Gendered clothing

[HupTwoThreeFour]

I read the recent let clothes be clothes blog calling for more unisex clothing for children. It has made me wonder what the ultimate feminist ideal is in terms of clothing.

Personally I have always felt that the lack of colour choice for girls is negative, as is the fact that girls clothes are often less practical, but those are my concerns rather than the fact that there are separate boys and girls ranges - I am happy to choose girls clothes for my DD as long as I can ignore the pink/impractical options. So she is usually identifiable as a girl (she hardly has any hair so that couldn't be used to distinguish, not that girls necessarily have to have long hair anyway). I identify as a feminist and now I'm wondering if I should feel differently about this.

Is the idea that ideally men and women would wear unisex clothing too? (Presumably each item of clothing would come in one version designed for women's body shape and another for men's body shape.) Or is it different for adults given men and women do have different body shapes, unlike young children?

Interested in your thoughts!

It's easy to say that perceived gender doesn't matter but it might matter to the child. Not babies, obviously, but it seems massively unfair to expect children girls to be brought up in a patriarchal society and then mock them when they make the same predictable choices that adults make. I'm all for the revolution but I'm not sure that we should demand a bunch of 5yos lead it.

When we discuss adult clothes, it generally boiled down to a discussion about dresses and heels i.e. women's clothes. People say they don't want to dress 'like a man' which seem fair enough, but it always seems a bit like men's clothes are the sensible default and women's clothes are the silly, impractical option, even when they are not. Men and women are a different shape so it seems reasonable that trousers and shirts are cut differently but this often leads to accusations that women's clothes are cut more sexually with no acknowledgement that a man with a ripped body can look sexy as fuck in a nicely cut suit. I'm not a big dress wearer but I do have one. It's a stretchy, lacy, body con thing and it's really comfortable and looks really good . I think it's a hugely practical garment. It washes easily and doesn't need ironing but stand me in that next to DP in a dry clean suit and a shirt he's spent 20 min ironing and he will be perceived as the practical one. There is no doubt that women who work in an office environment can get some lovely practical dresses and slip on shoes for work. If men wore these then they would be seen as cross dressing and vilified for it, but we never expect that to happen. They can wear shirts that need ironing, uncomfortable, stiff lace-ups, dry clean only suits, ties (why?) and they are seen as businesslike and practical. It's only women who are expected to narrow the gender gap by ditching the dresses and the heels.

Exactly! If you look at unisex clothing such as the Donna Wilson range for John Lewis is just colourful and fun, there's nothing bland about it. Once you move beyond the constraints of marketing based on for girls or for boys, you just make great children's clothes!

For children having different clothes for girls and boys and labelling them as such is restrictive and limiting IMO. It is also a very early start to putting children into gender roles according to their sex. I don't like it. DD has some Dinosaur slippers that I got in a sale and yesterday she pointed out they said "Boys" inside on the label and we both agreed that was silly as dinosaurs are for everyone. But in children's clothing world dinosaurs are for boys and fairies are for girls. And loads of other stuff. It's bizarre.

For adults, I would prefer a non gendered society where people can wear what they please. So if a woman wants to wear "men's" brogues to work she won't get funny looks on the tube and if a man wants to wear heels he won't get laughed at. At the moment it's that women's stuff is much more ornamental, decorative and revealing, while men's stuff is quite bland and concealing. It hasn't always been that way, fashions change. But there's nothing wrong with adorning yourself and wanting to look colourful or show some flesh - that's always gone on. It's just at the moment gender roles say women will do that, and men mustn't do it at all. It's restrictive for both sexes.

Was just watching a video of David Bowie in the 70s and he was great at adornment

Like leggings. Leggings are really practical and comfortable. They protect the legs from scrapes, while allowing a lot of freedom of movement and are not too hot. Leggings for children are sensible attire. So why don't boys wear them? Is it because they are tight (revealing)? And tight clothes are for girls not for boys? If that's the reason it's just really depressing but I can't for the life of me think of another one.

My boys are really into football & go around wearing leg underwarmers - which are just like leggings - under football shorts all the time. That's OK though because they're sports wear .

I agree that some women's/girls' clothes are very practical and easy. I love dresses too, especially if they don't require ironing. Much more practical than trousers & a shirt & tie. Leggings too are really practical.

The problem as always is of course about how other people respond to the way you dress, whatever age and sex you are, i.e. the assumptions they make about your personality, skills, preferences, intelligence, etc

For me gender neutral is about not limiting choices for either sex. It really annoys me that DS2 wants a skirt but I don't feel I can let him wear it down to the park etc because of the comments other children and their parents will make - we've had enough grief because my boys have long hair (I made him really baggy trousers as a compromise).

Girls are 'allowed' to wear so-called boyish clothing, although I've noticed a lot more disapproval of it recently, whereas boys aren't allowed to wear skirts/dresses/party shoes because they are too girly (and heaven forbid they should be mistaken for being a girl ) and there is a lot more teasing.

I've never had a problem with 'dressing like a man' (I got mistaken for a boy a lot in my teens) - but if you don't want to though you don't have to. No one is making you. What a lot of people are doing to children is forcing them into very narrow gender stereotypes clothing-wise which can then have a knock on effect on behaviour expectations as people don't want their DD ruining her pretty frilly pale-coloured dress while the boys can run around getting their jeans dirty and no one cares.

We've found lots of examples of girls clothes being slim fit, narrower shoes and shorter separates - across the high street spectrum. People don't seem to notice - that's the problem with artificial gender norms. But when you start asking "why not boys" you can see the sexism, the sexualisation and limitations.

yes as a thin child ds always fitted the girls ranges much better than the boys. He also looks much better in bright colours than grungy ones (sorry ChunkyPickle but it's been pretty much the same fashion for a while now). dd enjoyed all the pink/pastel and looked lovely, although she wouldn't touch those colours with a bargepole now!

dh and I go to work in pretty similar clothes. I never wear dresses and very very rarely wear skirts, and dh never wears a suit or tie. We are both comfortable in smart trousers and tops.

It's children's shoes that piss me off the most, especially trainers. Dd needed black plimsolls for PE at school and I bought her some cheap boys black trainers because the canvas thingies just fall off when she is running around and all the girls trainers are white and sparkly.

Apparently some kids at school told her they were boys trainers (not in a nasty way I think but still, scary to think that kids are taking this crap on board at such a young age). I actually lied to her and said I'd bought them in the girls department to make her feel better. If she were a bit older I think I would have taught her to look all over them and then say 'Nope, definitely, no penis present'.

And I sigh whenever Dd is given a T-shirt with sequins on as a present. Yeah right I really have time to hand wash it and no I don't want the rest of my washing/washing machine damaged by the little fuckers thanks.

LetClothesBeClothes has a thread in the activism section on a simila topic with a petition link, for M&S specifically. It seemed a bit buried there (do we need separate boards??) so here's a link www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feminist_activism/2273478-Why-no-Dinosaur-clothes-for-girls

Agree that gendering clothes restricts choice. That's why they label things isn't it, to appeal to one segmented market in accordance with marketing theory. They don't seem to have realised that it shuts them off from other segments lol. In gender case, in connection with all the other gendering that goes on, it has huge repercussions, specfically giving the impression that boys are these values, aggressive, macho, etc while girls are the silly frilly trivial values. Both empty-headed in their extreme forms. There's lots of research done on this.

#letclothesbeclothes is a website campaigning for an end to gendered clothes for children.

www.letclothesbeclothes.org/