Dressing Your Child

[radegund]

[This started out as a comment in cangetmad's journal, but it spiralled out of control so I moved it here.]

The gendering of children's clothing is a big elephant-in-the-corner.

Gender-aware parents, in my experience (yes, that's limited, and yes, "gender-aware parents" is a fairly crude categorisation), like to aim for "gender-neutral" colours and styles. This is relatively unproblematic for boys, but because female=marked, it generally means that girls dressed thus are assumed to be male.⁰ You're responsible for labelling your girl, in other words, so that the unwary bystander is not confused.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Both the traditional "boy" stuff and the "gender neutral" stuff are most likely to be read as male; only the "girl" stuff is unerringly read as female. The iconography of "boy" stuff includes vehicles, sports, war, fierce animals (plus dinosaurs and monsters), traditionally masculine professions (firefighter, driver of large vehicle, construction worker), rough or transgressive behaviour (the pirate/burglar axis). The iconography of "gender-neutral" stuff overlaps with the "boy" stuff but also includes houses, trees, fruit, toys, school, zoo and farm animals, and not-so-fierce animals like mice and dogs (cats are for girls). The iconography of "girl" stuff (or so I've gathered - and do please tell me what I'm leaving out) includes flowers, baby or toy animals, princesses, fairies, ballerinas, sexual precociousness, emotional instability, untramelled consumerism, and the state of being the property of one's father.¹ I also reckon that the clothes themselves are more of a thing in the "girl" space: they follow adult fashion and style, and they have frills and trimmings. Some "boy" clothes have interesting pockets or lift-up-and-see flaps, but that's not the same thing. The message is that "girl" clothes are "decorative" in a way that the rest are not. (Catering to the male gaze from day 1.)

Let's just pause for a second or two to think about the implications of these iconographic distinctions for how we train our children to see themselves in the world.

OK, got that? Good. We move on.

Non-gender-aware parents broadly follow the rules.

Gender-aware parents of boys range over the "boy" and "gender-neutral" spaces, with perhaps an occasional foray into "girl" if they're particularly motivated. I've yet to meet a boy whose parents dressed him in pink frills - and I'm confident that you understand, without my attempting to articulate it in my ongoing sleep-deprived state, why that's so. Most of them, I'm pretty sure, also avoid the "war" end of "boy" space.

Gender-aware parents of girls inevitably inhabit the "girl" space, unless they steadfastly refuse all gifts and hand-me-downs. They are also free to choose "gender-neutral" and "boy" clothes, but only if they're prepared to negotiate people's assumptions that their daughter is male. The only other option is to try to steer a course through "girl" space that avoids the "daddy's little princess" T-shirts and the pink bikinis. (Bikinis. For toddlers. I mean ... gah.) That (plus "gender-neutral") is what I think I'll aim for if I have a daughter. I'm uncomfortable with the outright rejection of things female, for reasons that should be obvious. But as far as I can tell, it's not always easy to find "girl" clothes that aren't emblazoned with the ick. (Oh, look. Dressing a girl is harder work than dressing a boy if you're at all into challenging stereotypes. Colour me gobsmacked.)

[ETA (an aside): Another little kink in the story is that from what I've seen, there tend to be more "girl" clothes for sale than "boy" clothes - or perhaps it's just that they're more prominently and imaginatively displayed. So we have, for girls, a restricted range of messages but a super-abundant supply. Way to channel future women into the roles that consumer society wants them to play.]

