Gender: Beauty, Stereotypes + Norms

 Sex+Gender

• Sex: biological characteristics and difference
• Gender: cultural definitions of physical biological differences - a cultural/social construct

Relationship between colour:

• Gender + dress 
• Gender marked through objects and dress
• Changing connotations of dress and colour over time 

Childrenswear: dresses + skirts

• Appropriate for children regardless of gender
• Dress increasingly distinguishing between male and female.
• Dress as a sign of maturity
• Children's wear: colours
• Gendering of children's clothing through colour, pattern and motif.

Change takes time. 

"certain symbols resist change [...] distinctions between male and female dress have been maintained both by keeping a few symbols tightly bound to masculinity or femininity and by transforming borrowed symbols" - (Paoletti and Kidwell, 1989 p.133)

Ideals of femininity and masculinity: 

• Masc: assertive, dominant, mind, public, world affairs, intellect
• Fem: passive, subservient, body, private, domesticity, emotion

Notes:

• male gaze
• gender neutrality in fashion:
• agender