Socialization of Gender Through Clothing

Clothing and the Socialization of Gender Through Clothing


How you would be treated as a boy or a girl probably began before you were conscious of the world outside the womb. Most parents want to know the sex of their child before birth and upon finding out, this unleashes a torrent of preconceived notions of what their children will like: how they will behave, what they will like to play with, their sexuality, and so forth. They will also pick your colour: Pink for girls, blue for boys. This is a big step of our socialization.


In order to affirm their child's gender in the public sphere, they must dress their child in clothing that symbolizes the sex of the child. From my experience, a female child could be wearing a  Hairband that symbolizes her 'femininity' and a boy would wear darker toned colours, like dark blue.


There is a new market opening up as we become more conscious of how gendered our children become by what we buy them and what they identify with. This is the gender-neutral market. This market propels the sales of colours we don't socially see belonging to one gender or the other. For example, the colours yellow and green. Since this market is relatively new, it could be perceived as a nuance and parents who want to convey a sense of progressiveness could potentially spend more money for it.


This benefits consumer culture because for every child born into this consumerist culture, there is a child to dress to fit in it. At the rate that babies and toddlers grow, the rate that clothes become outgrown is quick and don't receive more use unless used as a hand-me-down or are given to thrift stores. By donating to thrift stores, this perpetuates consumerism even though the purchases made are at a fraction of the original retail price.


Emily Kane shared her findings on parents and their socialization of their children using clothing and preconceived ideas of sex and gender in her article "No Way My Boys Are Going To Be Like That": Parent's Responses to Children's Gender Nonconformity (JSTOR). This article explains all facets of male gender construction from clothing to peers and most importantly, to parents. Kane doesn't see the child as a vessel in which cultural norms or conceived ideas of masculinity or femininity are poured into. Kane explains the active role a child takes in forming and creating their identity that goes beyond their biological sex or socially constructed gender.


In our western society, if a child that is identified as one sex and begins dressing like the other, there is a social stigma that affects the child and affects the parents. The normative approach to clothing a child is based on normative views of what a 'girl' and a 'boy', any deviation from the normative gets stigma. For example, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt - the daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt - have been under media scrutiny for not enforcing 'female' stereotypical mold. This social pressure to conform to ideas of 'proper' gender requires us to communicate externally via our clothes and accessories to show our understanding and cohesion of what our western culture perceives as proper for girls and boys, men and women.


This driving force of our social nature drives us to consume. To invite young children to consume, we teach them by buying clothes and identifying others by what they are wearing. We always emphasize not to judge a book by its cover, but I don' think we understand how big a part it plays in our socialization of children and its dependency on consumerism.