When retailer John Lewis ditched gendered labels on children鈥檚 clothing, a backlash soon followed.
John Lewis is the first major UK clothes seller to offer exclusively gender neutral children鈥檚 clothes. Labels read 鈥淕irls & Boys鈥� or 鈥淏oys & Girls鈥� on all items, from newborns up to 14 years. It has also launched a unisex line for children, with no more prescriptive pink for girls and blue for boys 鈥� just clothes for everyone.
Some embraced the store for its progressive and nuanced take on gender politics. But 鈥� calling it an example of liberal pandering or outsized political correctness (gone wrong).
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It is undoubtedly a radical move 鈥� clothes have existed as a means of expressing gender for hundreds of years. But it is also a legitimate move, rooted in research that increasingly shows the hardening of unwelcome and damaging stereotypes as a result of relentless gender-based marketing on the young.
We have been here before, especially with toys. 鈥溾�� was the title of a study that found the explicit gendering of toys leads to 鈥渄ifferent developmental trajectories鈥� for girls and boys. It found that children aged 3 to 5 years were cautious when choosing toys not deemed acceptable for their gender, and argued that visual preferences for gendered toys may stem from verbal labelling (鈥渢hat鈥檚 a boy鈥檚 toy鈥�).
Labelled toys
It also found that even toys not typically associated with either sex were refused if labelled in opposition to the child鈥檚 gender 鈥� demonstrating how readily these expectations had already been assimilated, to the disadvantage of the child.
Lisa Dinella at the Gender Development Laboratory at Monmouth University, New Jersey, who was co-author of the study, argues that the gendering of toys informs the intellectual and emotional development of a child. Both genders lose out if you put kids on one track and they can鈥檛 explore, she says.
While play informs the development of creativity and dexterity, providing an essential formative role, clothes also act as objects of self-expression and identity. If a doll or toy soldier makes permissive a particular mode of being, so do the costumes we assume and the clothes we wear. Boys鈥� clothes tend to veer towards more mobile and utilitarian styles, while for girls they remain restrictive, embellished and decorative.
Caroline Bettis, head of childrenswear at John Lewis, cited 鈥渘ot wanting to reinforce stereotypes鈥� as the reason behind the labelling decision. Those stereotypes can take hold very young. It is thought children begin recognising gender from the age of 1, even . From here it isn鈥檛 a huge leap to the gender gaps that harm society, such as .
That鈥檚 despite neuroscientists increasingly dismissing the idea that there are fundamental differences in male and female brains. They include Lise Eliot, author of the book Pink Brain, Blue Brain. Drawing from years of research into neuroplasticity, she believes that while genes and hormones create physical differences, structural MRI scans display little disparity in areas of the brain most commonly cited as explaining 鈥済ender-specific鈥� traits.
Gender identity doesn鈥檛 always fit the 鈥� it is thought that as many as 2 per cent of live births are of babies who are . Gender is more complex than external anatomy. Gender doesn鈥檛 necessarily match the sex you are born into. If sex and gender aren鈥檛 a perfect dichotomy 鈥� why should clothing be?
