One of the first questions asked of expectant parents is whether or not they know the sex of their baby. While there's nothing nefarious about this inquiry, the consistency of it can be pretty annoying. Forming an idea of something or someone is a natural part of connection, and one of the first ways we're socially conditioned to imagine the outline of a person is by assigning them a gender. People generally seem far more comfortable about others (whether they're babies or fully grown adults) when they can identify them as being either "boy" or "girl".
![No prizes for assuming the gender of this child.](/web/20170409160014im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/c/n/0/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvce0h.png/1491361064869.jpg)
Mainstream society still lags behind when it comes to understanding gender as a complex (and fascinating!) construct that incorporates multiple expressions of identity rather than a rigid binary, and this rush to categorise people starts from well before birth.
And then of course, there are the baby clothes. Oh lord, the baby clothes.
I have a seven-month-old, and wandering the clothing aisles in high street shops or department stores is an exercise in anger management. The most noticeable thing is the distinction of gender according to colour. The girls' section bursts with pinks, yellows, purples and glitter while the boys' section wades through a more muted palette of dark blues, black, red, khaki and beige, beige, beige.
But what the boys' section lacks in vibrancy it more than makes up for in affirmations and positive reinforcement. T-shirts and jumpers scream words like "awesome", "cool", "future superhero" and "little but loud". Conversely, girls' clothes are emblazoned with things like "princess", "cute", "stay happy" and "gorgeous". Because never forget that boys are defined by how impressive they are, while girls are defined by how impressive they look.
This isn't just the ranting of an acerbic feminist who insists on complaining about everything, although I'm happy to claim that title. Numerous studies have shown that, despite what we may all think, most people respond without question to the social conditioning when it comes to gender.
A groundbreaking experiment conducted in 1975 placed child-free men and women in a room with a three-month-old baby. The baby was dressed in yellow and accompanied by three toys – a football, a doll and a teething ring. Participants were split into three groups and observed interacting with the baby and the toys. Those who were told the baby was a boy were more likely to offer it the football or teething ring. Those who were told it was a girl overwhelmingly interacted using the doll. Of those who were given no label, men favoured the teething ring while women favoured the doll.
Most interesting to me were those people tested on the no label baby, or "baby X". The majority of participants decided the baby was a boy, with women even more likely than men to make this judgment. Regardless of their assessment, the participants had one thing in common – they all said they "could tell by the strength of the grip, by the lack of hair, or by how round and soft it was, whether it was a boy or a girl".
As it turned out, there was only one baby used in the experiment – a girl.
Sure, it's a 40-year-old study. But gender stereotypes remain as strong as ever. A recent study showed that from the age of six onwards, children were more likely to assume natural brilliance in men rather than women. While it was accepted that girls could work hard to achieve scholarly results, they weren't assumed to be as likely as men to be "brilliant".
Separate studies confirm that more pre-pubescent girls than ever are developing insecurities about their bodies and the way they look. A 2009 study showed that half of American girls aged between three and six think they're fat.
So what does this have to do with clothes?
Last year, I took a photograph to capture an ongoing small act of resistance in my local Kmart. Every time I went into the store with my baby, I swapped t-shirts that blared "BRAVE & STRONG" from the boys' aisle into the girls' one, exchanging them with shirts that said "happy and smiley".
When I shared this photograph on my Facebook page, some people grew irate. Babies couldn't even read, so what difference did it make what their clothes said?
The difference is that in most cases, the people meeting, playing with or handling the babies can read. And clothes that reinforce stereotypes of brilliance in boys and aesthetics in girls contribute to the general conditioning we've all been subjected to that teaches us certain traits are innate to gender.
It is absurd to pretend that social conditioning is a myth or that we can somehow resist it. If we weren't susceptible to the millions of messages we receive in our daily lives, marketing and advertising wouldn't work so well and we wouldn't labour under capitalism. The tragedy of gender stereotyping existing at all (let alone starting so early) is that it doesn't just limit our collective understanding of what it means to be a girl. It also reduces our idea of boyhood to one in which softness and tenderness are considered "unmanly".
Why do people think baby boys shouldn't be allowed to enjoy flowers, sparkles and butterflies while baby girls have to wear all those things on their heads to offset their "unfeminine" baldness?
All of us, even those of us who aren't parents, should be prepared to question these reductive, harmful stereotypes. Little girls can be brave and strong, too, and little boys might also want to be a princess every now and again.
Some children might want to be both or neither, and that goes for being girls or boys at all. As adults, all that we have to be is supportive. And as parents, all that we have to do is love them.
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