18 November 2009 – On Monochrome and Gender

Posted on | November 18, 2009 | 24 Comments

18 November 2009, originally uploaded by academichic.

Sources:

Black t-neck – Zara
Green cord skirt – thrifted, remixed
Black tights – DM
Black boots – Banana Republic, remixed
Green tote – Kenneth Cole, remixed
Jade bracelet – Chinatown, San Francisco, remixed
Green necklace – thrifted, remixed

Endnotes:

Monochrome, Take II – this time I’ve paired shades of green with black (a neutral). I don’t wear monochromatic outfits often so this always seem exciting and out of my usual style-zone when I do put them together. I often wear one color with neutrals but then I introduce additional colors with my accessories. It’s rare that I will accessorize using only shades of the same color present in my outfit. But today’s greens worked out so well that I’m tempted to try this more often.

Greenery, originally uploaded by academichic.

On a different note, I want to continue the discussion A. introduced yesterday on the gendering of clothes. I hate the use of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ to describe certain garments or styles because it perpetuates restrictive ideas about what is appropriate for one gender and what it a borrowing from another gender (“the boyfriend jean, the boyfriend cardigan”, etc). This suggests that certain looks are inherent to one gender and that certain things are ‘natural’ to one gender over the other, and leads to such binaries as soft, delicate, frilly femininity and harsh, dark, somber masculinity. This bothers me because these attributes aren’t just restricted to clothing, they usually translate into how people think they or others should act and be.

What we associate with ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ dress is a cultural construct and is time and context specific, as some of you commented yesterday. Since a terrific reader mentioned looking to the film Dangerous Liaisons as an example, I present you with just that. I have used this clip in my classes before to point to the performance of identity and gender roles and it also happens to be a film clip that most wonderfully demonstrates how what we would now see as effeminite clothing was at one point considered the height of masculinity, suitable for a regular ‘playboy’ to wear. So much for pink and ruffles and satin as being the antithesis of virile masculinity – not for eighteenth-century France they weren’t. S.

Category: Beltless, Color Combinations, Office Hours, Our Best Flatware, Skirting the Issue, Teaching Outfits, Theoretical
Tags: gender and fashion > gendered clothing > monochromatic > teaching outfit

Comments

24 Responses to “18 November 2009 – On Monochrome and Gender”

La Historiadora de Moda
November 18th, 2009 @ 4:48 am

This is an interesting discussion, and I’m glad to see that you’re continuing it here. When I teach my classes, I do talk a lot about dress, fashion, and hairstyle from a historical perspective. For example, I show portraits and woodcuts depicting different classes, and we talk about what the styles indicate about social structures and the intended audience. One of my favorite paintings to show is the one I featured in this blog post: http://fashionableacademics.blogspot.com/2009/09/accessorizers-anonymous.html It always provokes a tremendous reaction in my students. I also like to talk about sumptuary laws and how they were clearly ignored by many (and am so glad that we are not constrained by them, but merely our budgets) and used to help define categories of race, class, and gender during the early modern period/colonial periods of American and Latin American history.

Another way that I’ve noticed clothing manufacturers tend to gender the clothing that they produce is not just by calling them boyfriend this or that, but also by calling items of clothing by women’s names or some term of endearment: two pairs of the express jeans that I own are called “Mia” and Old Navy has jeans that are called “the sweetheart” or “the flirt” or “the diva.”
La Historiadora de Moda
November 18th, 2009 @ 4:50 am

Oh, and I’ve not yet had any coffee so please forgive any errors in the previous post. :)
Franca
November 18th, 2009 @ 5:14 am

I really really like this skirt and the green plays of wonderfully against the orange background.

I couldn’t agree more with what you say on gender. I hate that everyone seems to think feminism is all about valuing the feminine (‘women are better communicators’). Surely the only way were ever going to get anywhere is if we overcome the whole masculine/feminine dichotomy and everyone can draw on the full range of behaviours (and clothes!) regardless of gender.
Christina W.
November 18th, 2009 @ 5:14 am

Your Dangerous Liaisons example really pulled your argument together for me! I, too, remember when I watched that film and realized that the men weren’t dressing femininely, but masculinely.
admin
November 18th, 2009 @ 5:36 am

@La Historiadora de Moda – I’m so excited that you felt so compelled to take part in this discussion that we got going here that you did that before even having your morning coffee – now THAT’S saying something! ;) I love the image you linked to, what a great example of context specific construction of ‘pompous masculinity’ (if I may call it that), showing how gender is enacted and constructed differently all the time.

