So-- this isn't a gender studies blog, but two gender-related things, again:
1. I went shopping yesterday (it is tax free weekend in VA and I definitely bought the cutest clothes ever). I'm really fascinated by fashion (specifically, t-shirts) marketed to teenage girls that perpetuate the worst stereotypes about women (catty, bitchy, manipulative) and are directed towards other women as forms of passive aggressive size-ups-- shirts like "tell your boyfriend I said thanks" or the many types of clever ways to say "I am prettier/ more popular/ more promiscuous than you." It's a tough time to be a teenage girl (especially pre-teen) these days if you want a little integrity. Or if you just don't want to be negative and lash out at other girls. Anyways, the newest slogan for this type of t-shirt that I saw yesterday:
"Your boyfriend is in my top 8"
Hilarious. Love the intersection of technology and shallowness.
I can't stop thinking about the ways individual identity is shaped by the clothing options available, and how mainstream clothing manufacturers perpetuate and bank on the insecurities caused by strict gender roles. Assuming you want to be a trendy teenager, basically your only choices are what is being marketed to you-- and of course, every mall around the country has the same clothes. You have to shape your identity based on these few options, and the options often have such strong gender scripts underlying them. It reminds me of the dilemma my friends and I faced as teenagers and in college when we did not feel comfortable wearing super short shorts (as Anne cleverly called them "cookie cutters")--they felt skanky and we didn't like being 24/7 sex objects for the stereotypical male gaze. We would go to several malls, and none of them sold women's shorts that were longer than upper-thigh. So some of my friends wore boy shorts, but I was reduced to wearing long pants for several summers in a row until Bermuda shorts became trendy again. Such are the costs of identity preservation!
I also love the repetition in fashion-- things come back into style several years later. I saw a sweater at Banana Republic yesterday that looked exactly like a sweater I bought from Old Navy in eighth grade. No thanks.
Note: I recognize that current fashion is arguably much less restrictive as far as gender roles and evolving to allow more diversity in appearance. Express now sells the "boyfriend tank" for women, which is basically a man's white ribbed a-frame. And men are now wearing pink clothing even in a business setting, which is just the hottest thing ever. There is a whole chapter in
The Guide to Getting it On about how fashion manufacturers like Calvin Klein changed the nature of men's underwear so that men can wear briefs and not feel like their masculinity is threatened.
But despite all these recent changes, the mean t-shirts directed at other women are just as popular.
2. I absolutely love this new gender divide series in the NY Times this summer. The newest one,
Facing Middle Age with No Degree, and No Wife is particularly interesting.
I think I appreciated it so much because it reflects a generational shift occurring in my hometown, where my grandfather had no degree, but he worked at the automobile manufacturing plant and was unionized, so he was able to support his seven children fairly well (at least by small town standards: they went to McDonalds once a week and with the cost of living being so low, they had a nice house. However, my father was the only one to get a college education). In the last twenty years or so, the plant closed down, so now the small town economy and the marriage market have both shifted in response. Because of the sex-segregated economy, the women have stayed in the same jobs (pink ghetto, but again, low cost of living, so $25-40K is just fine in a double income household). But their husbands now look like deadbeats because with the plant's closure, they are now selling appliances at department stores or scheming up small businesses that aren't successful and drain the family's resources. They are forced to acknowledge and rely on their wives' financial contributions, all thanks to a lack of education that didn't seem necessary twenty years ago.
All of this breeds a lot of resentment, a lot of stress and strain on everyone involved. And it explains the continuing popularity of fraternal organizations (often named after masculine animals, like elks and moose), where many men drink the evenings away (day after day) among the company of other middle-aged small town male friends, despite the fact that they have families at home. I could write a whole scholarly article on fraternal organizations, as I am the daughter of a former chapter president of one of them (he was the "exalted ruler" until April of last year-- I swear to god I am not making up that title!).