But isn't it COMPLETELY INSANE that dressing one's child in gender-appropriate clothes should be this problematic? Isn't it UTTERLY WACKED-OUT that a significant proportion of clothes designed for little girls carry messages that range from embarrassing to nauseating? Isn't it interesting that here as elsewhere, pretty much anyone who thinks about the issues wants to move out of the socially prescribed "female" space and into the "neutral/male" space as quickly as possible, and that females who venture into supposedly "neutral" territory are likely to be interacted with as though they were male?²

There's nothing inherently undesirable about the kittens, flowers, metallic textiles, and various shades of pink and purple that mark clothing out as "girl". Dressing your girl in orange denim dungarees and a white cotton T-shirt with dinosaurs on the sleeves is not inherently more responsible than dressing your boy in a fairisle twinset in heathery shades, stripy tights and a navy A-line knee-length needlecord skirt. And yet the latter is (all but) unthinkable, while the former is (more or less) unremarkable.

The Oyster's wardrobe, predictably, is pretty exclusively "boy" or "gender-neutral". The only "girl" clothes he has are some new socks from H&M: he's worn the plum and the turquoise but not the pale pink yet. (Non-clothing is different: he has several pink/purple/flowery/kitteny plates and cups, and two dolls (which he's just beginning to interact with now), and I'm vaguely on the lookout for a teaset.)

I can't really see myself greatly expanding his collection of "girl" clothes.³ And that, in a way, frustrates me. No, I am not going to moan about how my SON is being DISCRMINATED AGAINST OH EM GEE. But there's certainly a sense in which I do feel restricted by social expectations of his gender. I mean, I happen to like pink and purple, and I think some shades would look good on him. (He hasn't expressed much of a colour preference, FWIW, apart from definitely liking red.) Also, niallm and I are both besotted with him, and if we were into "angel" as a concept, then "daddy's little angel" wouldn't be an entirely inappropriate T-shirt message. Um. Apart from the possession thing, obviously. (Incidentally, aren't angels sexless? How did they become female in the children's clothes market?)

All of which suggests to me that we're probably socialising him in ways that may cause him difficulty later on when he encounters the hard-man stereotypes. Ho hum. You can't win. I am both disconcerted and (oddly) comforted by the thought that his immediate family provides only one component in his socialisation. And in the end, he'll have to navigate his own route through the gender jungle.

⁰ ailbhe's daughter is in the habit of referring to herself as "boy" - as in, "boy get down now", presumably because so many other people do.

¹ These last are (as you can appreciate) the ones that really cause me to incandesce. ailbhe recently recounted seeing two sets of vests in Primark: the boys' ones said things like "astronaut", "pirate", "fireman" and so on, while the girls' ones said things like "shopaholic" and "drama queen".

² cangetmad, you still on for starting that feminist baby-clothes business?

³ And isn't it also curious that his wardrobe appears to be ENTIRELY my domain, and not niallm's at all?

Comments

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of Kate's thoughtful, "Of course, it's always possible that the baby won't be a drag queen", shortly before the Gnome graced us all with her presence.

But, um, too late for useful comment, particularly as am in habit of dressing nobody but myself.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, the child's will has to come into it somewhere, after a bit...

[kulfuldi.livejournal.com]

Very interesting, and I completely agree with you, particularly on how nauseating girls' clothes are. Even without having offspring, I've encountered this problem fairly often while buying for friends' kids. It's often very hard to get anything gender neutral, too. Once, when shopping for a girl, I found myself in a shop where the only choice was between 'Daddy's little princess' type stuff, which I just WON'T do, and perfectly nice red top/navy trousers combo which would have done for any child if it hadn't said 'Boy' on it in big letters. Needless to say, I went to a different shop.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think I would've, too. Boy Ick just isn't as noxious as Girl Ick. Bah.

Going off on a tangent....

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

SNAP!

I was thinking about exactly this problematic yesterday because my brother's offspring is due to arrive some time in July and I'd like to give them some sort of maternity/paternity present. And hey; I've always been know to give smart clothes, so I thought I'd stay with that trend. Not knowing the gender of the future baby, I started thinking about what might be fairly gender neutral, and I realised, much to my horror, that everything I could think of would be labelled "male" unless it was pink and fluffy!

