What strikes me about baby boys clothes is how much they promote activity and paid labor force work. Even as infants, we start to socialize baby boys into occupations. You rarely find occupation themed clothes for girls. Little girls clothes often have flowers, frills, and some animals (i.e. butterflies), but they don’t have occupational themes. They also rarely have activity themes outside of shopping or cheerleading. In fact, to me the worst subset of little girls clothes are those that say princess or diva. Diva is oftten used in a derisive way to indicate that the girl is overly demanding, and unlike the fireman or construction worker a princess doesn’t earn her title–she’s born with it or marries into it. Princess themed clothes also seem to play up baby girls looks–looking like a princess means looking pretty. I’ve seen a few shirts that have messages about boys being handsome or cute, but those are much less common.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Today in Double Standards:
Rachel at Rachel's Tavern:
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3 comments:
Thank god. I shouldn't have to work, and I'm glad clothing companies are continuing to perpetuate the idea that men only exist to have jobs to make money to care for me.
No, but really, I do totally like flowers and frills, and I'd never want to put my baby girl in, like, a three-piece suit as a kid just to encourage her to make something of herself. I feel the same about princess clothes, too, though. My babies are going to be dressed in plain white onesies, clearly.
Should I get one of those for Katie? Her husband DID leave me a mean Facebook message the other insinuating I have some making up to do.
For never calling her? Or for not making enough of an effort to see the baby?
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