3-year-old daughter, who wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. Dismayed at the lack of space-themed shirts for girls, the mom decided to address what she sees as "a significant gender bias that exists in the kids' apparel industry," she wrote on Kickstarter. Svaha's shirt design motifs include sports, firefighters, dinosaurs, astronauts, and construction equipment.

Though she was unable to meet her Kickstarter funding goal last month, Halepete Iyer wrote on the Svaha Facebook page, "I hope to be able to get these t-shirts to all of you in some way hopefully sometime real soon."

U.K. brand Sewing Circus began at mom Francesca Aiken's kitchen table, where she created science-related dresses and skirts for her daughter Scarlett by hand. "All the themes that interested her were sold to boys only on the U.K. high street," she writes on the company's website. "I urgently wanted to tell girls like Scarlett -- Space, Dinosaurs, Bugs and Trains -- are for you as much as boys." Today, Sewing Circus is a fully fledge business that sells handmade clothes to customers across Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Vibrant colors and fun images abound in the designs by Jessy & Jack. Seattle mom Courtney Hartman launched the brand through a Kickstarter campaign last summer, and now she sells gender-neutral shirts, onesies, and bibs on the Jessy & Jack online store.

As the website states, "We think that dividing animals, objects and hobbies into 'girl stuff' and 'boy stuff' is silly, so we design things that both girls and boys can love." And for every t-shirt Jessy & Jack sells, the brand donates a shirt to kids in need.

Quirkie Kids started in March 2014 as a Kickstarter-funded line of pink shirts for both girls and boys. "Some boys like pink and why not?" founder Martine Zoer writes on the brand's website. "Pink is just a color and so is green, and blue, and yellow." Today, Quirkie Kids sells a variety of gender-neutral shirts in many colors and patterns.

When Jenn Neilson went shopping for her daughter for the first time, she was disappointed to find that the girls' departments were full of "pink and and frills" while the boys' departments were all about "trucks and sports," the Canadian mom writes on the Kickstarter page for her children's clothing brand Jill and Jack Kids.
"Even though I know lots of kids who love these things, most boys are into more than just sports, and we need to tell girls that even if they like princesses, it's cool to like other stuff -- like dinosaurs -- too!"
After raising over $20,000 to turn her brand vision into reality last June, Neilson sells colorful clothes for adventurous children on the Jill and Jack Kids website.

With a line of empowering t-shirts and books for girls, Princess Free Zone offers "an alternative to princess and pink." Founder and president Michele Yulo says her "feisty" daughter Gabriela was the inspiration for the brand, as she refused to wear dresses, lace, puffy sleeves, and other stereotypically "girly" clothes. As Yulo states on the Princess Free Zone website, "Girls need to know that they can do anything they want -- that might include hammering a nail into a wall or fixing a broken faucet."

Seattle moms Jennifer Muhm and Malorie Catchpole created BuddingSTEM after bonding over their shared frustration at the lack of clothing options for their space and train-loving daughters. Their hugely successful Kickstarter campaign has raised over $60,000 and counting to date. Offering science-themed shirts, pants, dresses, and even underpants, BuddingSTEM lets girls "wear clothes that speak to their interests," the founders told The Huffington Post.
"Girls shouldn't have to make a choice between being feminine and expressing their love of science, or sports, or anything really!"
After raising an astounding $215,691 on Kickstarter, D.C.-area moms Rebecca Melsky and Eva St. Clair are hard at work bringing their "Princess Awesome" clothing designs to life. "We believe that if a girl likes purple and also likes trucks, she should be able to wear a purple truck dress. And if a girl likes princesses and also aliens, then an alien princess skirt is for her," the Kickstarter page reads.

Climbing Trees is an upcoming t-shirt brand set to launch this summer. Mom Cheryl Rickman and her 6-year-old "dinosaur-loving, football-crazy daughter" conceived of the brand as a solution to the lack of clothes for girls with such interests.

