the-activista:

This is a report I wrote for my Gender in Society Class for our G.O.P.E. project. I worked with my classmates and friends Mollie Garber, Michael Cash Nelson, and Nathaniel Turner on the research.

Location & Background

When on the hunt for gendered shoes, it seemed easy enough for our group to traverse Payless Shoe Source in Tenleytown. The store, a chain with a plethora of locations across the U.S., serves to give its customers cheap access to shoes built for play, work, specialty occasions, and weather-specific conditions. In other words, Payless Shoe Source wants to be every family’s one-stop-shop for shoe wear. The store has a low- and middle-class consumer base.

We limited our research to shoes for newborns and very young infants, because the section of youth shoes was too expansive to conduct research on a wider age group. What we discovered, however, was that even at the youngest of ages, children have no choice but to participate in the rituals of gendered interaction and biologically-based gender expression.

Male Children

When observing shoes built for male children, it was easy to observe that products were made of quality materials and built for specific functions. Boys are given the ability to purchase shoes that mimic adult style and function: sandals, hiking boots, loafers, sneakers, and even career-specific shoes (like imitation firefighting boots) were packed away in the aisles. Boys’ shoes are sturdy, composed of long-lasting manmade materials, and equipped with respectable soles and protection for the feet. Boys’ shoes are often produced in cold or dark colors, and sometimes feature masculine figures- action heroes and pop culture icons were spotted on pairs of sneakers.

Female Children

Options for female children, however, are much more limited. Shoe options for girls limit their choice of activity. Girls’ shoes are most often made with very “cheap” designs and materials; most of the shoes we observed were flimsy and seemed to be pure decoration. It was surprising to find that most shoes outside of girls’ sneakers were actually deprived of a sole, and were therefore built like slippers. This means boots, sandals, and flats all share a common thread: lack of functionality. In essence, girls’ shoes reduce female children to the role of human dolls.

Girls, it appears, do not need to do much- except perhaps wear incredibly feminized and elaborate shoes in order to appear “attractive.” A less surprising finding supports this: that the shoes available to female children are often adorned with fabric flowers, Disney princesses, and fabrics in the colors of pink, white, and similar “soft” and generally feminine colors. Girls’ shoes also appear young- whereas boys’ shoes mimic adult styles, girls are limited to shoes that illustrate their immaturity through kitschy and cutesy designs and a lack of practicality.

Summary of Findings: Analysis

Readings for our class focusing on internalized thoughts about gender, such as “Being A Girl and Being A Boy” and “’Spice Girls,’ ‘Nice Girls,’ ‘Girlies,” and ‘Tomboys,’” are exemplified through children’s shoes. Before girls and boys have even decided on their ambitions or identity, they have already been feminized, professionalized, and inexplicitly told of the overarching theme within those readings: whereas girls see physicality and childlike naiveté as integral parts of their identity, boys discover early on that ambition, respect from others, and the ability to objectify girls is similarly integrated into their ethos. Children’s shoes, therefore, serve an indirect purpose of constraining emotions and character traits to a physical binary, assigning early on to children the roles of “submissive woman” and “ambitious, able man.”

6:48 am  •  21 October 2009

gender