Constructed Concerns Constraining Children's Choices
Photo "Fashionable Shoes Even With Skirts" by figleaf.
Quick conversation I was part of yesterday when our group of parents were joined by another parent while our children were swimming in the lake in a nearby park. We were joking about swimwear and someone mentioned men in loincloths. I jokingly said "don't say 'loincloth,' we're still getting used to kilts." She said "Don't even say that word! I'm reading a novel about Scotland and all the talk about kilts! Now every time I see a guy in a kilt..." and she mimed fanning overheated self.
Relatively speaking a lot of men in the Seattle area wear kilts, but only relatively speaking. Most don't. I have one but rarely wear it. Want a clue why? Before the lake-side conversation spun on to other things a consensus was quickly reached that kilts should be worn with appropriate footwear -- preferably heavy lace-up boots -- and that Tiva tech sandals (another Northwest favorite) or running shoes were right out. So there you go: big heavy boots hurt my feet -- in a perfect world I'd wear either very well-designed light-weight shoes or go barefoot. Doc Martens and other brogues are heavy, inconvenient to put on and take off, uncomfortable, expensive, and activity-restricting. Oh, and of course very stylish under a kilt.
Which I think it a perfect setup for this post by Habladora, guest-blogging at Feministe, inspired by her experience sitting a friend's daughter.
My good friend recently confessed that she wished her eight-year-old daughter were more interested in ‘fashionable’ shoes, lamenting that little Maria always insists on wearing sneakers- even with skirts. “Some day soon,” my friend comforted herself, “Maria will want to be more like a girl - she’ll want to wear make-up, and shoes that compliment her outfits. I guess she’s still just a little young for all that.”In light of that remark, I should have known when I agreed to babysit that Maria would show-up wearing shoes that limited her mobility. Had I been thinking of that conversation with her mother while arranging our day together, I could have saved the kid some pain. Instead, I thought of my own sneakered childhood, and planned to tour the neighborhood playgrounds, gardens, libraries, and ice-cream parlors with her - on foot. Since I don’t usually think of eight-year-olds wearing high-heels (although it seems to be a growing phenomenon), I didn’t even notice Maria’s ‘fashionable’ shoes until the poor kid started complaining of blisters and aching feet. Her mom had bought her the ‘pretty grown-up shoes’ the day before, and told her that big girls don’t wear tennis shoes with skirts.
Little Maria’s feet had fallen victim to gender-policing, the imposing of perceived ‘typical’ gender behaviors on another person.
She said it here.
Sorry mom, bad parenting. Seriously! She obviously wants what she believes is best for her daughter but...
...while there's *some* chance she, or a corresponding dad, would have wedged a be-kilted eight-year-old son into blistery matching brogues chances sound even greater she'd have suggested her boy wear shorts and sneakers because that's... just more practical for children. Meaning in this case, I guess, boys. Because for girls, I guess, the idea is that "Someday [they'll] ... want to be more like a girl - she’ll want to wear make-up, and shoes that compliment her outfits..." that give her fucking blisters and keep her from being able to play or run or be, you know, a human child, a.k.a. an actual "girl."
Aside: In a post excoriating those stupid high-heels for infants Twisty Faster also excoriates women who think it's ok to rush girls into constructed gender and, especially, sexualized femininity before, you know, they're interested in or ready for or even particularly conscious of sex. I gotta say that whether or not it is, as Twisty thinks... or maybe even wishes... that the motivation is an indoctrination imperative imposed on adult women by capital-P patriarchy, the tendency for women to tie approval of girls to their femininity and/or fashion unambiguously prepares girls to transfer that seeking of fashion-based approval to the men in their lives. Although notice also how many (clunky, heavy, impractical) Dr. Martens for children and, especially, infants are *also* pitched towards girls (or, I should say, their custodial adults) with feminized colors and styles. But I digress...
