Okay so I don’t even know where to begin on this one.
I have a baby who is female and she gets given a lot of clothes by relatives and friends of my parents and in-laws etc, including lots of hand-me-downs. About 95% of these clothes we are given are “girls’” clothes. This means, in case you don’t know, that they feature one or more (usually a minimum of 3) of the following:
pink
lace
hearts
flowers
butterflies
frills
lilac
stupid comments along the lines of “daddy’s little girl”
I just threw a huge bag of these clothes away (gave them to charity) even though she had never worn them, because they were so disgusting to me. MOST of the clothes were pink with frills and hearts and flowers and butterflies on them. No joke. She is ten months old, but has been given clothes of this persuasion since she was born.
Why does a baby even need to have a gender?
Femininity and masculinity are concepts that exist, that people can choose to embrace or reject depending on how they feel about them. Or at least that’s how it would be in my ideal world. Femininity and masculinity are relevant to a person with a self-realised identity. They are NOT RELEVANT to a baby. A baby does not need to have a gender. A baby will likely come with a biologically determined sex, though not all of us do. And some who do come with a biologically determined sex cannot embrace the gender that is assigned to this biology and seek to change it. Gender is not a fixed thing, it is culturally imposed. It need not be imposed as such.
A baby does not need to be gendered. There is no reason that it does. Gendering a baby only encourages adults to treat it differently, to treat it according it to it’s gender. Which entails saying such things to it as, “Arn’t you a big man” and “Aww, daddy’s little princess” and other such disgusting things that commence the process of gender role stereotyping right from the outset.
Have you seen the clothes they make for baby boys? They feature one or more of the following:
blue
machines
sporting motifs
slogans about being “bad”
stupid comments along the lines of “mummy’s little man” (no joke I have seen it)
The inadvertent messages spoken by these two schools of clothing are:
Boys – destruction, action, breaking the rules
Girls – love, peace, nature, niceness, prettiness, submissiveness
why????????
And I find it intolerable. Thankfully there are some clothing manufacturers with some taste and sense who design clothes in plain primary colours or with stripes or spots or other inoffensive patterns.
It wasn’t the case when we were young. When I and my peers were infants and toddlers in the 70s, there did not exist this foul plague of horrendous gendered baby clothing. Sure there were dresses for girls, but they were just as likely to have been brown corduroy or nautical themed. Boys and girls alike wore brown, maroon, yellow, stripes, sailboats, whatever. Toddler clothing was for toddlers, not mini-teenagers.
Why has this dreadful phenomenon taken place? I do not know. Why did baby girls have to start being feminine and baby boys masculine from the age of zero? It is a truly terrible thing, as it just reinforces peoples’ already fucked up ideas about gender roles: that girls must look and act nice, and that boys are at the centre of the action.
Anyway, I wholly reject gendered clothing for babies and intend to dress my gal in gender neutral clothing until she is old enough to choose (save for the odd sailor dress).
ugh, i KNOW! isn’t it just the biggest bunch of bullshit ever? you know, in an article i saw on this trend toward marketing everything to little girls with sexy, lacy, hot pink, stuff they included this picture of a ‘girls version’ of scrabble and it was hot pink, naturally, and the word on the board on the front spelled out in scrabble tiles was: SHOPPING. the same article also featured a girls version of monopoly, also hot pink, and all the usual pieces such as the boot and the car were replaced with pieces like a stiletto and a hand bag. i am not even kidding. this flagrant linking of the notion of femininity with consumption is grotesque enough on it’s own, but it is often also linked with not just femininity but feminism. one of those awful, gaudy, sweat shop made, hot pink midriff for baby girls are just as likely to say ‘girl power!’ as ‘daddy’s little princess’. this is a small example, but you see it around a lot: the notion that your ability to buy heaps of stuff is proof that you are empowered! independent! and when all these elements – femininity, consumerism, feminism – is also mixed in with little (baby even) girls that really makes me feel like have swallowed a lump of ice. the way the machine of capitalism can absorb anything to make it suit its own ends. GAH! i feel like grabbing my baby and going to live in a cave. with internet access, natch.
YESSS angie for pointing out the hideous way that capitalism has co-opted feminism and tied it to consumerism! I hadn’t made that connection before – that according to many (think ‘sex and the city’) female independence and empowerment = being able to buy lots of stupid crap. stupid gender-role-reinforcing crap. so fucking true and so gross. (-beccy)