Androgyny Is The New Norm
How androgynous fashion helps to change gender norms
Androgyny: having both masculine and feminine characteristics; neither clearly masculine nor feminine in appearance.
Fashion, ever evolving as it is, has wielded androgynous fashion to make, what some may label as ‘controversial statements’ about gender norms. Now, more than ever before, people have been more perceptive to all sorts of fashions and as such, the influence fashion has in today’s society is problematic, as it reinforces strict gender norms through the assignment of gendered clothing and also through the unattainable beauty standards that are thrown at women.
Gendered clothing for infants is a fairly new introduction into the world of fashion, the trend having appeared in the 60s and as such have helped to cement gender roles in society, which helps to perpetuate stereotype and misogyny; however, up until this switch, going as far back as the 18th century infants and toddlers were dressed in white dresses regardless of gender. Parents in this time were more concerned about the child having clothes on their bodies, rather than what the current society would think about the styling and colouring of the clothing.
Society is notorious for having different ideas on what is “acceptable” at any given moment. For example, we could say that common knowledge today would argue that the colour pink is reserved for girls, while the colour blue is claimed by boys. However, this was not always the case A June 1918 article from Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department states,
“The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. Pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”
This is the history of gendered fashion and yet it is seen as a calamity if a boy were ever to wear pink or a girl dares to wear blue. These fashion rules build harmful stereotypes around something as simple as colours, and thus, leads to ostracizing of anyone who would even dare to wear a colour that was “not made for their gender,” hence, forcing these rules on children should be unacceptable.
Some readers may challenge that the policing of gender in fashion from this young age may seem like a minor infraction; however, it is one of the main contributors to the problem of homophobia. For men, wearing anything that has any connotation to women’s fashion is absolutely forbidden.
Many boys, while growing get bullied for looking or dressing effeminate and are not able to express themselves as they want to because of the strict gender rules that they must conform to. In western countries this issue, while still a problem, is not as big of an issue, unlike countries like Russia that have a “gay propaganda” law which makes it illegal to promote non-traditional views of sexual relations to minors. It becomes very dangerous for people to express themselves in any way that is not gender conforming.
In the article “What It’s Like to Make Gender-Neutral Clothing in Russia” published in Teen Vogue Magazine, Sara Radin (2019) brings to light some of the Russian fashion designers that are trying to challenge the gender norms by dressing their models in androgynous fashions.
Radin interviews Russian designer Olya Volshebova who says, “Sometimes people get crazy that I dress boys in pink.” (Radin,2019, para.6) On the other hand, fashion Scholar, Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology claims,
“In the 18th century, it was perfectly masculine for a man to wear a pink silk suit with floral embroidery”
Volshebova has not presented anything to the public that has not been once ‘normal’. The fact that people are appalled that she would dress boys in pink on her runway goes to show how deep the concept of gendered clothing influences society. What started out as a cute and quirky way to colour code babies has now spiralled into a bigger problem of bullying and ostracizing anyone who does not want to conform to any certain gender.
In coherence to the effects fashion have on society, it also plays a big role in cementing beauty standards for females. In the fashion industry, the most common body figures that are seen in magazines and on runways are usually slender with long limbs and this feeds into gender norms of women having to look delicate to prove their femininity.
‘Star Models’, a Brazillian modeling agency did a series of anti-anorexia advertisements. In the series they show two pictures, one of a basic fashion sketch and the second of real women with the same proportions of the sketches
The real-life women looked to be obviously anorexic; seeing these images side by side is really effective to show the influence that fashion has on body dysmorphia. Designers draw these sketches to show what their clothing is meant to look like on a body. The fact that these sketches are normalized in the fashion industry is problematic because proportions of their drawings are simply not attainable, and to advertise these as the ‘perfect body’ promotes anorexia and other mental health issues.
In a society that puts a lot of stock in physical appearance females are always being looked at and judged based on their bodies, scrutinized to decide whether or not they have the right proportions that fits the mold of a beauty standard. Many females can attest to having this social pressure baring on their shoulders from as young as prepubescence. This harms a female’s mental vision of them self by integrating insecurities.
Androgynous fashion deviates from traditional beauty standards and allows people to freely explore their fashion without conforming to the gender norms of a female having to look delicate.
“I never want the world to know everything about me, I mean that’s why I wear big baggy clothes nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath”
At seventeen years old, Eilish knows the pressure that society puts on girls to look a certain way. She takes away society’s power to use her own body against her by wearing androgynous fashion and disrupting gender norms and beauty standards.
While fashion on its own is wonderful, when thought about deeply, the influences it has in today’s society is problematic. When it comes to the policing of gender norms through gendered clothing, this puts people in a box over something as silly as a colour or style of clothing. Gendered clothing and beauty standards should be omitted from children’s fashion as that is where the issue of being unable to freely express oneself begins. As it is now, the amount of impact that fashion is allowed to have over life can be detrimental.