Habladora has what might be a more nuanced explanation than Twisty or I
Yet, even for kids who identify strongly with their birth sex, gender policing can cause lasting problems. Girls run a constant risk of being taught to associating femininity with frivolousness, and we might be teaching boys a form of subtle misogyny as well. As Sociological Images notes, “unlike men, who are supposed to reject all things feminine, women are encouraged to balance masculine and feminine characteristics.” NPR’s article “Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences” seems to give credibility to this assertion. While the boys who name their animals girl’s names, identify with female characters in movies, and want to wear skirts might get taken to a psychiatrist; girls are expected to identify with male characters in movies (there might not be any female ones), can wear only slacks (I refused skirts and dresses for years), and are free to name their stuffed bears whatever they’d like (mine was Tom). The implication that girls can aspire to be male, but that boys shouldn’t condescend to act like girls is disturbing.
None of this is a plea for 70's-style unisex styles, or even necessarily Fabulous Baby X style (although as an allegory about how gender is socially constructed, and *constricting,* that story's just so cool. Especially for 1972!) And, by the way, I'm not even saying it's there's some kind of creeping momism out there (it's not just women dressing up their girls -- watch how often men nervously masculinize even very young boys so there should be a corresponding creeping dad-ism!) Instead I'm saying what's the rush? Girls *don't need our help* being girls. Boys don't need our help being boys either. And when they *get* to puberty? Yeah, then a) they'll be ready to decide, possibly in no uncertain terms, what they want to do about their gender and b) if, like a lot of people they *aren't* certain, well, they might have more latitude, and wider models, to pick their own paths.
Rule of thumb though? No child needs blistered feet *they* insist. (As did our young friend who insisted on wearing my daughter's too-small cow galoshes, *in July,* under her skirt.) M'kay?
As with a lot of parenting problems, it's just plain love being misapplied. Parents want their kids to be happy, they see that normality seems to lead to easier happiness, so they enforce norms with a sort of "I'll make you happy if I have to make you miserable to do it!" zeal.
I've always thought girls got the better side of the "a girl in pants is cute, a boy in a skirt is disturbed" double standard, though. It may set up masculinity as universal but it ends up giving girls more options for once. Obviously I'd rather have them just be cute though.
Seattle really is Kilt (and specifically Utilikilt) City, isn't it? I'm not sure why. There's a nice little streak of geeky open-mindedness in the water. Makes this a fun place to live.
My 7 year old nephew loves to have his toenails painted. He also loves Lego, and cars, and reading, and stuffed animals, and cooking...
Oh, I get SO exasperated... annoyed... ANGRY at gender assumptions and assignement. HE'S A HUMAN AND HE'S WONDERFUL!!! WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW???
Oh, and I love the photo! (Keens are the best.)
slightly tangential, but this reminds me of the little argument my mother and i had several years ago. i'm a co-signer on her department store charge account, and since it's her money i'm spending when i use it, i typically call her ahead of time to get the all-clear on the purchase. (it's the only way i let her go clothes-shopping with me: vicariously through her credit card. it's just better that way. fewer arguments and public scenes.)
i'm something of a cross-dresser; i like wearing men's clothing. (when i was a pre-teen, i used to wish i had a boyfriend just so i could borrow his clothing. heh. ah, youth.) i wanted to have a two-piece bathing suit, but didn't want to endure the demoralizing experience of bikini shopping. (ugh) so i had the bright idea of "men's trunks + sports bra = practical/comfortable bikini", and called my mom to get her permission. i made the mistake of telling her what exactly i had in mind, instead of just saying "swimwear" like anyone with self-preservation would, and she flipped out at me and asked me if i was a lesbian.
i'm not. i just like cross-dressing, and anyone worth their salt knows that cross-dressers are usually straight. :/
I don't own any high heels and it's only by sheer chance that I have a skirt that even fits me. If I hadn't lost weight recently...
My mother tries desperately to convince me to wear something besides jeans and tennis shoes, but in my opinion that's why she has two daughters, one who cares about such things, and one who doesn't.
