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Gender Mystique

Why pinkification matters

3/31/2014

 
There's been quite of bit of back-and-forth about pink lately, Researcher Rebecca Hains summarizes it very neatly:

“What’s the problem with pink, anyway?” griped Yael Kohen in New York. Then, building upon Kohen’s piece, Slate senior editor Allison Benedikt demanded: ”What is it with you moms of girls? I have never met a single one of you who isn’t tortured about pink and princesses.”


Over at Pigtail Palls, Melissa Wardy lays out the counterargument:

There is a difference between being anti-pink and being anti-limitation, and as someone who educates thousands of parents every week on this issue I feel most parents fall into the second camp. We are not anti-pink. We are anti-limitation.


Anyone who studies -- and critiques -- gender distinctions can expect to be accused of one of two things:

  1. trying to disrupt the "natural" order of things, by which is meant binary, biology-is-destiny ideology. (Men and women are opposites or complements, there are only those two categories, and the corresponding cultural coding of masculinity and femininity is the natural outcome of these binary biological differences.)
  2. making a mountain out of a molehill



Countering the first assertion is a matter of evidence, both scientific and cultural. Biological sex is not either-or. There are as many variations on gender codes as there are cultures in human history. Of course, like other modern controversies, from climate change to vaccination, evidence can not sway the committed unbeliever. My research is aimed at the persuadable reader, and at the embattled advocates for gender equality and acceptance who need the ammunition. 

The second accusation is more problematic. People who espouse this view often claim to embrace a more inclusive and accepting view of gender variations. They want their boys to be free to be artists and their girls to be engineers. But gosh-darn-it all this fuss about pink is so TRIVIAL! 

Here is where I will take the liberty of substituting "pinkification" for "pink", because it isn't about the color pink itself, but about the cultural pattern of offering children a strongly stereotypical version of gender. Pinkification is what I will call this pattern. Here's why it isn't trivial:

  • The pinkification of culture has a history, and it is recent. 
  • Pinkification is not just the use of pink to denote "girls' things", but the narrowing of choices to exclude neutral options, which reinforces the fore-mentioned (incorrect) binary 
  • Pinkification works because it targets children at a developmentally vulnerable stage.
  • Pinkification teaches children stereotypes that limit the way they perceive themselves and others. 
  • Pinkification excludes and stigmatizes children who do not identify with gender stereotypes.


What happened in the 1970s? (continued)

6/14/2012

 
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I came across some interesting thoughts on unisex fashion in "Looking Good", published in 1976. The author, Clara Pierre, was writing from the perspective of an industry insider observing what she expected to be permanent changes in fashion. In chapter 10 "From bralessness to unisex", she explains the connection between sexual liberation and unisex clothing as a process of increasing comfort various aspects of sexual identity and expression:

"for whatever reason, we began to feel more comfortable first with sex pure and simple, then with homosexuality and now with androgyny"


That was then and this is now, as they say. Clearly, some people thought that the culture wars over sex was over, even as it was just beginning. So, I wonder: what happened?

Children's clothing, 1922. Drawing the lines between babies, boys and girls.

2/13/2012

 
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:

Money-saving tip: buy unisex clothes (if you can find them)

2/10/2012

 
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?

Babies and toddlers, 1983

2/4/2012

 
I spent some time this week looking over more baby and toddler clothing in Sears catalogs*, and have confirmed one of my theses about the patterns of gendering. The dressier the occasion, the more gendered the clothing. This is clear in these images from the 1983 spring catalog. The play clothes include a page each of fairly girlie and definitely boyish outfits, plus a page that are pretty much neutral. The dressy clothes are pull-out-the-stops feminine and masculine. compared with the 2000's, there was much less pink in the play clothes options. 

This aligns with what many adults do: more neutral styles for leisure, more gendered for special occasions. The sharpening of the gender binary for some situations, while it is ok to blur them in others, is part of what I am mulling over as I develop my next book.
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*Sears catalogs are among my favorite resources for studying mass-market fashions. If you live near a Sears store that is over thirty years old, your local public library might have a complete run of the "big books" on microfilm. If not, the best source is now Ancestry.com, which includes online access to Sears catalogs as part of their basic membership. I wish Sears had donated them to a museum or library that could allow free public access, but alas, they are struggling financially and I guess this was the best they could do. 

What neutral kids' clothes looked like in 1962.

1/21/2012

 
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I just acquired a 1962 Fall/Winter Sears catalog from a new friend, and have been enjoying the trip down memory lane. 

So many of the play clothes, like those on the left, were neutral -- plain, solid color styles that could be worn by either boys or girls and handed down to younger siblings.

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I'd forgotten that pink used to be pretty much a spring color. Fall clothes meant fall colors: more saturated hues, fewer pastels, heavier fabrics.


There were four pages of "school dresses" like these, and not a pink dress among them.

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These blanket sleepers came in three colors: blue, yellow and a "nursery print" of pink and blue animals on a white background.

Another vision for kids' clothes

1/12/2012

 
I am (not so) patiently waiting for my book to be released. The publisher says "any day", which takes me back to those last days waiting for each of my children to be born. In all honesty, I had it pretty easy; Maria was 4 weeks early and Danny held off until 2 1/5 weeks before his due date. 

While I am waiting, I have been exploring dozens of blogs about parenting and children's clothing, especially international ones. Here is my "find of the day":

Paul and Paula small style

Peggy is a German-born mom living in Amsterdam with her husband and two small children, "KleinR" (girl) and "KleinA" (boy). She is a wonderful photographer, with an eye for fresh design. Her daughter, 4 1/2 years, wears marvelous, almost whimsical combinations of neutral colors, frilly touches and accents of color. I am willing to bet that some of the clothes on her son are handmedowns from big sister, they look for soft and broken-in. 

It is a comfortable mix for me, and I like the idea of broken-in clothes for little brothers and sisters.

    Jo Paoletti

    Professor Emerita
    ​American Studies
    University of Maryland

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