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Gender Mystique

Age Appropriate: back on the front burner at last

8/28/2017

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This is so exciting! This project took a detour over a year ago as I realized that it would require not only additional research, but also some serious re-thinking of the structure of the book.

You may remember this image:
Picture
The original plan was a fairly straight-forward cultural history of clothing for women over fifty, similar to what I had done in Pink and Blue for infants and toddler clothing. But the story would not let itself be told that way.

You see, we don't start "aging" at fifty; childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age are also part of the journey. Learning to be female is not a weekend workshop or even a four-year-degree program. It is a lifelong process of being led into each life stage along a path shaped by cultural beliefs about aging and gender. So I revised the plan.

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When your 9-YO son wants pink.

8/20/2017

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A Facebook reader sent me this message:
Hi! I was wondering if you could help...my 9 yr old son generally wears 'boy clothes' and he loves the science and nature pictures on the t shirts. He's lately become more aware of gendered clothing as a problem and wrote a letter to Lands End recently requesting that they offer science oriented t shirts for girls as he best friend is a girl who likes science and he found it very unfair ( they wrote a nice reply). Today we went to the store to get him some new sneakers and he wanted the pink ones. We got them as I don't have a problem with that but although he was sure about getting them he was also a little concerned that he would get harassed by the other boys about them. We talked about it and he was undeterred but wants to have a good 'come back' in case he gets teased to educate others that ' pink is for everyone'. I thought perhaps you could help as I find your page so informative about these matters. Thanks so much, A___

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    Jo Paoletti

    Professor Emerita
    ​American Studies
    University of Maryland

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