Why are 'gender neutral' clothes just boy clothes for girls?

In recent years, there's been growing criticism of the marketing of "gendered" products. Critics say there's no need to make hammers and hacksaws pink so as to appeal to women -- or categorize toys as girls' or boys' products. They argue that it's best to keep things gender neutral. But it's not necessarily that simple. 

Consider this thought experiment: When it comes to 'gender neutral' clothing, what springs to mind? Jeans? T-shirts? Maybe baseball caps?

It's what you likely DON'T picture that got Toronto-based freelance writer Audra Williams thinking. She recently dug into the question of gender neutrality for the National Post.

(The full interview is available in the audio player above. The following portions have been edited for clarity and length.)

Your piece was partly inspired by an ad campaign for The Gap. Can you describe that ad and why it got you thinking about this?

The ad is black and white and it's little girls and they're playing the drums and they're breakdancing and they're skateboarding and they're doing math and they're running around and it's a minute and a half of girls in these clothes that are like graphic T's and jeans... but I guess my question was, 'This is being marketed as a gender-neutral line of clothes... Why does gender-neutral have to be girls dressing in clothes that we traditionally think of as clothes for little boys?' There's no equivalent ad that is boys doing traditionally feminine things, like baking or making fashion or dancing, wearing clothes that are shorts with flowers on them or things that are kind of sparkly or maybe a bit more flowy. So I guess my concern or question is 'Why does gender-neutral basically just mean eliminating any sort of feminine traits, for everyone?'.

Why do you think -- as you write: "Girl clothes are for girls and boy clothes are for everyone"?

I think it's kind of seen as empowering or lifting up girls to, you know, give them names that are traditionally for boys or dress them like boys or encourage them to take up more masculine hobbies. But I think it's a lot of things... I don't think a boy wanting to wear a shirt with a flower on it is an indication that he's gay... but I think that there is that assumption and if I look at the comments on the National Post article page, I think that highlights a lot of the concerns people have; they're like, 'Why are you trying to force our boys to become LGBT' or 'girl clothes aren't practical'. So I think there's some misogyny there, absolutely. There's the devaluing of feminine things in our culture and I think it's seen as -- the word 'emasculating' was used a lot. There's this idea that it somehow makes a boy or a man less if they adopt or signify anything feminine.
 
If this lopsided idea of gender neutrality is a problem, what would have to happen to change it?

Obviously undoing patriarchy is a nice end goal, but in the meantime, if we could just -- I think that a lot of conversations are happening right now and I feel really lucky, I feel like I'm kind of at the centre of that. The National Post story, last I checked, had 90,000 shares and I'm trying to follow these hundreds of conversations across the country and a lot of people are saying, 'Oh, I hadn't thought of that before.' Obviously, parents have a huge role to play. I think it's definitely challenging when your kid is going to go out in the world and obviously you can't control the way everyone is going to react to them, so there's always the balance of trying to let your kid be themselves but also keep them safe. I get that concern. I think that role models can do a lot. If, like, Vin Diesel, who is seen as a pretty masculine guy -- but also if you follow him on social media he talks a lot about his emotions, he talks a lot about the importance of his family, he talks about being a nerd: you know, he plays Dungeons and Dragons -- I feel like if someone like that did a photo shoot wearing different colours, or whatever, I just think that all those kind of things just gradually shift peoples' consciousness in what's okay and what's not okay.

So Vin Diesel in a kitten T-shirt?

That would make the internet go bananas. That is a million dollar idea. You're welcome, Vin Diesel.

Click the blue button above to listen to the full interview.