At the other extreme are parents who embrace early sex identification, because it makes preparations (not only clothing, but nursery designs and naming) more convenient, or because they feel it helps them connect with the baby as a "real" person. For these folks, there is an industry eager to provide the information they crave. I was tipped off to the existence of First Glimpse by references and recommendations in several pregnancy blogs. This is more than the sonograms once used primarily to detect potential problems, which could sometimes also detect genetalia. What was incidental is now central, in First Glimpse's "Gender Determination" packages. Combining elements of medicine, spa treatments, scrapbooking and glamor photography, they offer women a pregnancy experience that is as commodified as a cruise. Maybe that's next.
Over the last 25 years, baby clothes have become increasingly gendered, and neutral options have nearly vanished. Certainly one reason is the technology that allows us to know a baby's sex with nearly 100% certainty long before birth. As a costume historian, my interest is not only in what people choose to do with that information, but how they react to the choice itself. I am hearing from more and more expectant parents who choose NOT to know; not surprisingly, these are also the folks who are the most vocal about the lack of neutral styles and about stereotypical gender binary design. They not only want to wait until birth to know if they are having a son or a daughter, but even then they want to avoid pink, girly things and "little man" outfits.
At the other extreme are parents who embrace early sex identification, because it makes preparations (not only clothing, but nursery designs and naming) more convenient, or because they feel it helps them connect with the baby as a "real" person. For these folks, there is an industry eager to provide the information they crave. I was tipped off to the existence of First Glimpse by references and recommendations in several pregnancy blogs. This is more than the sonograms once used primarily to detect potential problems, which could sometimes also detect genetalia. What was incidental is now central, in First Glimpse's "Gender Determination" packages. Combining elements of medicine, spa treatments, scrapbooking and glamor photography, they offer women a pregnancy experience that is as commodified as a cruise. Maybe that's next.
MbS
8/1/2010 05:07:35 pm
I have so much to say that I am overwhelmed.
FeministJerk
8/8/2010 02:27:38 am
It’s a brave new world and the element of surprise is disappearing. With new insemination sex-selection techniques and products such as MicroSort, girls are being chosen over boys as the primary choice as a child in this venue. This was briefly discussed in the recent Atlantic article, “The End of Men”, link below: 8/10/2010 08:27:57 am
FJ - thanks for the link. Very interesting! A friend and and I were just talking about the time line from the Pill to today last night. (Not to mention pregnancy testing, which makes it possible to know much earlier. I remember when it was customary to wait until the end of the first trimester to announce a pregnancy, as well.) FWIW, I came across a stat that said that 41% of parents choose not to know the sex of the child. My own research clouds the issue a bit: when people have more than one, they are more likely to opt out of knowing once they have a boy and a girl. Comments are closed.
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