Fashion. The moment you say this word there is a tendency to think of a particular gender. Fashion and clothes have extremely strong feminine connotations. According to society, these are topics that only interest women and comes under “girl talk”. Yet somehow the fashion industry is still dominated predominantly by men.
According to a study called “The Glass Runway” by Glamour, Council of Fashion Designers of America, and the consulting firm McKinsey & Company; women spend three times the amount men spend on clothes and are the main contributors to the industry. However, less than 50 percent of women’s brands are designed by women and only about 14 percent of them have a female executive in charge. Thus, even an industry that focuses its target audience towards women is dictated by men.
Impact of the Gender Bias on Clothes
What is the impact of men deciding what women wear? Patriarchy and stereotypes. Having a larger number of male fashion designers leads to a number of problematic experiences.
For starters, the lack of pockets in women’s clothing. In medieval times, before the introduction of pockets in clothes, people would carry small little bags with them to carry all their belongings. However, when the concept of pockets came up, they were introduced only in men’s clothing. Women’s clothes didn’t have pockets as adding pockets would make the clothes loose and ruin the tight-fitting shape of the clothes. There was more emphasis put on ensuring clothes give women a slimming appearance than better durability. Further, the idea that women don’t need pockets because they have men to carry their essentials for them only reinforced the gender dynamics and patriarchy.
Women are constantly under scrutiny for what they wear and often, their personality is judged by their clothing. They are encouraged to wear well fitting, slimming, and tight clothes instead of baggy more comfortable ones. There is so much pressure on women to “look good” and conform to society’s beauty standards and the idea of an ideal body type, that women clothes are designed such that they automatically fall prey to these stereotypes.
The choice to dress otherwise and not conform to these beauty standards is limited and often taken away from women. Moreover, the few clothing articles that do provide women with this choice are given gender biased or gender role affirming names such as “boyfriend jeans” or “mom jeans”. People who choose to wear clothes like these are often given tags like “unflattering”, “tomboy” and “boyish”.
However, this gender stereotyping of clothes doesn’t just end at pockets or the fit, but also goes on to colours and prints. Blue is for boys and pink is for girls. Light and pale yellow are neutral colours. Floral patterns are for girls. Solid colours for boys. These are all stereotypes that exist in our everyday clothing and have been established ever since we were babies.
When a baby is born, if it’s a boy you given them blue gifts and if it’s a girl you give them pink gifts. And if you don’t know the sex of the child? Yellow, white, and red are apparently “gender neutral colours”. The problem with this typification is that this led to the construct that boys aren’t allowed to like pink, and if they do they’re “girly” and girls aren’t allowed to like blue because that’s a “boy’s colour”. Therefore, our society has somehow managed to segregate even colours into a gender binary.
The Impact on Women
Evidently clothes play a major role in shaping as well as strengthening gender stereotypes. But how does this affect the daily life of a woman?
Well for starters, the constant pressure to live up to a particular standard of dressing. Women’s fashion is constantly changing with a new trend coming into fashion every season. There is an unsaid pressure on women to constantly keep up with the changing fashion trends and to always “look good”. This adds a lot of needless stress onto a woman and has the potential to take a toll on her socially, mentally as well as economically.
Another disadvantage of the gender gap in the fashion industry is the impracticality of women’s clothing. From tiny pockets to high heels and well-fitting clothes, comfort takes a backseat in women’s lives. Since men dominate the industry, they design clothes that seem appealing to the male gaze, not caring about the practicality or the ill effects of these clothes and accessories on the women who actually have to wear them and suffer.
Reducing the Gap
It’s the 21st century and equality within something as basic as clothing is the need of the hour. More representation of people from across the gender spectrum in the form of models showcasing the clothes and as executives and heads of fashion companies would help move beyond the gender stereotypes of clothing.
Equal representation, removal of the wage gap and cooperating with an individual’s need to maintain a balance between their work and home would encourage the industry to not be dominated by a single sex and help break the chains of gender stereotyped clothing. Women will have pockets, men can wear pink or floral shirts without being called effeminate and most importantly, the power of having a choice and being allowed to choose what one would like to wear and represent themselves as is returned to the individual.
