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Gender Mystique

Sexism, Racism, and Ageism (h/t to Ta-Nehisi Coates)

3/15/2016

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       Have you ever had your neural synapses re-wired? I love when that happens. In this case, I was reading a non-fashion book and BOOM, there was the answer to a question lurking in my brain. (From my upcoming presentation at the Popular Culture Association meeting in Seattle.)

       Since the 1950s, it has become commonplace to define sex as biological and gender as culture. According to one medical dictionary,

Sex is "The biologic character or quality that distinguishes male and female from one another as expressed by analysis of the person's gonadal, morphologic (internal and external), chromosomal, and hormonal characteristics."
    Gender is "The category to which an individual is assigned by self or others, on the basis of sex."

     As some feminist biologists have argued, the way in which we assign sex, whether at birth or after examining a grainy sonogram image, is itself cultural. Ignoring chromosomes, hormones, and internal anatomy, we assign sex based on external genitalia. We then surround babies with gendered sights, sounds, and interactions that, we are now learning, influences brain development. Instead of nature and nurture as separate forces, biology and culture work together to create us first as male and female, and then as masculine and feminine.  That is only part of the larger picture that includes other forces and experiences that we incorporate into our sense of self and belonging. These forces include not only sexism, but racism, classism, and -- most relevant to this paper -- ageism. What is the relationship between the categories we use for ourselves and our beliefs about those categories?

      In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates argues that race is the child of racism — that the way we define and categorize race comes from a racism -- a deep belief in the innate superiority a dominant group. This not only resonates with me in terms of race, but so many other categories of difference. It could follow that class is the child of classism, gender is the child of sexism, and age is the child of ageism. The way we define and delineate age categories stem from cultural beliefs about the life course, that, like the beliefs about gender and race, are not so much biological truths as the result of our selective assumptions and expectations about biological events.  Yes, we as humans experience birth, puberty, menopause, and death, but the way we envision our lives’ progress or decline through these events is shaped by culture. What is  the “right”age for a boy to wear a dress -- “up to age four” or “only when he is christened”? This same principle applies to notions of what constitutes “age appropriate” clothing for girls and women across the lifespan, and it is the focus of my next book.

      Learning to be female is not a weekend workshop or even a four-year-degree program. It is a lifelong process of education in the truest sense — being led into each life stage along a cultural path shaped by beliefs about aging and gender. We continually measure ourselves against mass -mediated images of female  and standards of femininity.
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Learning to be Female: Puberty!

3/5/2016

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(From the very-much-in-progress  Age Appropriate.)

Here comes puberty.

The truly odd thing is that my life from about 10 to 14 is relatively undocumented by my otherwise shutterbug father. So I have a few pictures, but not what I would like for this project. 

Here's what I remember:

1960-61 

First bra in late fifth grade or early sixth grade. It was one of those silly knit "grow bras" and I had already outgrown it. In sixth grade (1960-61) I went from one end of the gym line to the other, having grown six inches. I was no longer a short, skinny girl who loved to run and jump rope. Bouncing boobs were too embarrassing. My posture deteriorated. I lived in terror of boys snapping my bra strap, and was sure everyone was staring at me.

Summer of 1961

My first nylons, shaving my legs, my first purse, and first and only subteen dress. By that fall I was 5' 9" and wearing a misses 14. That summer a lifeguard flirted with me because he thought I was in high school, which I found funny and flattering.

Fall, 1961 (7th grade)

Trying to figure out what to wear was a constant puzzle. I outgrew girls' clothes so fast, and went right into misses sizes. I experimented with nail polish, make-up, and new hairstyles but had trouble getting the hang of it.

Maybe it is a good thing there aren't more pictures.
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Here comes "Sex and Unisex" (book update)

9/1/2014

 
Classes start in two days, I just got home from a blissfully restful week at Star Island (just off the coast of New Hampshire) and look what is waiting for me. The page proof for Sex and Unisex! This is as close to perfect timing as it gets. If you want to pre-order your own copy, just use the link on this page. 

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Work on Age Appropriate (the working title for book three, on dress, gender and age) is going slowly, as I have an unrelated large project this summer. With school starting around the country, I have also been keeping my antennae out for news about dress codes. I will be giving a paper on the topic at the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association in November. Stay tuned!

Coming Soon: Sex And Unisex

6/2/2014

 
PictureAd for unisex pants, early 1970s. DId unisex conceal or reveal sex?









































So what's all this about a second book? Yes, I am about halfway through the copy edits on my second book on gender and clothing, which means you can expect to be able to pre-order it from Indiana University Press sometime this fall. 

Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism and the Sexual Revolution grew out of the last two chapters of Pink and Blue, particularly the one on unisex clothing of the late sixties through the mid-1980s. I was puzzled by how that period seemed to be headed in one direction, but then suddenly reversed course. In 1970, designer Rudi Gernreich was predicting miniskirts and caftans for everyone, and a futurist author was declaring the death of the gray flannel suit. But by 1980, preppy was all the rage and not only were men still wearing suits, but women were wearing them as well.

My research began there, and led me in what seemed like a hundred different directions. Eventually, I ended up considering the present, because so much of our current cultural landscape is unfinished business from the 1970s. Along the way, there are chapters on 

  • the interplay of the Baby Boom, the Civil Rights movement, and the sexual revolution
  • women’s fashion, feminism, and antifeminism
  • the so-called Peacock Revolution in men’s clothing
  • unisex children’s clothing 
  • the legal battles over men’s long hair and pants for women

It was great fun to research, and more than a little confusing to write, and I am looking forward to the reaction when it comes out later this year!


The book draft is done; a few thanks.

8/30/2013

 
With the first draft of Book 2 (Sex and Unisex) complete, I want to take a few minutes to express my gratitude. Karin Bohleke of the Fashion Archives and Museum at Shippensburg (PA) University let me spend two days looking for images, and has been sending additional lagniappes all summer. My Facebook  and Twitter communities have been supportive and generous with comments and encouragement. None has been more of a champ than Eliza, a sister in microbrew love who offered to read the (very rough) draft and contributed valuable comments, questions and corrections. My friends and family in real life have been patient beyond belief, given that my writing mode is pretty antisocial. (Special shoutout to Jim, Katie, MaryBeth and Sandy, the stalwarts of the Franklin's Regulars). The folks at Indiana University Press are awesome, full stop. Every author should be so lucky as to work with such pros. 
I also want to thank the software wizards behind the tools that make my writing life a joy. I would be completely lost without Scrivener, Index Card and Zotero. No lie.
What's next?


The draft heads to IUPress and out for review. In a few months, I'll get reviewers' comments and revise the draft. Hopefully, Sex and Unisex will be out in early 2015. In the meantime, watch this space for more posts about gender and appearance, ranging from news items to snippets that were left out of books 1 and 2 to previews of Book 3 (oh yes!). The working title is Age Appropriate, and it will be about how women over 50 deal with gendered cultural expectations. Stick with me!

Unsex and "His 'n Hers"

8/12/2013

 
If you asked someone in the fashion industry, unisex was a fad that came and went in one year: 1968. For that brief moment, the fashion press hailed gender blending as the wave of the future, and department stores created special sections for unisex fashions. Most of these boutiques had closed by 1969. However, in the more mainstream realm of Sears, Roebuck catalogs and major sewing patterns, “his ‘n hers” clothing – mostly casual shirts, sweaters and outerwear – persisted through the late 1970s. The difference between avant-garde unisex and the later version is the distinction between boundary-defying designs, often modeled by androgynous-looking models, and a less-threatening variation, worn by attractive heterosexual couples.
Also: one more chapter to go! Huzzah!!!

"Because I said so." The opening shot in the culture wars.

8/10/2013

 
I am still drafting the context chapter of the book, and thankfully, it is beginning to make sense. Or at least I think it is, so I'll post a bit here are see what y'all think. Don't be shy! 

This comes after a paragraph about the inability of sex researchers to take into account their own culturally-induced biases. I use the familiar metaphor of the fish trying to understand water, which is often used to describe the difficulties encountered when we try to examine our own culture.
Reformers, advocates and activists working to expand civil rights were essentially trying to change the dimensions of the fishbowl. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States of America offer definitions of human rights that initially promised more than they delivered to many people living within our borders. The civil rights movements in our history have been efforts to include people who had been excluded from the promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit if happiness” offered in 1776 and the guarantee of “equal protection under the law” added in 1868. This may seem heady, serious stuff for a book on fashion, but it was the civil rights movement that made clothing and hair into national, contentious issues. Much of the fashion controversies centered on issues of gender expression and gender equality, which raised different questions for women and men, and for adults and children. 

Many of the initial questions were seemingly trivial. Why can’t girls wear slacks to school? Why must men always wear ties, which seem to serve no practical purpose? Why do so many dresses button or zip up the back? Why can’t a boy wear his hair long just like the Beatles? Why do I have to wear white gloves and a hat just to go shopping downtown? Why is it cute to be a tomboy but not a sissy? If these sound like children’s questions, maybe it’s because at first they were. I remember puzzling over these and many other rules when I was growing up. The answers were even more puzzling – and annoying! “That’s just the way it is.” “Because I said so.” Culture, and the authority of grownups. In the 1960s, the Baby boom generation started to question more and push back harder, along with some allies in older generations. They were aided and abetted by a consumer culture that may have been more interested in their buying power than in cultural and political change. 