For infant clothes, white is really the only non-gendered colour unless you move into primaries (which I won't be giving... I don't do primaries very well at all!), and white's just rather dull in many ways. Black = not an option; it's a baby, not a corpse. Even if you take sand-colour or brown, it'll be perceived as male, and it's really rather frightening how the male default is still so dominant, even in my own mind.

So I've decided I'm going to buy them a book instead! The clothing seems such a labyrinth that I won't even attempt to negotiate it for the mere sake of a present, and toys of any kind would be a silly gift, since my sister-out-law's mother owns a toy store. A book, preferably slightly subversive in tone and something with pretty pictures in bright colours as well as text that will make me laugh out loud. (I gave Goats Are Good to a friend when him and his wife were expecting... Hillarious book!)

Re: Going off on a tangent....

[ailbhe]

Black, sand, brown, red, blue, yellow, green and orange are ALL default "boy" colours if otherwise unmarked. Some pastel shades are more girl - particularly pastel yellow - but if the clothing is unmarked, people WILL default to "boy".

I have actually been known to cry about this, when my daughter and I were dressed IDENTICALLY - matching orange long-sleeved tshirts from H&M, and blue denim jeans. Um, I didn't have a big cloth nappy shaped bum, but you can't have everything. We both had dark leather ankle-boots.

And everyone thought she was a boy. Not one person thought I was her daddy, though. Gah.

Re: Going off on a tangent....

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Your book scenario sounds good to me.

Clothing is such a minefield!

Re: Going off on a tangent....

[pisica.livejournal.com]

it's a baby, not a corpse

I know someone - a very strange someone, in a 'psychiatric nurses find her more disturbed than patients on locked wards' kind of way - who, even though her daughters are now teenagers, is still remembered by her ex-workmates for being given baby clothes and dyeing them all black.

[dovegrey.livejournal.com]

because female=marked, it generally means that girls dressed thus are assumed to be male.

Yes - we had this when Jane was a baby. I was determined for her not to wear pink, so she wore white, yellow, green, orange, etc, and EVERYONE just assumed she was a boy.

OTOH, from about the age of two, she suddenly went pink-crazy and has turned herself into a stereotypical girl who loves jewellery, princesses, long hair and fairy costumes. What's a parent to do?? Forbidding these things seems to me likely to do more harm than putting up and hoping it's a phase she'll grow out of :-/

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Forbidding these things...

I think you're right. Letting her exercise choice will send a healthier message in the long run.

It's such a con, though, isn't it? We're told "pink for a girl and blue for a boy", as if the other colours are all up for grabs.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when I'm buying kid's clothes I despair of finding anything that seems to be for children - the girls' stuff is nauseating, like you say. Surelay even little girls can't like that much pink? (My friends' daughter, Eulalia, tends to go for the multi-coloured look when allowed dress herself). And the boys' stuff seems geared towards miniature adults, with subdued colours and conservative designs.

(I'm also rather continually irritated by Eulalia's mother's insistence on pink clothing as a deliberate marker of girlhood, not to mention the below-the-knee skirts for the sake of modesty that the child has been put into since she could haul herself upright. Zephyrinus gets to charge around and get himself filthy in his hard-wearing always blue clothes, Eulalia is quite deliberately hampered by hers.

Er. I should probably point out those aren't the kids' real names, just in case you think their parents are unusually cruel!)

[ailbhe]

Hah. We banned skirts and dresses as gifts from when L started trying to crawl until she could walk competently. Omigod I am such a revolutionary. *cries*.

[stellanova.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think the boys' stuff always seems very subdued and almost drab - it's not fair!

[dovegrey.livejournal.com]

Surelay even little girls can't like that much pink?

I'm afraid my daughter does! We dressed her in neutral colours until she was able to choose for herself what she wanted to wear, and it turned out that what she wanted to wear was pink, pink, and more pink! I always dressed her in trousers, but now she chooses to wear skirts (even though I think they're far more inconvenient). It's possible she's picked up these ideas of what girls wear from playgroup, but she's very strong-minded and does what she wants. And what she wants, it transpires, is pink :-/ I can only hope that she'll grow out of it...