@Franca – thank you! That’s what I’m saying – can’t we all just act using the whole range of emotions/behaviors out there without worrying about what’s alright for a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ to be doing?

@Christina W – good, I’m glad you enjoyed the clip! :)

S.
Sally
November 18th, 2009 @ 6:09 am

I’m so glad you ladies have brought this issue forward for discussion. It’s been fascinating to read reader replies!
Ana
November 18th, 2009 @ 6:27 am

Love the outfit!

I loved reading this post – I have had that same discussion several times, talking about what used to be considered the height of masculinity. Everyone seems to forget that high heels were invented by a short man…
What Would a Nerd Wear
November 18th, 2009 @ 6:33 am

this is super-pretty, and i love the black and green combo.

as for the fashion theory, i couldn’t agree more. i also find that being precise about terms, even at the seemingly vapid level of clothing and style, actually translates into much larger social issues and problems and has an important impact on the bigger picture.

i can’t tell you enough how much i love your blog–it’s a joy to see aesthetic and intellectual sophistication in the same place!
La Historiadora de Moda
November 18th, 2009 @ 7:02 am

I love the phrase “pompous masculinity.” It’s perfect for a nobleman who has himself portrayed as an archangel with a gun!

Have any of you ever read any of Marjorie Garber’s work on dress and cross-dressing? It’s been a long time, but I think it’s in the introduction of Vested Interests that she talks about how before WWI men wore pink far more than women did and that it was considered a masculine and virile color. It was only in the 1940s that baby boys started to be put in blue clothing with blue nurseries and girls in pink.

I do think that some of the so-called valuing of the feminine, as Franca put it, is a result of the backlash against 2nd wave feminism and the resultant 3rd wave. I find myself constantly surprised at the number of female academics who get married and take their husband’s surname. That’s probably a different discussion entirely, though.
Ari
November 18th, 2009 @ 8:14 am

I really enjoy the comments on this, and it’s been altogether inspiring reading your blog. I had a flash after looking at yours and A’s outfits from the last couple of days that perhaps using artistically based terms like “organic” and “geometric” would serve us better than trying to genderize everything we wear. For example, A’s two patterns were clearly organic (the flowers) and geometric (the stripe). Your skirt and necklace here adds an organic panache to an otherwise very geometric and color-blocked outfit. It provides opposites to contrast while remaining gender neutral. It’s also more specific.

There’s probably a million better adjectives than “masculine” or “feminine,” and this kind of conversation is exactly what we need to have to find them and start to install them in the common vocabulary. :)
Cosmo
November 18th, 2009 @ 9:45 am

Your necklace is beautiful!

I actually had a weird thing this morning. My daughter was getting dressed and insisting on wearing a dress and I was trying to get her to wear pants because she goes to preschool and climbs a lot and falls down a lot and scrapes up her knees. Then I imagined what if I had a boy would I let him wear a dress to school like his sister? I couldn’t imagine saying no, but I’d be hesitant to let him go to school in a dress because I’d worry about him being picked on. I don’t really think that is fair that his sister should be able to wear whatever she wants but he can’t. I don’t have a son(yet) so it isn’t really an issue for me yet. But it is weird.

I have designed and named boyfriend cardigans at various jobs. The thing about the phrases boyfriend jean and boyfriend cardigan is that they are describing the fit not the style. The fit of those garments is over-sized and boxy. They are designed to represent the fit of a man’s garment not the details or styling. Men’s and bodies are not generally shaped the same as a woman’s. They are straight in the hips and waist area and not darted for breasts or womanly backsides. Of course there are women shaped like this but most women are not particularly in the US. Which is partly why the women get so upset about finding clothes designed for models in the shops. Women’s bodies are designed to have more fat in more places to be able to carry children and curse them and everything. Men don’t need that so their jeans are straighter and shirts boxier. We tend to use “boyfriend” to make something sound cozy and romantic and well loved and a little sexy. You can imagine yourself sliding into your boyfriends sweater that he left at your house after studying for your chemistry exam. You can imagine it is still warm and smells of his soap. The term boxy and straight are less well received. They don’t create an emotion really being that they are clinically descriptive and in some cases it creates aversion. Many women dislike the idea of being considered boxy or straight curves tend to be a preferred shape. I suppose they could call it the willowy sweater or the palm jean, but I don’t know that trees are more appealing to more women than having a boyfriend. The industry is in the market of marketing. I only studied a bit about gender and fashion in my sociology of fashion course so their may be a lot more to this than I know. I never took any gender studies specific courses.
Bjorn Roche
November 18th, 2009 @ 9:53 am

