Gender-Neutral Children’s Clothing: Options Matter!

Abigail Walsh, M.A., M.Ed.

Photo from: http://www.instyle.com/fashion/clothing/target-toca-boca-collection

In the past few years, we have seen a boom in gender-neutral clothing lines. Ellen DeGeneres made headlines when she collaborated with the Gap to create a not-so-girly line of clothing for girls, and later boys, citing the importance of “celebrating what makes you unique” (Clinton, 2015). Target, having already eliminated gender labels in their toy aisles, released a gender-neutral clothing line (pictured above) this summer (Whittaker, 2017).  John Lewis, a British retailer, recently announced that they would be labeling clothes as “for girls and boys” and “for boys and girls”, after consulting with Let Clothes Be Clothes, a group dedicated to ending gender stereotyping in the design and marketing of children’s clothes (Levine, 2017). Although each of these instances have been met with predictable backlash about political correctness, they have also been met with overwhelming support. These are just a few examples of companies that believe children shouldn’t be limited by the gender labels attached to their apparel. And we should be applauding these gender-neutral efforts, because gender appearance does matter.

As children start to understand the social categories of gender they seek out cues in their environment to inform what those categories mean (Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002). Gender-typed appearance, how feminine or masculine people dress, is a very salient cue to children about other people’s gender, as well as a representation of their own gender and gender identity. Clothing in particular, tends to be a fairly constant indication of gender, given how persistent these representations are in our society. Young children rely on physical appearance as an aspect of person perception, when differentiating others’ gender (Cahill, 1989; Zucker, Yoannidis, & Abramovitch, 2001). What we wear can also signify to others the social categories to which we belong (Feinberg, Mataro, & Burroughs, 1992; Freitas, Kaiser, & Hammidi, 1996; Freitas et al., 1997; Hutson, 2010). As such, clothing and appearance are closely tied to social constructions of gender in our society (Bartlett, 1994; Flanagan, 2008). If we desire to break down barriers associated with these social constructions, it would make sense to start with one of the most visible and identifiable markers of gender, our gender-typed appearance.

We also know that gender-typed appearance in childhood is associated with children’s gender-stereotyped cognitions. Studies have shown that wearing gender-typed clothing was associated with children’s gender-stereotypicality, how rigid they conceptualize the categories of gender, over time (Halim et al., 2013; Halim et al., 2014; Halim et al., 2016). One study found that children who believed gender to be important also dressed in stereotypical ways (Halim et al., 2014). A recent study found that simply having more knowledge and use of category labels (e.g., “girl”, “boy”, “lady”, etc.) was associated with dressing in gender-typed ways (Halim, Ruble, Tamis-LeMonda, Zosuls, & Walsh, under review). Knowledge of these categories has been tied to higher rates of gender-typed play in young children (Fagot & Leinbach, 1993; Weinraub et al., 1984; Zosuls et al., 2009, Zosuls et al., 2014), so it’s not surprising that there are similar findings with children’s gender-typed appearance.

This isn’t to say that children dressing in gender-stereotyped ways is necessarily a bad thing. Dressing in stereotypical ways is simply associated with conceptions of gender that are more stereotypical and rigid. These conceptions of social categories matter at a time when children are figuring out the limitations associated with each category (Martin et al., 2002). Removing gender-labels on clothing, or designing clothing targeted toward all children, helps to reduce these category-based limitations. Offering children gender-neutral clothing options may encourage children to think more flexibly about gender categories in person perception, and in the limitations, that come along with what boys and girls, men and women, are allowed to do in society. By expanding their wardrobe options, we may be expanding their minds.

~ Written by Abigail Walsh, M.A., M.Ed. 


References:

Bartlett, K. T. (1994). Only girls wear barrettes: Dress and appearance standards, community norms, and workplace equality. Michigan Law Review, 92, 2541-2582. doi:10.2307/1290002
Cahill, S. E. (1989). Fashioning males and females: Appearance management and the social reproduction of gender. Symbolic Interaction, 12, 281-298. doi:10.1525/si.1989.12.2.281
Clinton, L. M. (2015, July 10). The heartwarming reason Ellen DeGeneres has teamed up with the Gap for a new collaboration. Retrieved September 17, 2017, from https://www.glamour.com/story/ellen-degeneres-gapkids-ed
Fagot, B. I., & Leinbach, M. D. (1993). Gender role development in young children: From discrimination to labeling. Developmental Review, 13, 205-224. doi:10.1006/drev.1993.1009
Feinberg, R. A., Mataro, L., & Burroughs, W. J. (1992). Clothing and social identity. Clothing & Textiles Research Journal, 11, 18–23. doi:10.1177/0887302X9201100103
Flanagan, V. (2008). Into the closet: Cross-dressing and the gendered body in children’s literature and film. New York, NY: Routledge.
Freitas, A., Kaiser, S., Chandler, J. D., Hall, C. D., Kim, J. W., & Hammidi, T. (1997). Appearance management as border construction: Least favorite clothing, group distancing, and identity not!. Sociological Inquiry, 67, 323–335. doi:10.1111/j.1475-682X.1997.tb01099.x
Freitas, A., Kaiser, S., & Hammidi, T. (1996). Communities, commodities, cultural space, and style. Journal of Homosexuality, 31, 83–107.
Halim, M. L., Ruble, D., Tamis‐LeMonda, C., & Shrout, P. E. (2013). Rigidity in gender‐typed behaviors in early childhood: A longitudinal study of ethnic minority children. Child Development, 84, 1269-1284. doi:10.1111/cdev.12057
Halim, M. L., Ruble, D. N., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Zosuls, K. M., Lurye, L. E., & Greulich, F. K. (2014). The case of the Pink Frilly Dress and the avoidance of all things “girly”: Children’s appearance rigidity and cognitive theories of gender development. Developmental Psychology, 50, 1091-1101. doi:10.1037/a0034906.
Halim, M. L., Ruble, D. N., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Zosuls, K. M., Walsh, A. (under review). The roles of self-socialization and parent socialization in toddlers’ gender-typed appearance.
Halim, M. L., Zosuls, K. M., Ruble, D. N., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Baeg, A. S., Walsh, A. S., & Moy, K. H. (2016). Children’s dynamic gender identities across development and the influence of cognition, context, and culture. In C. S. Tamis-LeMonda & L. Balter (Eds.), Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues (3rd ed.) (pp. 193-218). New York, NY: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.
Hutson, D. J. (2010). Standing out/fitting in: Identity, appearance, and authenticity in gay and lesbian communities. Symbolic Interaction, 33, 213-233. doi:10.1525/si.2010.33.2.213
Levine, N., John Lewis gender neutral children’s clothes. (2017, September 5). Backlash Grows Over Retailer's Decision To De-Gender Its Kids Section. Retrieved September 17, 2017, from http://www.refinery29.com/2017/09/170901/john-lewis-gender-neutral-childrenswear
Martin, C. L., Ruble, D. N., & Szkrybalo, J. (2002). Cognitive theories of early gender development. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 903-933. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.6.903
Weinraub, M., Clemens, L. P., Sockloff, A., Ethridge, T., Gracely, E., & Myers, B. (1984). The development of sex role stereotypes in the third year: Relationships to gender labeling, gender identity, sex-typed toy preference, and family characteristics. Child Development, 55, 1493-1503. doi:10.2307/1130019
Whittaker, A. (2017, July11). Target ass a gender neutral kids collection after dropping Mossimmo and Merona. Retrieved September 17, 2017, from http://www.instyle.com/fashion/clothing/target-toca-boca-collection
Zosuls, K. M., Ruble, D. N., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2014). Self-socialization of gender in African American, Dominican immigrant, and Mexican immigrant toddlers. Child Development, 85, 2202-2217.
Zosuls, K. M., Ruble, D. N., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Shrout, P. E., Bornstein, M. H., Greulich, F. K. (2009). The acquisition of gender labels in infancy: Implications for gender-typed play. Developmental Psychology, 45, 688-701. doi:10.1037/a0014053
Zucker, K. J., Yoannidis, T., & Abramovitch, R. (2001). The relation between gender labeling and gender constancy in preschool children. Scandinavian Journal of Sexology, 4, 107-114.


4 comments:

  1. Thanks for one’s Good posting! I enjoyed reading it.

    Designer Birthday Dresses

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is a fashion clothing shop for women online where you can buy the beautiful and cheaper clothing.The Chinese fashion clothing factory shop@27880.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great post, I really like the information shared by the author, but I think children's clothing should be gender-specific.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is amazing and wonderful to visit your site. I've learned many things from your site.

    Children’s clothing

    ReplyDelete