"Girls like dinosaurs, robots and monsters too and should be able to find clothes featuring those motifs in the girls aisle," Rickman writes on the company's Facebook page. And, the mom told The Huffington Post, a percentage of profit from each t-shirt sold will go to The Woodland Trust to plant more trees, "because the Climbing Trees team loves trees (and climbing them)."

From its positive body image shirts to its "Redefine Girly" designs, Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies provides a great selection of empowering clothes for boys and girls. Mom Melissa Atkins Wardy created the brand to combat the frustrating limitations and stereotypes she noticed in children's clothing.

As the Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies website states, "Melissa wanted apparel that reflected an imaginative and diverse childhood for her daughter and son. PPBB is all about supporting the idea there are many ways to be a kid and that every kid is Full of Awesome."

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BEFORE YOU GO

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12 Brilliant Kids' Clothing Lines That Say No To Gender Stereotypes

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In October 2013, Jennifer Muhm's 4-year-old daughter declared she wanted to be an astronaut for Halloween. But when the mom and daughter flipped through costume catalogs and saw only boys dressed as astronauts, the little girl changed her mind. Muhm's friend Malorie Catchpole had a similar experience.

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NEW YORK (AP) - Pink for girls. Truck motifs for boys. A growing number of parents want to get outside those parameters when it comes to dressing their kids.

Kristin Higgins was adamant about not pushing "girly" stereotypes on her daughter, and painted her room in shades of green. Higgins later dressed her up in superhero costumes. But as her daughter got older, it took more work to locate items that broke the mold. For "Star Wars"-themed pajamas, she had to go to the boys' section.

"It's hard to find gender-neutral clothing," said Higgins, 35, of Little Rock, whose daughter is now 6. "I want her to just get up and put on the clothing without thinking of putting on a costume, an identity."

Shopping for her 7-month-old son, Higgins finds clothes mainly have pictures like fire engines or sharks. What about cats, cupcakes or hearts, she wonders.

For parents looking for clothes that defy gender norms, the options for back-to-school shopping are still limited - but they're growing. Some big retailers like Lands' End and Zara are making small changes to their offerings, while some frustrated parents have launched their own companies to make the items they wanted to find.

"There is really a sharp divide between what is considered girls' stuff and what's considered boys' stuff," said Courtney Hartman. She started Seattle-based Jessy & Jack, a collection of unisex T-shirts for kids that have robots and dinosaurs, and Free to Be Kids, where a shirt with the slogan, "I'm a Cat Guy" comes in blue, gray and yellow.

Companies like Jessy & Jack and a collection called Princess Awesome, where dresses have trains and planes, are among nearly 20 online brands that formed a campaign called Clothes Without Limits last year that they're reprising for the back-to-school season. Still, many of the items are not cheap - T-shirts at $20 can be pricey for growing kids.

Bigger companies are offering some options, after similar shifts in the toy and bedding aisles to more neutral signs and products. Lands' End launched a line of science T-shirts two years ago after a customer complained on social media that there was only one version for boys. As part of its new Cat & Jack brand of children's clothing that kids helped design, Target offers unisex-fit T-shirts online with slogans like, "Smart & Strong" and "Future Astronaut."

And fast-fashion chain Zara launched a collection in March for teens and older called "Ungendered" under its TRF line, which focuses on basics like T-shirts, sweatshirts and jeans. Experts and parents also notice that some images like dinosaurs are popping up on girls' clothing under the Boden brand and others.

More has changed for girls' clothes than for boys, but the vast majority of children's clothing is still gender-specific, says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at market research group NPD Group Inc.

Martine Zoer, who founded Seattle-based Quirkie Kids because her sons wanted to wear pink, said that in response to her selling unisex shirts in that hue, she says she got emails saying "boys should not wear pink as it would turn them gay."

A good portion of children's clothing buyers are grandparents who tend to embrace more traditional ideas, says Cohen, who doesn't expect large-scale change until the next generation starts having children.

