Follow me!
Gender Mystique

My fangirl moment: Hidden Brain!

10/11/2017

1 Comment

 
I know, I know. I have complained about repetitive interview questions, but the truth is that is order for people to open their minds and let go of gender stereotypes, those of us who do this work must answer those questions over and over. Besides, every once in a while, we get one of those really fun interviews with someone we can share a laugh with, along with the information.


Last May, I had one of those interviews, with Shankar Vedantam of NPR’s Hidden Brain. We met at my local mall and strolled around the kids department in Macy’s, chatting about pink and blue, pockets/no pockets, and the missing character on the boys’ Star Wars T-shirts. (Can you guess who it was?) It was a double blast because inside I was fangirling like a twelve-year old. Hidden Brain is one of my favorite podcasts: smart, well-paced, and slickly produced like an audio documentary. And Shankar Vedantam is a great interviewer and host; being on his Rolodex was a dream come true.


So enjoy the podcast episode. Bonus: now I know how Lise Eliot (Pink Brain, Blue Brain) pronounces her name.



1 Comment

This week in gender

9/7/2014

 
Forgive the lazy post, but it was the first week of classes, I am in the middle of reviewing the page proof for Sex and Unisex, and I am being dogged by three other projects all with deadlines on or around September 15. In the meantime, the news items about dress and gender just won't take a break! Here are a few that distracted me long enough to read, even though there was not time to add commentary.

Rastafarian High School Student Sent Home From School For Ten Days For Having Dreadlocks (ThinkProgress, 9/4/2014)

School Dress Codes: The Funny-Not-Funny Video You Have to See (Soraya Chemaly for the Huffington Post, 9/5/2014)

Hear Us Roar: Finding Feminism in Fashion
(Maya Singer for Style.com, 9/5/2014)

Tell Me About It: Boy who likes ‘girl’ things needs guidance, not shame (Carolyn Hax, syndicated, 9/5/2014)
OK, a little bit of commentary. Carolyn Hax's response to the concerned auntie contained brightened my dreary, ink-spattered life.
Unless someone over their shoulders is shaming them back to their side of the gender line (sadly, not a hypothetical one), children will like what they like, and that means that superheroes, bright pink and dinosaurs often live together in harmony in a child’s imagination.

That some adults, and apparently 99.5 percent of toy marketers, want to “fix” this by shaming kids into conformity is, to my mind, an obscenity long overdue for hard societal push-back.

Indeed!

When did pink become a girl color?

8/14/2013

 
For the first time since I started this blog, I'm going to recycle an old post. I wrote "Pink and Blue" because I got tired of answering the same question over and over and over. Apparently, just writing a book doesn't effect an immediate mind meld between author and reader. Who knew?

I do hope more people do read the book; more and more libraries have it, and as academic tomes go, it's pretty cheap. It's not just about pink and blue. That's just one chapter. Want to know when pink became girly? Here's the short version, originally posted 1/3/2012.


Read More

Blue is NOT a spokescolor; pink is a spokescolor. 

3/21/2013

 
Here's a great post from Kyle Wiley of The Good Men Project (re-blogged via the Huffington Post, but hey, Arianna's rich enough). My favorite line:
It’s not just “a” girl color, but the international spokescolor (yes, a made up word) for the female gender.
Made up words are the best, because like all custom-made items, they fit better than the off-the-rack-versions. That is exactly the idea I have been trying to get across, less articulately, when I talk or write about pink and blue. Blue is NOT a spokescolor; pink is a spokescolor. Why is that, do you think? Is there something magical about pink itself? Mais non.

The magic is one of the oldest known superpowers: giving birth. Stay with me, friends. Here's how I see it: Women used to be powerful because they gave birth. The only way men could be more powerful than women was to control reproduction -- through marriage, through rape, through laws about birth control and abortion. But none of that transfered the magical power from women to men, so a cultural solution emerged instead. Make birth dirty, make sex a sin, make women dirty, weak sinners, lower than men because of their magic power.

Now all you have to do to maintain male superiority is make sure they are not tainted by anything remotely effete or feminine. Punish homosexuality. Raise little boys to be not-girls. Ridicule boys --and men-- who cry, or who are unathletic, or who like pink. It's a small price to pay for a place at the top of the social order.

Why have women put up with this? Many reasons, including a need to protect their offspring, their own survival and this complicated force called "hegemony", which results in acceptance of the dominant culture even when it works against you. (Kind of a cultural Stockholm syndrome.) But all is not lost; there are men and women, mothers and fathers, who believe that all humans have magical powers of love, imagination and creativity, and that humanity will benefit when every baby is valued for its potential to love, imagine and create, not its role in human reproduction.

