Pink & Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America

An excellent analysis of the marketing of princess culture, beauty and sexualization since the 1980s.

http://www.prlog.org/11842269-pink-pretty-and-princess-it-is-not-nature-its-corporate-nurture.html

Want to check out the very beginnings of my next book?

The proposal is on its way to the publisher, so keep your fingers crossed. I have posted the intro -- about 11 pages -- to Google Docs and enabled comments. Please have at it; your comments are important to me!  You can post them here or on Google Doc.

Link to draft Introduction.


Thanks to @stealthmountain for catching my typo in the subject line. sneak peak, sneak peek, snake Peep, snape poke. Time for a break.

Our of curiosity, I just checked to see what the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion had to say about unisex clothing in the 1970s. The index pointed me to an article about Rudi Gernreich and this:

Attempts to develop unisex clothing in the 1970s had about as much success as the bloomer did in the 1850s. Even though women had adopted pants, they did not want to dress the same as men. Sexual distinctions remained even when a woman borrowed her husband’s shirt. It was not supposed to look the same on the woman. So it seems that the tradition of distinguishing the sexes through their clothing remains intact today.

Does this remind anyone else of the description of Earth in Douglas Adams' classic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- "mostly harmless"? What about the resistance to women in pants? When I moved to DC in 1976, there were still restaurants where a pant-suited woman was unwelcome. (No matter how expensive the suit!) And yes, we still distinguish between the sexes through clothing, but not the same way we did in 1850 or 1950 or 1980.Now I am even more eager to get this next project underway!

I am nearly finished with the proposal for the next book, on unisex trends from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s. Thanks to the fashion cycle and “That Seventies Show”, the superficial outlines of these trends are fairly familiar to the general public. As usual, my intent is to reveal how complicated the movement was (and I chose that word intentionally.).

The unisex movement – which includes female firefighters, Roosevelt Greer’s needlepoint and “Free to be…You and me” -- was a reaction to the restrictions of rigid concepts of sex and gender roles. Unisex clothing was a manifestation of the multitude of possible alternatives to gender binaries in everyday life. To reduce the unisex era to long hair vs. short hair, skirts vs. pants and yes, pink vs. blue is to perpetuate that binary and ignore the real creative pressure for alternatives that emerged during this period.

But what alternatives were posed, and why? For the most part, unisex meant more masculine clothing for girls and women. Attempts to feminize men's appearance turned out to be short-lived, not permanent changes. The underlying argument in favor of rejecting gender binaries turns out to have been another binary: a forced decision between gender identities being a product of nature or nurture. For a while, the "nurture" side was winning. Gender roles were perceived to be socially constructed, learned patterns of behavior and therefore subject to review and revision. Unisex fashions were one front in the culture wars of the late 60s and 70s -- a war between people who believed that biology is destiny and those who believed that human agency could override DNA.

The working title is “Sex and Unisex: The Unfinished Business of the 1970s”. Because it’s clear to me from today’s culture wars that the sexual revolution is turning out to be more like the 100 Years War.

One of the most iconic works of the unisex era is Lois Gould's short story, "X: a fabulous child's story", a tale of an "Xperiment" in gender-free child-raising. It first appeared in Ms. in 1972, and was expanded into an illustrated children's book in 1978. (The Gender Centre in Australia has the story online.)

Here's a quick summary: 

A baby is born to two parents who have agreed to keep its sex a secret, as part of a huge, very expensive scientific experiment. They are given a thick handbook to help them navigate future problems, from how to play with X to dealing with boys' and girls' bathrooms at school. 

While other adults react with hostility, X's schoolmates eventually start imitating its freedom in dress and play. Finally, the PTA demands that X be examined, physically and mentally, by a team of experts. 

Of course, X turns out to be the "least mixed up child" ever examined by the experts. X knows what it is, and "By the time it matters which sex X is, it won't be a secret any more". Happy ending.

Ah, the 70s! Between this story, Harry Nilsson's "The Point" and "Free to be You and Me", the future looked so clear and bright. What happened? I will be taking a close look at the vision in each over the next week and discussing here, but would love to hear your memories and reactions.

Fact: rompers were invented so kids could play in the dirt. The earliest patent I've found for these loose-fitting, unisex jumpsuits dates to the 1880s. Apparently a female inventor (mom?) had the brilliant idea that boys and girls needed to worry less about their clothes and focus on fun. Sandboxes were new-fangled equipment, and laundry was still a huge burden, so she designed a coverall that fit over toddler's dresses (back then they all wore dresses). 

By the 1920s, rompers were no longer overgarments, but simply popped on over underwear. The version on the right, also called a creeper, was for children still in diapers. 

One of the patterns I am noticing in the evolution of unisex clothing is the dressier the outfift, the more gendered the design. Play clothes were not only washable and usually in darker colors, but also identical for both boys and girls. At least that's how it used to be.

