Nineteenth-century boys wore dresses or skirts just as easily as their female peers. (ca. 1870)
This insecurity about gender identification doesn’t extend to girls. “At the turn of the last century, it was thought that it was good for a girl to go through the tomboy phase,” says Paoletti. It was their sexuality that came, and still comes, into question with clothing choices. “For girls, part of the problem is that the way we define femininity is by sexual attractiveness. If you really look at feminine clothes, they’re about ‘How sexually available do I want to look?’” In her book, Paoletti focuses on the clothing of children up to about the age of 7, about the time they learn genderappropriate dress and apply it to their identities. After combing through old catalogs, patterns, baby books, paper doll collections, children’s literature and related sources, Paoletti found that infant boys and girls were dressed as “asexual cherubs” through the early 1900s—wearing white gowns and generic rompers. Clothing distinctions occurred more between groups: infants, toddlers (gowns swapped for pants to ease walking) and older children (more prints used). Pink, along with other pastel hues, was just a baby color. Several factors contributed to what Paoletti calls the current “reign of pink” as a girl color: Feminists rejecting pink in the 1970s as a feminine marker actually gave it more weight. Parents in the mid-’80s, who were raised in the unisex
overalls and turtlenecks of the ’60s and ’70s, wanted more distinction for their children. And just as parents in the late 1800s weren’t comfortable creating small versions of distinctly male or female clothing, says Paoletti, neither are today’s parents comfortable with gender ambiguity. Girls can now wear shades of blue and still be girls, though boys aren’t afforded the same consideration when wearing pink. Since social norms and gender expression are constantly shifting, she acknowledges that her book is not a definitive work and hopes that it sparks continuing research by others. “Jo’s work allows us to step back and see the importance of what children are wearing—not simply the aesthetics, but the meaning of clothing, the social … manipulation,” says Kathleen Rowold, professor and interim chair of Indiana University’s apparel merchandising and interior design department. Paoletti, whose daughter and son are in their 20s, just wants to help people understand that what children wear is as much a function of their environment as their preferences. And it doesn’t have any solid bearing on what they’ll be when they grow up. “Ask any parent how easy it is to get a child to be what you want them to be,” she says. “If it were that easy, we’d all be dressing our kids like Einstein.”
“Little boys don’t know that their wanting to wear pink causes their parents to head for the phone to call a psychiatrist.”— Jo Paoletti Image of African American baby courtesy of Daniel Murray Collection, Library of Congress / Family photo courtesy of Linda Martin
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