Candidly

1.    How did you start?

Last year, I joined hands with my old college friend Reema to create Candidly, a platform to drive candid conversations on issues of gender, sexuality & media and their influence on children and young adults. We have so far conducted on-ground workshops on abuse awareness, comprehensive sexuality education, body safety, produced digital content and built candid discussions on these subjects.  

2.    How did the idea come about?

I have a 3-year old daughter and every time we went to a clothes or a toy store, I was amazed to see how deeply gendered marketing for kids is. ‘For Boys’ would feature basketball, cars, dinosaurs, action figures or messages about being a trouble maker or a future scientist all in blue hues. ‘For Girls’ would feature dolls, flowers, butterflies, tiny stilettos or bags and messages about being sweet, sassy or a beauty queen.

We feel such angst when we hear of child abuse or of girls dying due to gender bias but we passively accept sexist ideas for our children. Human brain responds deeply to images in making sense of the world. If all images of sport, adventure, outdoor or heroism are made synonymous with boys and images of being kind, caring, nurturing and beautiful with girls, we end up sharing very limited and limiting ideas with our children. As they grow, they start understanding masculinity as being aggressive and femininity as being passive or beautiful. So you can see, how the root of many issues in our world such as gender pay gap, sexual harassment, violence against women actually lies in sexist attitudes that we support in our everyday life.

I felt the time had come to stop passively hoping for change and challenging these gender stereotypes and outdated attitudes. Hence was born EqualiTee, our range of gender-cool merchandise that challenges flawed stereotypes we inherited and lets our little boys and girls be whoever they wish to be.

3.    The inspiration for the products, needs?

I was inspired by the work done by a UK based parent group Let Clothes Be Clothes that advocates unisex clothing ranges for children. They run campaigns targeted at big retailers asking them not to unduly stereotype or sexualize children and also encourage small brands or businesses that focus on being inclusive. Through them, I learnt of several initiatives in US, Europe, Australia, in many cases moms like me who were fed up with status quo and created labels to bring change.

4.    How does one order?

You can buy from our shop online – https://shop.candidly.in/

5.    Pricing?

We are selling at Rs 675 per t-shirt and offering a 10% discount on purchases exceeding Rs 2500

6.    Plans next?

We have started with t-shirts but are looking at expanding within clothing and in other categories such as stationary, children’s accessories. We want to challenge stereotypes at different life stages of kids and are evaluating relevant products for adults.

7.    Challenges in the segment?

Changing existing perceptions about what’s considered appropriate for a boy and a girl is a potential challenge. I would say that many parents are aware and are already making consci
us choices so we need to reach