Leave the “Boyfriend” Out of Women’s Clothes!

Have you ever noticed the gendering within women’s clothes? An example of this would be when it comes to certain women’s clothes labeled as “boyfriend”. Why does the word “boy” have to appear in women’s clothing? You don’t see the word “girl” or “women” appearing in men’s clothing. Women should not have to choose between a “masculine” article of clothing and a “feminine” article of clothing in the women’s department. A possible answer could be because patriarchy likes to intervene in marketing and products for women. Patriarchy likes to assert its power and have it be known by women, which in this case involves including the word “boyfriend” in women’s clothing and assuming that it is inspired by masculinity and therefore should be considered “masculine”. Patriarchy likes to intervene in women’s clothing by allowing masculinity to appear in a category, but does not allow it to be vice versa. It is therefore enforcing and proving its power, but also showing how fragile masculinity is, since it allows women to buy and wear “boyfriend” clothes and men can’t easily do the same. Angela King’s article “The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body” supports this statement of patriarchy when she says, “The ‘one’ requires the category of the ‘other’ in order to be the ‘one’”(31). By patriarchy allowing the “one” or “boyfriend” to be gendered in women’s clothing and allowing it to have its own category to choose the “one” or the “other”, it is asserting its power over women/ “the other”.

To critique this further, we have to understand the meaning of “boyfriend” clothing. There are many stores like Victoria’s Secret and Hollister that sell women’s clothing with the label “boyfriend”. At Victoria’s Secret, they sell boyfriend hoodies and boyfriend sweatpants, while at Hollister, they sell boyfriend cardigans and boyfriend jeans. According to Victoria’s Secret, they define “boyfriend” clothes through their advertisements as comfy and relaxed with a boy’s attitude. Hollister defines the boyfriend jean in their advertisements as having a low waist line and also having a boy’s attitude. The problem with gendering women’s clothing by including the word “boyfriend” is that it creates a gender binary within women’s clothing. It provides women with a choice of either a “masculine” article of clothing or a “feminine” one. The “boyfriend” clothing is clearly gendered in the name of the category as well as in the advertisements for the clothing. This type of clothing is gendered as masculine as shown in the advertisements by saying that the clothes have a boy’s attitude with the comfiness and bagginess of the clothes and also having a low rise fit on the pants especially. This further creates a gender binary because it implies that the tighter, non baggy fit is feminine, while the looser, baggy fit is masculine. Where does this leave women that like to wear loose fit clothes, but consider themselves feminine or just want to be comfortable? The advertisements are assuming that women aren’t really associated with loose-fitting, comfortable clothes, but that men are, therefore having to label this type of clothes “boyfriend”. The advertisements are therefore excluding women that like to wear baggy, comfortable clothes and consider themselves feminine. Just as Angela King says in her article, “Male and female should not be conflated with masculinity and femininity” (33).The so-called “boyfriend” jean should be eliminated and changed to “relaxed” and the the other clothes should also change their name and eliminate the word “boyfriend”. Men already have the advantage of having the “boyfriend” jeans called relaxed, while the women’s “boyfriend” jeans stay as “boyfriend”. The “boyfriend” jeans for men and women should both be called relaxed jeans in order to get rid of the gender binary in women’s clothing.