I buy men's clothes for myself all the time-the styles are simpler and goodness knows finding your size certainly is, especially when it comes to pants. I hate shopping and I'm not spending all day trying on eight different sizes at each store.
Clothes are such a pain.
Heh. My entire family thinks I'm some kind of freak because I do dress very feminine. I wear skirts every day as soon as it gets warm enough to do so, most of my shoes are heels, I don't even own a pair of shorts, I like makeup and hair, etc. It fits my personality better, plus I honestly do think that skirts and dresses are just more comfortable (I do know that most people wouldn't agree with me on that). But most of the rest of my family are tomboys and would do whatever they can to avoid dressing up in any manner, so I was always the odd person out growing up.
And my youngest son loves to have his toenails painted. He begs every time I do mine. He gets sparkly blue polish, though, because last time I did his red like mine, the husband thought he'd hurt himself and had a freak out until he realized what it was.
It can be hard to let your kids be who they are sometimes, though. Because we really want to protect them from harm, but it's hard to always know where the line is.
In a way, the story of Baby X is not so astonishing for 1972 - there was a utopian moment that fed this sort of thing. A story like that would almost surprise me more today, when - to give just one example - mainstream kids' toys are more gendered than ever. (Anyone shop the pink aisle at their local Wal-Mart lately?)
I'm probably the wrong person to comment on shoes, since at the moment I'm wearing a pair of comfy German sandals, which were sort of cute ... until I started wearing them with socks! It's *cold* here in Central Europe and I didn't pack other shoes. At least they're not *white* socks.
Anyway, hurtful shoes don't just limit mobility. They hamper safety and physical fitness. It's a historical irony that just when corsets and heavy skirts went out of style in the 1920s, impractical shoes came in. Even flip-flops are not very healthy for feet, nor can most people run in them very well. They're fine for the beach but my students wear them year-round, every day. Heaven forbid they'd need to make a quick escape.
I'm not saying women shouldn't wear cute shoes - only that 99% of female footwear is either sexy, or comfortable, but not both (and often neither!). And that's just not a dilemma men face. Nor is it only a problem for little girls; our whole idea of "sexy" is just askew.
I'm sure I sound like a joyless old crank. But when my feet hurt the rest of me can't really feel sexy, either.
[Yeah, I couldn't find a way to say it in the original post that didn't sound either cranky or sarcastic, but sending a little kid to a playground in high-heels makes them vulnerable as well as blistery. What's joylessly cranky about that, by the way? You sound fine. --fl]
Of course being Hathor, I like those cow boots too.
I never understood the "bra" top in sun and swim suits for toddler girls.
When I was young, prepubescent girls quite often played in summer without any tops at all, just shorts. This was in the south. My grandmother didn't think being barefoot and wearing shorts only, was respectable. It wasn't so much about gender, but about being poor. At that time I could wear jeans only after school, girls didn't have a choice between pants or skirts. You wore skirts to school, to shop, to church and most every where else. Most of our mothers didn't hesitate when Pants Suits became acceptable.
I am not sure when the transition to sexualizing girls came to be. There was not any impetus for us to grow up quickly in the fifties, makeup and heels were passages to adulthood. Starting at 13 or 14, stockings, then low heels, and a little later lipstick. This was for dress up only. The problem I had was that I was too filled out to dress my age, since I was too big for preteen and juniors. At 12 I wore a lot blouses and skirts, since dresses were too adult. Fortunately the shirtwaist dress became popular.
As a protest at my college in '63, guys wore kilts and skirts to class to keep cool, because they weren't allowed to wear Bermuda shorts to class in the hot weather. Those that wore women skirts, weren't embarrassed or uncomfortable at all. I think if it were acceptable many men would wear skirts.