Peace. (Steps off soapbox, returns to her index cards.)

No pink for you, Michael!

2/21/2013

 
Picture
One of the examples I use to show how pink used to be an acceptable color for boys is Walt Disney's 1953 animated film, Peter Pan. The youngest child, Michael, wears pink pajamas throughout the entire movie. (Don't take my word for it: just search for images for "Disney Peter Pan Michael")

Picture
Disney is re-leasing a special DVD version this year, and I've caught a few of their TV ads. It sure looks like Michael's pj's have been re-colored. All I have been able to find online is the cover art (on the left). Has anyone seen the new version?

Please don't tell me they got rid of the pink pajamas and left in "What made the Red Man red".

ETA: I suppose I should be grateful they didn't change Wendy's dress to pink.

"Pink and Blue" makes an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning

12/31/2012

 
I can't decide which was more fun: doing the interview or seeing the "Fast Draw" segment created by Mitch Butler and Josh Landis. My only regret: not smiling more. (I am really not that serious!)

Evidentiary Blues (and Pinks)

8/30/2012

 
Feminist biology professor Anne Fausto-Sterling of Brown University contacted me recently about a research note about gendered colors in  that struck her as weak on evidence. I had the same reaction, and was mulling over how to respond to the article, but felt competent only to address the author's approach to historical evidence, not his science. (The original piece is behind a paywall, but described in this post at Life's Little Mysteries.) 

Fausto-Sterling and I reached across the disciplinary divide to co-authored a response that was just posted on her blog at the Huffington Post. Frankly, we need lots more of this in gender studies. Gender formation and the creative and transmission of gender signifiers are complex, multidisciplinary topics, and the more disciplines enter the conversation, the better we will understand them. And someday, I will even meet Anne Fausto-Sterling in real life! In the meantime, thank heaven for the Internet.

Children's clothing, 1922. Drawing the lines between babies, boys and girls.

2/13/2012

 
Yesterday, February 12, would have been my mother's 90th birthday. In her memory, I decided take a close look at children's fashion in the year of her birth. As the third child born to a young German Lutheran minister and his wife in rural Canada, I doubt if she ever wore any of the fancier styles shown here, but family photos certainly confirm the rules of appropriate clothing for children under 7. 

Babies from birth to around 6 months: long white gowns, ranging from minimally embellished to elaborately trimmed with lace and embroidery.

Babies from six months to a year or slightly older: short white dresses and one-piece rompers. Again, these could be plain or fancy, depending on the occasion and the family's budget and needlework talents.

Gender differences were introduced between one and two years, with little boys exchanging dresses for short trousers, often attached to their shirts or blouses with buttons at the waistline. Little girls stayed in dresses, but in an array of colors. 

Here's a video I created for the occasion:

Pink *IS* for boys! (Style trends from India)

2/6/2012

 
In the last few years, there's been a growing trend for pink clothing for men. For far, it hasn't affected the diaper demographic, but it's encouraging. This article from India suggests that color reversal promises to be big news there this year. 
Picture






Oh, the horror! won't the children be confused?

Gender in Baby Cards, 1915-1957

1/10/2012

 
Baby announcements, gift and greeting cards from the UCLA Biomedical Library collection of Baby Books. The shower cards were received before the baby was born. Announcements were often purchased or made in advance, and filled out afterwards. Notice the use of blue for girls and pink for boys in the 1910s and 1920s, and the use of pink and blue in combination for both boys and girls.
<<Previous

    Jo Paoletti

    Professor Emerita
    ​American Studies
    University of Maryland

    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    January 2023
    February 2022
    May 2021
    June 2020
    February 2020
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    February 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010

    Categories

    All
    1920s
    1950s
    1960s
    1970s
    1980s
    Aging
    Ask Jo
    Baby Cards
    Baby Clothes
    Baby Dresses
    Beyond The Us
    Book 1
    Book 2
    Book 3
    Boys
    Button On Suit
    Button-on Suit
    Child Consumers
    Children And Consumers
    Children As Consumers
    Color Symbolism
    Creepers
    Culture Wars
    Design Details
    Dress Codes
    Dress Up Play
    Dress-up Play
    Ethnicity
    Fashion And Age
    Feminism
    Garment Details
    Gender Binary
    Girls
    Hair
    Layettes
    Men
    Middle Childhood
    Neutral
    Pants For Girls
    Pink
    Pink For Boys
    Prenatal Testing
    Princesses
    Que Sera Sera
    Rants
    Research
    Rompers
    Sexuality
    Stereotypes
    Teens
    Toddlers
    Tomboys
    Transgender
    Unisex
    Unisex. 1970s
    Women
    Writing Updates

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.