Girl clothes, boy clothes
posted by bitchphd
Funny that PoJ posted about gender and clothing--just a couple of days ago, while I was down visiting Grandma (we went for ice cream, she's doing as well as might be expected, it was a great visit, she feels ready to die, and that's really basically okay in a sort of sad but somehow acceptable way--she's 89, after all), my dad took me and Pseudonymous Kid to Wal-Mart (I know, but beggars can't be choosers) to buy PK some new summer sandals, since he had gotten a blister from the old ones (which were last summer's, and on the smallish side now and I hadn't yet gotten around to replacing them). (Wow, three parenthetical asides in a single sentence--that's gotta be some kind of record. Bear with me, I have terrible allergies or maybe a head cold and my sinuses feel like they're stuffed full of viscous liquid. Which they are.)
Anyway. Kid's shoes. So we get to the kids' shoe section, and I start pulling down sandals. Now, one of my big complaints about kids' clothes, you'll be unsurprised to hear, is how freakin' gendered they are, especially at places like Wal-Mart. Not to mention the fact that I think cheap kids' clothes are cheap in part because they're all subsidized by movie tie-ins or some crap like that. Now, I know that a lot of progressive-type parents complain about girls' clothes being all girly-girl, which they are; but you mothers of sons will know what I am saying when I say boys' clothes are somehow, in the age of girl power, even worse. They're all about military crap, or sci-fi movies with fighting in them, and they're all black or olive drab or some kind of hideous boring colors. So what I do when I shop with or for PK is go for the middle: bright colors, preferably solids or stripes or perky flowers (PK loves flowers), avoiding the militaristic crud or the Star Wars logos. So I pulled down some dark red sandals with an embossed flower, but they were the wrong size; some plain brown sandals, which PK deemed boring; some Buzz Lightyear sandals with flashing lights (we try to pretend that Buzz's laser beam is a "wrist flashlight," which so far works about 75% of the time), which again, wrong size. Finally my dad hauls out some, yeah, Star Wars Darth Vader sandals which PK decides are "cool," so, again on the beggars-can't-be-choosers theme, I said, "okay," and we bought 'em. PK loves them, so ok, whatever.
And then later, in the car, my dad and I talked about gender and kids' clothing. Now, when PK was in utero, we knew he was going to be a boy; but we didn't tell anyone else. You'd be surprised how offended people get when they know you know but aren't telling--including total strangers, oddly. It's quite revealing of how important gender is to us in categorizing the world. At one point, thinking of names, we called my dad to ask what Grandma's middle name was--her first name is very feminine, but I thought perhaps her middle name would be one of those feminized boys' names, like "Georgette" or something (it wasn't), and I was thinking of naming PK after her.
Well, Dad assumed that my asking meant that PK was destined to be a girl, so apparently he bought a hat for PK as a baby gift. A hat I have never seen. Because when PK was born, and he was indeed a boy, my dad called and said, "well, darn, I guess I'll have to save this hat for the next one." And I said, "why?" And he said, "well, it's a girl's hat." And I said, "so? He's a baby. He won't care. Dad, I'd really love to have the hat you chose for my first baby."
But no can do. The "pink hat" has become kind of a family joke, but it has occasioned some really interesting conversations. Back then, I was really shocked--because my dad raised both my sister and I in pretty feminist, progressive ways; we wore girls' and boys' clothes, my sister in particular played a lot of sports and was the only girl on one of her high school teams--a fact my dad was extremely proud of. And my sister's daughter often wore "boys" clothes, including a shirt that said "boy" on it, when she was a baby. So I asked my dad about it, and he said, "well, it's just different." I pushed him, and he told me some story about some "effeminate" boy in his class (my dad teaches elementary school), and how awful it is for that little boy that he just doesn't fit in. And I said, ok, dad, first of all, I doubt a pink hat on an infant is going to lead to a lifetime of ostracization; and second of all, the reason things are awful for effeminate boys is because of homophobia--what we need to do is fight it, not cave in to it.
Now, to my dad's credit, he's come a long way. PK has really long hair and is often mistaken for a girl; Dad seems unfazed by this. He didn't blink at my pulling down both girls' and boys' sandals at the store--although he did say in the car that he'd noticed it, and was a little surprised. And I said, well, a lot of boys' stuff is really militaristic and drab colors, and PK likes bright stuff, and his winter boots, in fact, are solid blue but have a blue flower on the velcro flap and he loves them (and I think his snow boots are probably "girls" boots too, on the ground that the snowflake pattern is kinda shiny). And, I said, really it's important to me that he not feel constrained about things like enjoying having his fingernails painted, which is fun for kids b/c who doesn't like to play dress up? Or the fact that he likes flowers, or the fact that he's really fond of small furry animals and cute things. I think it's reassuring to my dad to see that even though PK enjoys all these things, he's still not a sissy--although, as a measure of how far we've come, he again told me a story about an "effeminate" ("I don't know what word to use, I guess that's the right one") boy in his class this year. But this time, the point of the story was that my dad is impressed that the other kids don't seem to tease the little boy, rather than that the boy is going to have problems fitting in for the rest of his life.
So, as someone said in the comments to the post below, yeah: one reason it's cool for girls to dress in boys' clothes (but not the other way around) is that boys are "higher" on the hierarchy than girls. It's cool for dads like mine to want their daughters to achieve, to be as good as boys, to have every opportunity. It's a little less cool when their feminist daughters want their grandsons to enjoy nail polish and flowers, to be complimented for being cute as well as for being clever, to get to indulge the little-kid love of all things sparkly. There's a down side to it, of course--as PoJ points out, things that are marked as "feminine" cost more (because women are expected to be good consumers; because "femininity" is an act that's meant to advertise indulgence and luxury; because sexism ain't dead yet). On the other hand, men pay a price to maintain masculinity, too. Crafty stuff is "girly," enjoying nature is "girly," taking care of small things is "girly," being coddled and petted is "girly." I'm pretty happy that PK gets to enjoy those little luxuries.