[Yup. Growing up in the rural south I seem to remember farm girls, or at least farm-hand girls (I was pretty young and never clear from summer to summer who lived where) going shirtless pretty far into puberty breast-wise before switching to shirts full-time. That would have been some time as late as the early 1960s. And yet *they* too managed to grow up to be perfectly capable and sexually competent men and women. Also, given that I remember some of those kids using bailing wire for belts on their oversize hand-me-down pants I'm *pretty* sure their moms weren't lamenting their lack of *high heeled* shoes. More like their lack of shoes altogether. Thanks, Hathor. --fl]
Of course being Hathor, I like those cow boots too.
That made me smile, five of nine. The artist Hrana Janto created a gorgeous image of your namesake, Hathor. While she has the bovine horns and ears, I can't tell if she's wearing boots. ;-)
At that time I could wear jeans only after school, girls didn't have a choice between pants or skirts. You wore skirts to school, to shop, to church and most every where else.
I also grew up in the fifties, and in the industrialized north the dress code was the same as you described. "Poor" was one reason why we changed from our school uniforms or Sunday clothes as soon as we arrived home. We did not have that many clothes and our mother wasn't going to let us play or do chores and ruin our "good" clothes.
Respectability was another reason why people dressed more formally for Sundays or even to go to the major department stores. Wearing a hat, gloves and a suit was proof that you were educated, well-mannered, and a step ahead of poverty. That may sound silly now, but we were raised by people who lived through the Depression of the 1930's, and we were clothed to reflect what they valued.
As for the sexualizing of young girls, I cannot recall seeing such fashions or make-up for girls 10 and younger in McCall's and other magazines when I was growing up in the sixties. So like you, I'm not sure when this nymphette trend began.
You know, I just thought of something. Maybe the trends toward "sexualizing" children was not started by adults, at least not directly. Children try to emulate adult behaviors, even if they don't understand the reasons behind them. And even if adults tell them not to. Once adults dressing sexy in public stopped to being an aberration, some of the kids started getting into the act too, best they could. And slowly, over time, clothing designers started to see the market for it, and justified it with that they're just giving buyers what they want...
I don't know enough to say how likely that is, but it's always possible.
[They do emulate child behaviors. But it's worth pointing out that (I learned this on my family vacation to northern Idaho from two coincidental and independent sources by the way) that Mae West learned *her* double-entendres and slinky moves from the Gold-Rush era child star Lotta Crabtree! But here's the deal with that emulation thing: children want to do all manner of things including eating dirt and chasing balls into the street. Therefore parents are making a *choice* about what they do and don't let them do based on their assessment of what is or isn't harmful or appropriate. And so, back to square one! Plus (as with our small friend in the cow boots) it's one thing if the child wants to try it, it's entirely another if the parent is anxious that they *don't!* Thanks, Nightfall. --fl]
Of course I love heels. But I'm 28. I didn't really wear heels until I was in college, which was about the same time I stopped wearing baggy Carhartt jeans and T-shirts I picked up at Value Village as well. Mostly my parents just let me be the little tomboy I was. Hell, even though I wear skirts most of the time, I often pair them with sneakers or flip flops to this day! The scandal!
There's this one picture of me in my first communion dress, after I've gotten home. I've still got some teeth missing, and I finally was able to put on my Punky Brewster tennis shoes when I got home and was sitting back, hands behind my head, white dress, white tights ... and sneakers on, ankles crossed and up on the ottoman. Similarly, I wore my sneakers and some of my dad's socks to my first homecoming dance. My mom tried to convince me otherwise, but I thought I looked cool. Besides, she never had any luck dressing me after I was about 2.
[*Exactly* my point, Watergirl! It's not like missing out on ankle-breakers in elementary school turned you into a boy or otherwise gave you, or anyone around you, gender confusion. Especially now that you're grown up!!! (And really, would anyone's mother *really* want their daughter hooked at the hip with someone so doofus they can't tell girls from boys without first checking their *shoes?* Yeezuus!) Thanks! --fl]