My current questions:

• What was happening with outdoor play when play clothes become more gendered?
  
• What is the relationship between highly feminized play clothes and girls' freedom to romp and get dirty? Pastel colors, which show the dirt more, would seem to limit such activities, even if there's a modern washing machine in the home. There is also the issue of fit -- skinny for girls, loose for boys.

Examples:

Girls' Playtime Favorites, 1-5 years (GAP)
Boys' Playtime Favorites, 1-5 years (GAP)

For an interesting perspective on children and dirt, see "for the love of dirt". You can also enjoy Mariana's colorful, comfy gardening outfit. I found this blog post via the awesome Princess Free Zone. If you have a kid in your life, you should check out PFZ.

I am currently caught between two books. "Pink and Blue" is out in the world, and that means interviews and conversations about gender differences in children's clothing. But I am also working on the proposal for my next book, which will be about unisex clothing (roughly 1965-1985). In terms of historical description, it looks like it will be pretty straightforward. Women and girls started wearing pants, even to work and school. Men enjoyed a brief "peacock revolution", when bold colors and pattern returned to their wardrobes. Legal battles were fought over hair (hair!): soldier's hair, students' hair, firefighters' hair. It was hard to tell the boys from the girls, under the age of ten. Designers from Paris to Hollywood imagined a future of equality and androgyny -- within the limits of their own world views, of course.

Explaining it all is where it gets complicated. Unisex clothing was a reaction to most of the gender binaries in fashion: long hair/short hair, skirts/pants and yes, pink/blue. But what alternative was posed, and why? For the most part, unisex meant more masculine clothing for girls and women. Attempts to feminize men's appearance turned out to be short-lived fads, not permanent changes. The underlying argument in favor of rejecting gender binaries turns out to have been another binary: a forced decision between gender identities being a product of nature or nurture. For a while, the "nurture" side was winning. Gender roles were social constructed, learned patterns of behavior and therefore subject to review and revision. Unisex fashions were one front in the culture wars of the late 60s and 70s -- a war between people who believed that biology is destiny and those who believed that human agency can override our DNA.

Thanks for listening/reading to my ponderings. Comments most welcome!

Israeli fashion writer Dafna Lustig has debuted a very nifty blog featuring online selections that meet her standards for dressing toddlers: well-made, good value and -- if possible -- favoring unisex over stereotyped designs. In an interview with Haaretz.com, Lustig explains her philosophy, including anticipating her daughter's future demand for the shiny and sparkly.  It pains me to see this desire accepted so readily as innate and inevitable. True, most children go through a stage of preferring highly stereotyped clothing in other to feel more secure in their assigned gender (usually around 4 or 5). But the exact nature of those stereotypes is culturally and socially constructed, and one of our responsibilities as parents is to help children move through each developmental stage to the next. 

How have you successfully negotiated a comfortable balance between the 4-year-olds' fixation on the extreme poles of feminine-masculine child culture and the reality of a world where mommies use power tools and daddies wear pink shirts?

Dafna's blog, http://babyfashion.co.il/ is in Hebrew, but the pictures are lovely and Google translate is your friend. My favorite part: the cure little ice cream cone links to "not recommended", "recommended" and "very recommended".

Yesterday, February 12, would have been my mother's 90th birthday. In her memory, I decided take a close look at children's fashion in the year of her birth. As the third child born to a young German Lutheran minister and his wife in rural Canada, I doubt if she ever wore any of the fancier styles shown here, but family photos certainly confirm the rules of appropriate clothing for children under 7. 

Babies from birth to around 6 months: long white gowns, ranging from minimally embellished to elaborately trimmed with lace and embroidery.

Babies from six months to a year or slightly older: short white dresses and one-piece rompers. Again, these could be plain or fancy, depending on the occasion and the family's budget and needlework talents.

Gender differences were introduced between one and two years, with little boys exchanging dresses for short trousers, often attached to their shirts or blouses with buttons at the waistline. Little girls stayed in dresses, but in an array of colors. 

Here's a video I created for the occasion:

Personal finance site LearnVest passes along 15 Ways to Save Money on Your Family (originally appeared in Parents and Parents.com). Tip # 2:

Buy Unisex Clothing. If you plan to have more than one child, stay away from stereotypical pink or blue outfits, suggests Jonathan Pond, author of “Grow Your Money.” Many t-shirts, shorts and pants can be worn by both boys and girls through preschool, so it makes financial sense to maximize your hand-me-down potential.

My forays into the children's departments of stores suggests that this may be harder than it sounds, unless you are ready to stretch the clothing industry's notion of what constitutes "unisex". Truly designed-to-be-neutral clothing disappears above the smallest infant sizes, and dressing a toddler in unisex styles usually means foraging in the boys' section for the plainest options. Or am I wrong? Where do you find neutral styles in 2T-4T and 4-6 sizes?