Love the outfit and the entry. Personally, I love monochrome, especially when the color you’ve chosen is so beautiful.

I wanted to say about masculine & feminine: the examples given by other commenters above are of men in outfits that seem feminine to today’s viewers. It strikes me as relatively hard to shock people today with a woman wearing something masculine. It hasn’t always been so. In the past, photos like this of a woman in pants (even though she was a mountaineer!) evoked the same kind of shock:

http://bentley.umich.edu/exhibits/daybook/daybook_search.php?id=6

It really upset people that women mountaineers were wearing trousers.

Today, we have strong ideas of masculine and feminine, of course, but my impression is that there’s an implicit rule in fashion that allows women’s fashion to take on the “masculine”, while men’s fashion can not take on the “feminine” (unless you are a rock star;). I think that’s why the examples cited above which evoke such strong reactions are men, not women.
Jane Winkler
November 18th, 2009 @ 10:22 am

In my experience society might allow women’s clothing to take on the “masucline,” but it stops there. I have extremely short hair (for a variety of reasons) and the comments I get from peolpe are unbelievable. My favorite: “How does your husband feel about that?”
La Historiadora de Moda
November 18th, 2009 @ 10:36 am

In my experience, students tend to have strong assumptions about both what defines “masculine” and “feminine” actually. I also show a portrait of a famous early modern woman who spent most of her life dressing as a man. I find most students respond quite strongly to her image, as well.
Nadine
November 18th, 2009 @ 10:44 am

I’m always happy to see your lovely green bag and other green goodies! I hope you spent your whole day in front of that orange wall, because it is really working for you! ;)

I love Cosmo’s comment.
admin
November 18th, 2009 @ 11:42 am

Thank you all for such thoughtful comments!

@Cosmo – thank you for clarifying what makes something “boyfriend”, I hadn’t thought about the fit as much as I thought about the lines/cut/etc.

While I understand the point made, here’s what my reply would be to a marketer selling the “boyfriend” term as as “positive association” factor – it’s very heteronormative if I may be so academic and use jargon here. It assumes women to be straight and that all women love nothing better than the idea of slipping into their husbands or boyfriends’ clothes. While this indeed is a nice thought for some women (I love wearing my husband’s oversized sweatshirts, true), it assumes all women to be straight, that women desire the warmth and cozyness of a man’s shirt, and it inevitably implies that women *should* be turned on by a *man’s* garment and not another woman’s garment.

I find this, like the gendering of colors or cuts of clothes, to translate into larger social paradigms which dictate how people should look, act, *who* they should be attracted to, and so on.

This addresses Jane Winkler’s comment as well – I love that people always assume there is a husband or a man that one should strive to please. What if you’re trying to please another woman? What if you’re just trying to please yourself?

@Ari – I like the idea of using geometric or organic or other such descriptive words that steer clear of gender or sexuality.

S.
healthy & homemade
November 18th, 2009 @ 12:06 pm

First, you look so awesome! I love that skirt. The whole outfit looks so great on you =) Very pretty!

Second, I agree (mostly) about the socially constructed limits of certain clothing garments. The names that are given to jeans for girls are usually ridiculous, I know my husband would never buy a pair of pants that were called “the flirt,” or whatever else. In terms of sweaters like “The Boyfriend Cardigan,” I get where they’re going with that. It’s called that because of the size/cut/shape. Men don’t (usually) have curves, so their clothes are cut very straight. Usually larger too, because most men do have longer arms/broader shoulders, etc.

It’s not to say manufacturers think all women are straight, and necessarily want to wear their mans clothing. I think it’s named that solely on fit alone, so perhaps by “boyfriend” they mean male friend? Doubt it, but who knows. However, you cant make assumptions on size or clothing preferences based on sex.

