Pink is for boys, too
As the back-to-school sales begin and consumers return to stores for the second-largest shopping season, some parents are bound to be frustrated by what can seem to be binary choices in children鈥檚 clothes. Jo Hadley has been one of them.
The mother of two co-founded Handsome in Pink in 2007 when she couldn鈥檛 find clothes in one of her young son鈥檚 favorite colors, pink. Ms. Hadley was frustrated that everything that was pink was also highly feminized, with lots of sparkles, butterflies, and fairies. Her son would wear these clothes in public, but often became confused when mistaken as a girl.
Handsome in Pink fills a 鈥済aping hole in the clothing industry,鈥� she says, by marketing traditionally masculine motifs, like electric guitars and motorcycles, on pink and purple shirts. To her surprise, her daughter, who had been so into mainstream girls鈥� clothing, enjoyed wearing the new clothes, too. 鈥淕irls don鈥檛 get the [same] imagery,鈥� says Hadley, now the sole proprietor of Handsome in Pink. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 get the adventure on [their] shirts.鈥�
Hadley is part of a growing movement focused on breaking gender clich茅s in children鈥檚 clothing. Rejecting the usual divide between pink clothes for girls and blue clothes for boys, a small but growing group of parents is putting pressure on major retailers to start offering a wider variety of choices. Many, including Gap and Target, have responded with less gendered lines of clothing, toys, and, more. 聽Additionally, many parents are choosing to shop with independent retailers or , like Hadley, create their own lines of clothing.
Why all the pink and blue?
A hundred years ago, gender neutral kids' clothes were considered the norm, according to Jo Paoletti, a cultural historian, professor in the American Studies department at the University of Maryland,聽and author of 鈥淧ink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America.鈥�
It wasn鈥檛 until the 1920s and 鈥�30s that children鈥檚 clothes became more gendered as boys鈥� clothing started to lose elements that were redefined as feminine, like ruffles. Even through the 1960s, it wasn鈥檛 uncommon to have a white baby dress on hand as a neutral option for an infant.
鈥淢anufacturers have made the decision to highly-gender things so that you can鈥檛 have hand-me-downs . The birth rate went down and they needed to keep their sales up by making it harder for [consumers] to reuse things,鈥� says Dr. Paoletti.
That gender separation has come under closer scrutiny in recent years, however, as parents and researchers question what it means for children's self-perception.
Messages, motifs, and colors on children鈥檚 attire can impact their worldview, says Dr. Rebecca Hains, an Associate Professor at Salem State University and author of "The Princess Problem." 鈥淭he way items are marketed to children impacts young children鈥檚 sense of who they are, what鈥檚 available to them, what鈥檚 appropriate for them, and what the possibilities are for themselves versus the limitations.鈥�
Handsome in Pink is a member of聽 , a consortium of independent retailers offering up less aggressively gendered clothing options. Courtney Hartman, another member of the group with two independent clothing labels, started Jessy & Jack in 2014 to market clothing that 鈥渓ooks equally cute on boys and girls.鈥� 鈥淲hen kids don鈥檛 see things on their clothes, it sends the message that those things are not for them, and I think that can limit who they feel they can become,鈥� says Hartman.
Such clothing is often characterized as 聽鈥済ender neutral,鈥� though Hartman says she doesn鈥檛 use the term to describe her wares because of the stigma around it. 鈥淕ender neutral kids鈥� clothes are sometimes interpreted as clothes for gender-neutral kids,鈥� she says, instead of clothes that can be worn by both boys and girls.
Big stores catch on
The issue of highly gender-stereotyped and gender-segregated store aisles was spotlighted last summer when a mother tweeted that Target toy aisles were unnecessarily divided into 鈥淕irls鈥� Building Sets鈥� and 鈥淏uilding Sets.鈥� In response, 聽the company announced聽in August last year that it would be removing gender labels from toy and bedding aisles. In February, the retail giant started selling a new Target brand of children鈥檚 bedding, Pillowfort, touted as a more inclusive collection that allows children and parents mix and match different elements and colors.
鈥淲ho are we to say what a child鈥檚 individual expression is? We really wanted to develop a [child鈥檚 bedding] collection that would be universal,鈥� says Target鈥檚 senior vice president of design and product development, Julie Guggemos, in a February聽
A similar shift is brewing in the children鈥檚 clothing sector, including from clothing lines designed and endorsed by celebrities. Actress and mother Jaime King launched a gender neutral clothing line in May with clothing retailer Gardner and the Gang, where each piece of clothing, featuring animal designs, could be marketed to either boys or girls. In 2015, Ellen Degeneres partnered with GapKids to market an E.D. line of kids鈥� clothing designed to forego gender clich茅s for girls and boys.
There is the possibility of a stronger trend as Millennials age and become parents.聽According to, Millennials make up 25 percent of the American population. One in four Millennials are parents, a number that will grow in the near future. On the whole, Millennials tend to be more open to the idea of gender nonconformity, or individuals acting outside of gender stereotypes, than previous generations.
Civic Science and the NPD Group gauged Millennials鈥� feelings on gender in a聽survey聽which asked if respondents thought it brave of Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce, to come out as a woman. Out of all adult respondents, 31 percent agreed with the statement, but when looking at Millennials alone, a slightly higher number of Millennial men agreed with the statement (33 percent). The number of Millennial women who agreed with the statement was much higher, at 53 percent.
Marshal Cohen, a chief industry analyst at the NPD Group and author of the 2015 report which included the survey,聽wrote, 鈥淲ith a growing Millennial segment that finds sex and gender less relevant to their shopping, it seems time for mainstream retailers and brands to participate in the dialogue by offering more options.鈥�
Though an increase in Millennial parents may lead to an increased demand for gender neutral or less-gendered offerings in kids clothing,聽retailers aren鈥檛 likely to stray too far from the status quo. Though more universal clothing options are cropping up at Gap, Babies 鈥楻鈥� Us, Target, and Amazon, they still are dwarfed by vast selections of that marked specifically for girls or boys. 聽
鈥淢oving forward, parents will enjoy having the choice of gender-neutral clothes for their children, but a majority of the market will still prefer dressing girls in pink and boys in blue,鈥� 聽Dr.聽 Michel J. Weber, an associate dean of the Stetson School for Business and Economics at Mercer University,聽wrote in an email to the Monitor's Christina Beck last month.
Still, there are plenty of signs, big and small, of more fluidity. 鈥淲hile Wonder Woman鈥檚 tiara still features prominently among superhero costumes for girls, a recent search for her logo on a child鈥檚 t-shirt yielded as many red or blue as pink options, 鈥� Susan Scafidi, founder and academic director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School, points out in an email to the Monitor.
