The authors of a critically acclaimed book on the way marketers program girls to be sexy at a young age have now turned their attention to the other gender that needs help.
(Hint: Boys.)
The welcome news of a sequel to Packaging Girlhood:Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes came to me this morning from Double X, the gender-issue site affiliated with Slate. The new book, Packaging Boys: Saving Our Sons from Superheros, Slackers and Other Media Stereotypes came out last month and was favorably profiled.
I recently wrote a story about the hyper-presence of skulls on children's clothes, which you can read here.
The one point I largely ignored in that was the gender issue. I noted that skulls are appearing in clothes for both sexes. (As I said, no reason why they shouldn't be. We've all got skulls.) But what I didn't note was how weird it is to see that even when parents decide to dress their daughter in a shirt that boasts a decaying decapitated bone, they still apparently choose pink. I don't get it.
But in some ways I get boy's fashion even less: the above story about the new book documents that rather vulgar shirts are made for even tiny babies. Now, I don't love that trend. But I will say that I don't know that a six-month-old is really influenced one way or another by what his shirt says.
I do think, however, that the overwhelming pattern of boys clothes is ... well "disturbing" is too strong of a word, but ... odd, I guess.
You can, around Easter, find dressy boys clothes with, say, a dump truck on them. Why? (I've got nothing against dump trucks. In fact, I'm rather fond of the one that comes to my house. I am disappointed if it doesn't arrive. I always wave and smile to the guys in the truck if I'm around when they are. They're great. I am, however, guessing that they don't wear shirts with dump trucks on them when they got to church on Easter. So I don't know why the average 4-year-old would.)
One Easter Sunday, I took my tiny infant son to church in a cute sweater outfit that had yellow, orange and green stripes. Dozens of people asked how old "she" was. It was far more than the usual confusion. I mentioned it to a feminist friend, whose daughters routinely wore blue, and she said: "Oh sure. It's the outfit. Boys can't wear orange."
SERIOUSLY? The color of hunters and construction workers and... and... the Tennessee Volunteers can't be worn by a 9-month-old boy?
I guess he should have worn a dump truck. I do not understand. I'm hoping this book will help me figure it out.
Let's discuss parenting as it exists here in Louisville, Ky., at the beginning of the 21st Century -- the ridiculous, the worrisome and the occasional moment that makes it all worthwhile
The authors of a critically acclaimed book on the way marketers program girls to be sexy at a young age have now turned their attention to the other gender that needs help.
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Beverly Bartlett