Socialisation

Cats and dogs are pretty serious predators. And butterflies are formidable prey, because many are poisonous. And saying "dinosaurs" is like saying "mammals." My son loves his clothes with stegasauruses and triceratops on them, which are both herbivores and prey. Almost all dinosaurs were prey, in fact.

And for that matter, a pretty big fraction of even the popular dinosaurs were prey.
- I edited my comment to say this before I saw you had said it. Here here!
Ah yes, cats. The prey animal that kills billions of animals every year.
Dogs and cats are. Puppies and kittens are technically predators but they don't really do much preying until they are grown.
Don’t take it so literal. It’s how these images are perceived by regular folk is what the post is getting at. Perception of what’s tough versus soft.

Cats are predators too

And dogs
- And butterflies
though commonly portrayed as prey to dogs, not sure this undermines the OOP
- fwiw, OOP also says dogs are prey

I challenge the notion that kittens can't be savage predators

They absolutely are baby predators.

Parents choose what clothes to give their children. Once you realize this, you can't even!

We tend to go with the absolute minimum of unnecessarily gendered clothing for our little one. People assume she's a boy all the time. Like, with zero other info besides seeing the clothes/toys/stroller etc.
I find it to be a bit creepy tbh, so when it happens I try to avoid giving a correction and just make an exit.
I feel like you're purposefully missing the point
- The girls' section will have prey animals present, but they will hardly be the only things on offer. Neutral colors/patterns, landscapes, and many other options are all prominent.
  I think it's more interesting to point out that boys generally aren't allowed to wear things like bunnies, either by their families or society.

The more important thing is how it is presented, since styles are a thing. Just search anything typically considered badass, like "grim reaper", then the same thing with "kawaii" added.

The "message" behind the clothes tends to be girl = cute and docile; boys = strong and dangerous

Well, I for one am glad I went looking for this.
Yep exactly.
love boy baby clothes that cute-ify t-rexes and so on 😊

Ngl, I assume things about you if you have 5 kids.

Predators:

robots/vehicles
triceratops/stegosaurus
cityscapes
Adidas stripes
Minecraft/Amogus
Marvel/DC

Prey:

unicorns
lions/tigers/leopards
owls and foxes
Adidas stripes
Minecraft/Amogus
Marvel/DC

It's definitely fair to say things marketed to boys tend to have a more badass feel while things marketed to girls have a more cute/sexy feel, but predators and prey aren't really a pattern, and it's very much not the case that you're boxed into those genres.

Edit #73638295: How the fuck do you format a bullet list on Lemmy?

This is not how I wanted it to be formatted, but it will have to fucking do. How hard is it to just not ignore line breaks?

Edit again: Is Pikachu a predator or prey animal? Maybe an opportunistic scavenger? Do you think it eats poop like other rodents?

Pikachu is a predator. Dude only pretends to be cute and nice but he can attack if he wants to
The animals for kids thing is more like... There are a lot of animals that are weirdly gendered. You will have a hard time finding boy clothes with cats, horses, bunnies. You will have a hard time finding girl clothes with sharks, lions, eagles.
Now, what do I mean with "boy clothes" even, isn't everything kid's clothes? And that's where I got amazed when the same pyjama set sold at size 74/80 - that is a baby size - had vastly different cuts for the girl design (a narwal argonaut) and the boy design (a dino astronaut). My girl never even fit into the girl set because it was so narrow. Not even when she was actually wearing 68. She fit into the boy set until she was actually wearing 98.
The sad truth is that clothes are awkwardly gendered from early on. Few brands make truly unisex designs. There is nothing wrong with girls wearing a wide tshirt with sharks or boys wearing a pink leggings. But to most people this will be an "X in Y clothes". Few brands design unisex clothing and few brands will create a dino dress for girls or a bunny shirt for boys. They exist, but among the common brands it is rather rare.
Edit to add: apparently watermelons are unisex. I've seen them on a lot of swim wear this season. Just in case you wondered about the genderedness of fruit. Because that's also a thing.

Aren’t kittens and puppies technically predators? What would be the difference between a baby lion and a baby kitten?

It's how people perceive them. People are far less likely to quake when they see a cat than a lion
- Okay, but then there’s teddy bears.
  Everyone perceives them as cute and cuddly. But I wouldn’t want to cuddle with a bear in real life. Bears are much more dangerous than sharks just on account you’re more likely to encounter one.
  I guess what I’m wondering is: why are things clearly predatory not perceived that way?
Go fuck yourself you pedophile scum.

I had bunny pajamas and my favorite dinosaurs were herbivores

The vibe is right but the examples are suspect

Cats are pretty and soft, and also malicious murderers who will maim things just so they can watch them die, so....

Your daughter's shirt with the lil kitten "playing" with a butterfly? Metal af!

Maybe I'm just naive but this feels like a huge stretch of trying to say it means something

Nah there's definitely something there, it's simply not accurate to pretend gender programming doesn't start in childhood, but her specific examples aren't great

Seems like a stretch. 5 boys though. This lady has seen some shit

I’d just like to say that there is a shift in this, if only a bit - my big box store had Hello Kitty hoodies in the boys section (along with Naruto and Black Panther) and they were sold out in no time.