The Representation Of Clothing And Sexually Engrained In Our Culture

The idea of “boy clothes” and “girl clothes” is something heavily engrained in our culture. We often attribute certain clothing items or styles to be specifically for a girl or for a boy. Feminine dresses and skirts for girls and pants and suits for boys. Clothes hold a lot of meaning to them and because of this much gendered approach to dressing, there has always been a strict limit to what gender can wear what. Gender roles and specific ways that each sex should act are culturally assigned to men and women and are reinforced by the use of clothing as they highly emphasize the qualities of biological sex. Fashion is something that promotes gender stereotypes of femininity and masculinity and this is represented in clothing, hairstyles, shoes,

However later on a change occurred, “In the 1920s and 1960s, fashion agenda was more progressive, reshaping the appearance of women in keeping with changes in their social roles and in the rest of society” (Crane). Clothing for women became more scandalized and perhaps more sexualized. Later on, women began to reject the traditional ideas of how women’s clothing should be. It was not until 1940 that women broke away from “feminine” attire and began to wear pants (Arvanitidou & Gasouka). In fact, women wearing suits did not become socially acceptable until fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent added a “male tuxedo” to his female line, essentially influencing the women’s pantsuit to become a fashionable statement for women who wanted to look different or chic (Arvanitidou & Gasouka). In 1970 when feminism was becoming a bigger movement, fashion was seen to feminists as “trap for women”. Feminists, “perceive fashion as but one instance of the way in which men impose punishing restrictions on women, as an instance of patriarchy; men, they might argue, use dress as a way of imprisoning women within the passive feminine, thus locating passivity in 'the Other' and keeping it at a safe distance” (w121). Furthermore, in reference to the burning of bras in feminist history, “the famous burning of bras, perhaps

There are androgynous ways of dressing that reject identifying with one label or the other. Hippies in the 1960’s tried to start a movement for an androgynous style of clothing, but the model was not unisex appearing, it still looked masculine. It is clear that body parts are gendered too much, that anything attributed to females are not gender neutral. Breasts are inherently sexualized in society and are not seen as gender neutral. (Arvanitidou & Gasouka). Judith Butler says that, “since culture imposes gendered expectations on the clothing deemed appropriate for women and men, the individual can use clothing that defies gender expectations to assert personal identity and to critique culture’s values and methods of enforcing those values”. However, modern fashion has begun to play with the distinction between masculinity and femininity which leads to a shift in ideas about what masculinity and femininity are. Wilson says, “Fashion permits us to flirt with transvestism, precisely to divest it of all its danger and power” (Wilson 122). It is apparent that the lines of girl clothes and boy clothes are starting to become