Four more weeks!

8/3/2013

 
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The writing life ain't pretty. Four l-o-n-g chapters in and, four weeks to go before my deadline, someone asking for a headshot is lucky not to get this one -------->

It's Saturday (whatever that is) and my summer cold has moved from my throat to my chest. I dream about being at the computer, writing. No naked men, no magical creatures, just me and the laptop.

I'm looking forward to having this book done, mainly because I can't wait to see how I pull it off. Writing about history feels like a collaboration between the evidence and the storyteller (that's me). The challenge is that life -- the events that become "history" -- happens to millions of people at a time, and the storyteller must simplify it enough to be intelligible, but not so much that you lose the complexity that gives life its flavor.

My bio might say "dress historian", but clothing is just the way I learn about life. Pink and Blue was about the lives of parents and children, not about baby dresses and rompers. As someone who has been a kid and parent, it was about my life, but just a teensy bit, since it covered over a hundred years of history. Sex and Unisex is about the lives of people who experienced the 1960s and 1970s, so it totally intersects with my life. At the same time, I want it to connect with readers under 35, whose lives today are still buffeted by the turbulence of that era. So I write, and cough, and drink throat-soothing tea, and write some more, as the story unfolds in my head and on my screen. Wish me luck.

I'm a W-O-M-A-N

7/18/2013

 
I've noticed a shift in the mid-1960s away from something I will call “personality dressing”, which is the common women’s magazine trope that asks, “What kind of woman are you?” and then offers style and grooming advice based on the responses. For example, in 1965 Seventeen featured  “Personality types and the clothes that go with them” using the categories “dainty vs sturdy”, “dramatic vs demure”, and “dignified vs vivacious for three pairs of outfits. A fragrance ad in 1968 offers a short quiz and three choices, “romantic”, “modern”, and “feminine”. I've seen other writers describe what replaced personality dressing as “event dressing”, but I feel that the “moment dressing” is more descriptive.  In the late 1960s and 1970s, there were many choices (minis, midis, maxis, pant suits, jeans, menswear, peasant, vintage...) and plenty of women opted for an extremely varied wardrobe 

Which outfit came out of the closet depended not only on the event or occasion, but the woman’s mood at the moment as well. The significance of this is that mood dressing was a rejection of an essentialist view that women came in a few, easily categorized varieties. Like the W-O-M-A-N in the Enjoli perfume commercial who can “bring home the bacon, cook it up in a pan, and never let you forget you’re a man”, the woman of the 1970s could do anything, or least dress for anything. 


That's my take, anyway. What's yours?

Fashion, feminisms and femininity

7/4/2013

 
I turned 13 in 1962. Before I graduated from high school, three books hit the bestseller lists, each offering a completely different, competing view of what sort of woman I should try to be. Let the authors speak for themselves:
When a man thinks of a married woman, no matter how lovely she is, he must inevitably picture her greeting her husband at the door with a martini or warmer welcome, fixing little children's lunches or scrubbing them down because they've fallen into a mudhole. She is somebody else's wife and somebody else's mother.

            When a man thinks of a single woman, he pictures her alone in her apartment, smooth legs sheathed in pink silk Capri pants, lying tantalizingly among dozens of satin cushions, trying to read but not very successfully, for he is in that room–filling her thoughts, her dreams, her life.

Helen Gurley Brown, Sex and the Single Girl, 1962
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange starring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shop for groceries, match slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, she furred Cub Scouts and brownies, lay beside her husband at night–she was afraid to even ask herself the silent question–“ is this all?”

Betty Friedan, The feminine mystique, 1963
Never before in history has there been a generation of women so disillusioned, disappointed, and unhappy marriage is in our times. Many feel that married life does not offer what they had hoped and dreamed it would. Some feel neglected, unappreciated, and often unlocked. When they search for answers, they feel lost in a sea of darkness. Some are resigned to this condition, but others still hope and search for answers.

            There are, of course many women who have achieved a high level of happiness, but in many cases it is not the happiness of which they once dreamed, and it falls short of their goals. They feel a need for a richer, fuller life. They, too, need light and understanding.

Helen B. Andelin, Fascinating Womanhood, 1965
I hasten to say that although I didn't read any of them, the ideas each author advocated swirled around me throughout my high school and college years. (And they are all still in print fifty years later, which is telling.) Which woman should I be? Helen Gurley Brown's independent, sexy, young single girl? Betty Friedan’s liberated woman with a career and perhaps an equally liberated husband? Or Helen Andelin’s domestic goddess, realizing her power by cultivating her femininity?


Afterthought:

When faced with a multiple choice test, the young women of the 60s and 70s tried to turn it into an essay exam.
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    Jo Paoletti

    Professor Emerita
    ​American Studies
    University of Maryland

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