We wait for a baby to be born. Our daughter and her husband have elected NOT to know whether it is a boy or a girl. There is nothing pink in the house yet but I think that there might be if the baby is a girl. Today I completed these white sleeping pads for the baby's bassinet as we are in the prenatal 'neutral' space of yellow, green, and especially white.I find this interesting because in contemporary society the two genders dress very similarly in jeans with hoodies or short jackets. In a way we are like the Greek and Roman men and women who both had to wrap huge amounts of fabric gracefully around their bodies or those upper class northern Europeans of both genders during the Renaissance who suffered through lace neck ruffles.
Why then, do the racks in the baby departments line up so severely on the side of boy or girl, blue or pink? Perhaps its because newborn babies all look to be the same gender and those colours are clues. They are identity signifiers.
Here's a boy.
4 comments:
i suppose either will be just as much a gift.
i think prejudice is a result of marketing anyway.
Jude's right about the marketing. The pastel part irks me most. With much effort I decked out my newborns with Canary yellow, B&W jail jail stripes & white polka dots on a scarlet field - anything but pales. My boys looked like exotic butterflies in the nursery. The help wondered...I hope the chick is hatched before my birthday (14th).
yes, that's a BOY. a delightful boy...
Despite being dressed in girlie colours most people assumed my daughter was a boy, maybe because we had blue pram.
I think the clothes for toddlers is even worse than it is for babies. Most toddler girl clothes seem to be pink with butterflies, flowers and birds. Since my daughter likes trains, robots and ships she always runs to boy cloths section. Though recently she developed liking for pink. *eye-roll*
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