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Girl clothing: UNICORNS. Preferably pink, sparkly, fluffy, and glittery ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Pink, sparkly, fluffy, glittery UNICORNS! How could I have forgotten?!

Also, unicorns, eh? Well, we all know what they signify, nudge nudge.

*vomits*

[leedy.livejournal.com]

because female=marked, it generally means that girls dressed thus are assumed to be male.

Yes! I wore a lot of, well, the same kind of colours I wear now (browns, dark greens, orangey-reds, plums, wines) as a little kid, and preferred trousers/dungarees to skirts - I remember being mistaken for a boy on several occasions. Of course, the Archetypal 70s Unisex Child Haircut (ie a bowl) didn't help...

And I am completely with you on the ickiness of so many current little-girl clothes.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

See, I never had the haircut. Didn't in fact, have a haircut at all until I was maybe ten (and then it was just a trim). I was also a relatively femme dresser, although anything but a girly girl (wannabe, maybe - but my Fancy Notepaper Collection just wasn't ever going to measure up...), so people didn't mistake me for a boy. Or not that I noticed, anyway. But in any case, I strongly doubt that the Girl Ick was quite as bad in the 70s - particularly in Holy Ireland - so it probably wasn't such an issue for my parents.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Have you also noticed that clothes for girls are, in general, much less sturdy than clothes for boys?

Girls' jeans are often decorated with embroidery or sequins or rhinestones and the like; boys' never are. The denim used in boys' jeans is about twice as thick as the denim used for girls' jeans, too. If I want to get the Weegirl (who is almost eight) jeans that are going to last more than a week with no holes in the knees, we have to go to (horrors) the boys' department.

And don't get me started on t-shirts! She has a plain white t-shirt, size 6. We recently got her a plain white t-shirt, size 8. One day when hanging them out to dry I noticed that the size 8 is actually shorter and narrower than the size 6. At the age of seven, my daughter is already being expected to wear clothes that cover less of her body and show off more of her body shape than boys are! (Not to mention that the fabric was so thin you could shoot peas through it.)

(Hello, by the way -- here via ailbhe. Mind if I friend you?)

[ailbhe]

Girls' KNICKERS have less fabric in them than boys' knickers have. We've bought Linnea a set of each.

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

Hi, first, a quick introduction. I'm Diz, 51, a friend of Ailbhe. I have a 20 year old son and a daughter nearly 17.
As a toddler, my son had natural blond ringlets. He had a red jogging suit with teddies on bikes, a blue velour suit with a white polar bear, even pale blue cotton trousers and jacket, yet long curly hair meant female! He had a wonderful boy rag doll I made for him (he asked for it), a playhouse with cooker, sink and teasets. He had short hair at school, but 18 years later his hair is down to his waist, but the moustache, beard and general 'Meatloaf' build means no-one mistakes him for a girl these days.
My daughter was dressed in a mixture of ds cast offs and girly stuff. I dont remember her ever being mistaken for a boy, tho, but she did have the same wonderful hair. She refused to wear dresses from about 18 months, and looked wonderful in her black Duckula outfit. She went totally pink for several years at age 6 but took up martial arts about the same time, so was the Pink (Power) Ranger. I was happy with that - feminine, but strong; pink but powerful. Yeah, ok, it was a beat up the baddies fightfest, but a few sessions in a school playground soon teach kids about violence - heck that's WHY dd was so keen to learn martial arts! The last few years she has returned to loving Duckula, and BLACK. Goth. It suits her, as does the various colours her hair ends up.
Angels? My hazy bible knowledge makes me think that they were all male. I don't know when they became female.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Hi, Diz :-)

Yes, my little brother used to get taken for a girl when his (shiny, blond) hair got long, too. I think it must have a lot to do with it. As for your Pink Power Ranger, that made me smile.