I don’t know where I was going with all that, just that the fashion world is crazy sometimes. With that said, what the heck is up with women’s sizing? Men’s goes by waist size, while women’s goes by some ridiculous chart that different designers apparently just made up at random. I don’t like it one bit!
Kaylyn
November 18th, 2009 @ 12:18 pm

I really love monochromatic outfits! I like that yours have a little color in them. I really like your short sleeve turtle neck too.
Cosmo
November 18th, 2009 @ 12:39 pm

@S – I can totally see how that imagery could be excluding. Marketing always has a target market and not everyone can be the target. Cars for example are driven by men and women but almost always marketed to men. Even though the imagery intended is of slipping on your boyfriends clothes I think that the actual look and fit of the garment extend beyond the name. I don’t think that the garments actually look like clothes most men would choose. I think that they are very androgynous as far as modern garments go. A man can wear boyfriend jeans and the fit and design would not be anything worth noting. Also women who like women dressed in loose fitting boxy clothes can enjoy the look. Left out are women who like women in form fitting clothes and women who like themselves in form fitting clothes and women who like men but can’t understand why a man would like a woman dressed as a man. Language is very limiting. Descriptions are never really entirely encompassing of the essence of the thing. Once you put words to it it changes.

I don’t know if humans would be able to function without generalities. I always read that people need generalities to be able to predict outcomes of situations for survival. Marketing uses those basic generalities to sell things. I think that most of the people that most people know are heterosexual. As I understand it the majority of people are more towards the heterosexual end of the scale than the homosexual. So in general people would be less likely to offend someone by assuming there was a person of the opposite sex than assuming they are the same in the relationship.

I personally think that people are best served not to make assumptions like that and go with “they are wearing that because they like it”. I used to get upset when I had short hair and people assumed I was a lesbian and asked me about my girlfriend and were surprised to see me with my hubby. Hair length is a weird thing.
admin
November 18th, 2009 @ 1:23 pm

Cosmo – I think I follow your point about marketing and generalizations. But my problem is that by catering to a heterosexual majority, you’re enforcing the idea that there is only one kind of sexuality. There are many kinds of people out there and while marketing aims to strategically address what it considers a majority, its language is harmful in that it only addressed and represents one very narrow identity. People then see this and internalize it as a sort of “truth” about their neighbors and so it perpetuates an idea over and over.

S.
huzzahvintage
November 18th, 2009 @ 1:34 pm

I was stopping in to essentially say what Cosmo has already so elegantly noted.

It would be interesting to dig up the genealogy of the term ‘boyfriend’ as a descriptor of cardigans and jeans of a certain style. In the 1980s and 1990s generous proportions were, if memory serves me, described as ‘slouchy,’ ‘baggy’ and/or ‘oversized.’ These terms, however, do not connote the sophistication that is supposed to attach to high-end retail establishments like BR, Anthro. and JCrew (all of which are guilty of using the voguish term). Given the heteronormativity that permeates these companies, it’s no surprise ‘boyfriend’ is preferred to the alternatives.

I think another interesting, related consideration is the continued desire to feel ‘small’ in one’s clothes.
Chelsea
November 19th, 2009 @ 12:24 pm

S., you are truly gifted at clarifying what some of us know deep inside but have trouble articulating (ie the problem with marketing clothing as “boyfriend” style)… and I appreciate that!

A slightly different gender-based clothing topic that I’d like to point out is the lack of true diversity of styles made for women (and men too). My girlfriend wears strictly men’s (and boy’s) clothing because that is the style she prefers and feels like herself in. Unfortunately finding clothes that fit a woman well, but are designed strictly for men’s bodies is a frustrating process as men’s clothes do not account for breasts, hips and thighs or shorter stature!

It seems like some options for menswear is becoming (dare I use the word?) more “metrosexual” (therefore more feminine?), but I don’t see the same shift in female clothing. Almost all of it is designed exclusively for “feminine” identifying women.
gina
November 21st, 2009 @ 1:54 pm

I love the monochrome. The greens look good against the black.
Revanche
November 28th, 2009 @ 7:13 pm

Erm, I absolutely love the discussion here, but the thing that leapt out at me was: did you mean virile masculinity at the end there?