"Once we get past the cultural discussion, that's when you'll see the (major) brands step out," Cohen said. "No one wants to risk the chance of rocking the boat."

Chris Guerin of Portland, Oregon, says teaching his mother-in-law to buy clothes that don't reinforce gender stereotypes is a work in progress.

"When she goes shopping with Nana, she comes back with princess (outfits) and tiaras," Guerin says of his 3-year-old daughter. "We don't care for that. But it's hard to bring up the issue."

The differences crystallized in the late 1980s, according to Jo B. Paoletti, a professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland and author of "Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls from the Boys in America." Paoletti noticed it when buying clothing for her daughter, who was born in 1982, and her son, four years later. By the mid-1990s, "pink-washing was widespread," she said. Even disposable diapers came in blue and pink.

In part, manufacturers and marketers wanted to boost sales to American couples having fewer kids, Paoletti said. She also reasoned that parents were rebelling against the more unisex fashions like corduroy pants they grew up with. But Paoletti said the change is harmful.

"It encourages very young children - as young as 2 - to judge and interact with others in highly stereotyped ways," she said. "We know, based on nearly 50 years of social science research, that stereotyped thinking hurts all of us, whether we are dealing with racial, gender, or any other form of stereotype."

Macy's says kids' clothes are generally separated into boys' and girls' sections, but with an array of colors and styles in each. "A lot of kids' apparel today is active - sweatpants and sweatshirts, graphic Ts, etc. - and are inherently unisex," spokeswoman Holly Thomas said in an email.

Stores like J.C. Penney and Nordstrom say they listen to shoppers, but aren't getting customer requests to blur the gender lines.

Those behind the new brands say they're seeing the demand. Hartman said annual sales are pushing six-digit figures.

Higgins recalled that when her daughter was in day care, she came home crying because some boys made fun of her navy blue sneakers, calling them "boy shoes." She often puts together kid outfits from thrift shops, and as she thumbs through the racks reminds her daughter: "There are no boy colors. There are no girl colors."

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Follow Anne D'Innocenzio on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio

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Breaking down the gender stereotypes in kids' clothing

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NEW YORK (AP) - Pink for girls. Truck motifs for boys. A growing number of parents want to get outside those parameters when it comes to dressing their kids. Kristin Higgins was adamant about not pushing "girly" stereotypes on her daughter, and painted her room in shades of green.

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In the video, Daisy and her mom are shopping at U.K. chain Tesco when the inequalities between boys' and girls' clothes become so blatantly obvious, it would be silly not to whip out a camera phone and start recording a video. After comparing the graphics of the two groups of shirts - "Hey," "Beautiful," and "I feel fabulous!" for the girls, and "Desert adventure awaits," "Think outside the box," and "Hero!" for the boys - Daisy points out what's so frustrating about putting kids in gendered boxes from a young age.

"It's unfair because everyone thinks that girls should just be pretty, and boys should just be adventurous," she says in the clip. "Why should boys and girls clothes even be separated? We're just as good as each other." We won't spoil it for you, but she continues as if she were teaching a lecture on gender studies - and, as her mom quips in the background, it's "brilliant." As Daisy proves, it's important to remember that feminists come in all different genders, sizes, races, and ages.

And, of course, she's right. It's conditioning like this - yes, something as simple as separate sections and dressing rooms for boys and girls - that's responsible for how we treat acts of gender neutrality, or gender-embrace, today. (Heads turn when a man peruses the racks in the women's section of a store, for example.)

We're happy kids like Daisy - and earlier this year, the Filas kid - are speaking out and leading the pack toward different types of clothing for everyone, regardless of gender identity.

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This 8-Year-Old Has Had It With Sexist Kids' Clothes

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In the video, Daisy and her mom are shopping at U.K. chain Tesco when the inequalities between boys' and girls' clothes become so blatantly obvious, it would be silly not to whip out a camera phone and start recording a video. After comparing the graphics of the two groups of shirts - "Hey," "Beautiful," and "I feel fabulous!"