Angels are supposedly sexless, as far as I know. But oh, look, we all assume they're male, because that's the default.

[blue-monday.livejournal.com]

Hello! I'm here via yonmei, and also because I keep meaning to add you to my friends list :)

This is a fantastic post, I really am not fond of the way the clothes are sold and designed. Girly girl clothes being frilly and nonsensical, and there being not much in the middle ground in terms of decent sensible clothes for them. Boys clothes are easy, and not as bad generally, though there's still times I look at things and just think "no".

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Hello! Likewise. Done now :-)

That's my point - obviously any parent is going to think "ugh, no" at a proportion of the clothes on offer, but the girls' clothes just seem so much worse to me. It's as if they aren't supposed to be people right now, in themselves, but rather little walking advertisements for their future lives. If that makes any sense. Sigh.

regarding the angels thing

[sismith42.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm another person wandering in from yonmei's journal... interesting post :-)

I don't have children, so can't really comment on most of this, beyond that it's very thought-provoking (is gendered necissarily bad? How about if it's the kid's choice? Isn't it possible that a child sees something and thinks "ooh, I like it!" rather than succoming to external pressures?) and inspiring (some day, I'd like to write an action story in which the main character is actually a woman, rather than a man-with-breasts-- but first, I have to sort out what exactly is female, and what's male...)

Anyways, where you ask Incidentally, aren't angels sexless? How did they become female in the children's clothes market?: I've always seen that as a comment that girls are more angelic (sweet, likeley to help someone, etc) and couldn't possibly be otherwise, and that, conversly, the boys couldn't POSSIBLY possess these characteristics... rather than as an observation of the gender of the angels themselves.

[merryhouse.livejournal.com]

Mermaids.

We never had frills, but I did dress Christopher in pink babygros (I bought from charity shops. They were there). Actually, the fuschia one was a present from my father, which was sort of weird. I can only assume that he thought fuschia didn't count as Girly Pink (yes, he *is* sufficiently far from Barbie Marketing for this to be feasible). However, I have become sufficiently cowed over the past 5 years to feel mildly uncomfortable when I look at the relevant photos. Oliver wore none of them.

Robert (not Ailbhe's, mine - ooooh look, the possessive) said he thought the bikinis I remembered wearing in the 70s were OK - basically a croptop and small shorts, with the odd frill or flower. It's the strappy 2-triangle sort he hates: "emphasising something that isn't there."

My oldest niece (coming up to 6) now doesn't want pink clothes because "everyone likes pink" - a source of great relief to her mother!

Logical bonds

Julie paradox
- another of Ailbhe's devoted readers

[l33tminion]

Here via yonmei.

I really don't have much to comment, aside from saying that this entry is very well written. However, do you mind if I friend you? You journal is quite interesting.

[sarrabellum.livejournal.com]

Hey there. I found my way here via pescana, and I just wanted to add a hearty AMEN. My son is now 12 but I remember struggling with similar things in his infant & toddler years. The clothes he wears now, as a pre-teen, are entirely utilitarian - jeans, tees, sweaters; no war, sports, or "male" iconography - though he does have a fondness for kittens and women's socks (he loves having socks with designs or little animals on them - cats, squirrels, monkeys, and so on - and they don't make those for males).

Children's clothes - well, really, girls' clothes - have a changed a bit in the last decade, and not for the better. I was aghast and appalled and, yes, frustrated, when attempting to shop for a friend's male newborn two years ago. Even my son - then 10 - was stomping through the baby section, picking up "princess" girl shirts and "adventurer" boy shirts and grumbling, "Oh, sure, because girls can never be adventurous, right?!" with sarcastic eye-rolls and disgruntled hand-waves.

I often wonder, in the face of all you described, what I'll do if I have more children. It's a frustrating prospect. Learning to sew seems to be one of the better options. :)

Thanks for the thought-provoking reading.