from Alex:
I took this picture at Target at one of the all-for-baby aisles. After I read the article about the baby X, I decided it would be a good exercise to find out what one needs to raise a genderless baby. Genderless at least by the look of ITS clothing and all the accessories needed. This turned out to be really difficult. As you can see from the picture, the choice of color, other than pink or blue, is poor. Yellow and green seem to be the other popular colors, white if you are lucky, and occasionally you can find brown. As a matter of fact, the selection of just about anything for the baby is horrible if you really want to go genderless. Most of things are just pink and blue. For toddlers and older children it gets a bit easier; there are more colors to choose from: red, orange, dark green, pale blue, more brown, white, black. No wonder that resisting gender rules still goes ineffective if all the huge stores, hypermarkets and department stores carry only two colors for only two sexes. And media are not going to make parents life any easier either -- girls will always wear pink dresses and boys will always wear blue pants. Now what if you were determined to raise twins, who happen to be a boy AND a girl, genderless? Well, first of all, you've got to name them Morgan or Tyler or whatever other names can be used for both sexes. And then you decide to dress them in red-and-white checked overalls. Good luck trying!
3 comments:
I agree with Alex completely! It is incredibly unfortunate that in this society it is almost impossible to go genderless. The article about baby X was so interesting because the idea of raising a child in a gender-neutral environment is looked upon as absolutely ridiculous. Even if parents find a way to dress a child in genderless clothing, what will strangers say? People feel the need know whether a child is a boy or girl because they want to provide them with gender-appropriate treatment. Girls must be treated as if they are helpless and fragile while boys must be treated as if they are strong and independent. This has negative effects in the future because when a girl is aggressive or when a boy is vulnerable they are looked down upon.
I agree with Tara and Alex about this one. The subject of Alex's picture really got my attention, and like Tara it reminded me of the Baby X article. In our society it is unfair to children who can not decide for themselves what color onesees they want or the color of their bedroom. So as our society says, people buy pink for girls and blue for boys. The article definitely hit the nail on the head when the parents of the "normal" children were acting as if the parents of Baby X were weird and they looked down upon them. The picture I took for this assignment is the exact opposite of what society portrays for little girls and boys. It is entitled: "Strangers in a Strange Land". In conclusion I wish that more stores would incorporate a genderless baby isle like Target did.
I dont know, I think there is too much emphasis on girl and boy colors. Sometimes its beneficial to have separations like that. I think overall, it is important that parents teach their kids that they can do whatever they want, be whoever they want. But color really doesnt matter to me...its what you do with the socializations that counts. To a certain degree, colors do help, but again, its up to the parents to show that they can choose whatever color they want.
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