And I'm not too poor to spring for the occasional bottle of Hello Kitty nail polish so that he can have sparkly toes inside his Darth Vader sandals.
Anyway. Kid's shoes. So we get to the kids' shoe section, and I start pulling down sandals. Now, one of my big complaints about kids' clothes, you'll be unsurprised to hear, is how freakin' gendered they are, especially at places like Wal-Mart. Not to mention the fact that I think cheap kids' clothes are cheap in part because they're all subsidized by movie tie-ins or some crap like that. Now, I know that a lot of progressive-type parents complain about girls' clothes being all girly-girl, which they are; but you mothers of sons will know what I am saying when I say boys' clothes are somehow, in the age of girl power, even worse. They're all about military crap, or sci-fi movies with fighting in them, and they're all black or olive drab or some kind of hideous boring colors. So what I do when I shop with or for PK is go for the middle: bright colors, preferably solids or stripes or perky flowers (PK loves flowers), avoiding the militaristic crud or the Star Wars logos. So I pulled down some dark red sandals with an embossed flower, but they were the wrong size; some plain brown sandals, which PK deemed boring; some Buzz Lightyear sandals with flashing lights (we try to pretend that Buzz's laser beam is a "wrist flashlight," which so far works about 75% of the time), which again, wrong size. Finally my dad hauls out some, yeah, Star Wars Darth Vader sandals which PK decides are "cool," so, again on the beggars-can't-be-choosers theme, I said, "okay," and we bought 'em. PK loves them, so ok, whatever.
And then later, in the car, my dad and I talked about gender and kids' clothing. Now, when PK was in utero, we knew he was going to be a boy; but we didn't tell anyone else. You'd be surprised how offended people get when they know you know but aren't telling--including total strangers, oddly. It's quite revealing of how important gender is to us in categorizing the world. At one point, thinking of names, we called my dad to ask what Grandma's middle name was--her first name is very feminine, but I thought perhaps her middle name would be one of those feminized boys' names, like "Georgette" or something (it wasn't), and I was thinking of naming PK after her.
Well, Dad assumed that my asking meant that PK was destined to be a girl, so apparently he bought a hat for PK as a baby gift. A hat I have never seen. Because when PK was born, and he was indeed a boy, my dad called and said, "well, darn, I guess I'll have to save this hat for the next one." And I said, "why?" And he said, "well, it's a girl's hat." And I said, "so? He's a baby. He won't care. Dad, I'd really love to have the hat you chose for my first baby."
But no can do. The "pink hat" has become kind of a family joke, but it has occasioned some really interesting conversations. Back then, I was really shocked--because my dad raised both my sister and I in pretty feminist, progressive ways; we wore girls' and boys' clothes, my sister in particular played a lot of sports and was the only girl on one of her high school teams--a fact my dad was extremely proud of. And my sister's daughter often wore "boys" clothes, including a shirt that said "boy" on it, when she was a baby. So I asked my dad about it, and he said, "well, it's just different." I pushed him, and he told me some story about some "effeminate" boy in his class (my dad teaches elementary school), and how awful it is for that little boy that he just doesn't fit in. And I said, ok, dad, first of all, I doubt a pink hat on an infant is going to lead to a lifetime of ostracization; and second of all, the reason things are awful for effeminate boys is because of homophobia--what we need to do is fight it, not cave in to it.
Now, to my dad's credit, he's come a long way. PK has really long hair and is often mistaken for a girl; Dad seems unfazed by this. He didn't blink at my pulling down both girls' and boys' sandals at the store--although he did say in the car that he'd noticed it, and was a little surprised. And I said, well, a lot of boys' stuff is really militaristic and drab colors, and PK likes bright stuff, and his winter boots, in fact, are solid blue but have a blue flower on the velcro flap and he loves them (and I think his snow boots are probably "girls" boots too, on the ground that the snowflake pattern is kinda shiny). And, I said, really it's important to me that he not feel constrained about things like enjoying having his fingernails painted, which is fun for kids b/c who doesn't like to play dress up? Or the fact that he likes flowers, or the fact that he's really fond of small furry animals and cute things. I think it's reassuring to my dad to see that even though PK enjoys all these things, he's still not a sissy--although, as a measure of how far we've come, he again told me a story about an "effeminate" ("I don't know what word to use, I guess that's the right one") boy in his class this year. But this time, the point of the story was that my dad is impressed that the other kids don't seem to tease the little boy, rather than that the boy is going to have problems fitting in for the rest of his life.
So, as someone said in the comments to the post below, yeah: one reason it's cool for girls to dress in boys' clothes (but not the other way around) is that boys are "higher" on the hierarchy than girls. It's cool for dads like mine to want their daughters to achieve, to be as good as boys, to have every opportunity. It's a little less cool when their feminist daughters want their grandsons to enjoy nail polish and flowers, to be complimented for being cute as well as for being clever, to get to indulge the little-kid love of all things sparkly. There's a down side to it, of course--as PoJ points out, things that are marked as "feminine" cost more (because women are expected to be good consumers; because "femininity" is an act that's meant to advertise indulgence and luxury; because sexism ain't dead yet). On the other hand, men pay a price to maintain masculinity, too. Crafty stuff is "girly," enjoying nature is "girly," taking care of small things is "girly," being coddled and petted is "girly." I'm pretty happy that PK gets to enjoy those little luxuries.
And I'm not too poor to spring for the occasional bottle of Hello Kitty nail polish so that he can have sparkly toes inside his Darth Vader sandals.
Posted at 10:16 PM
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