‘I am Lenni’: Boys,sexualisation,and the dangerous colour pink

Fashion and sexuality

In 1990, the American philosopher Judith Butler established the idea of gender as performative in her now classic book Gender Trouble:

As much as drag creates a unified picture of ‘woman’ … it also reveals the distinctness of those aspects of gendered experience which are falsely naturalized as a unity through the regulatory fiction of heterosexual coherence. In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself – as well as its contingency. (Butler, 1990: 187)

Even though we may be accustomed to think that the child’s gendered body is just a concrete fact, Butler claims that this is not the case. The gendered body is no less phantasmatic as, say, desire. This clearly comes across from Lenni’s case. The colour pink and the dress are materialised phantasies about a child’s gendered and sexualised embodiment. Embodied gender is a relation between corporeality and the imagined body, which in Lenni’s case did not match in some people’s minds.

Lenni’s mother’s open post on Facebook shows that the gendered body is considered as a fact and not as a phantasm. There are limits to how a child’s body can be fashioned and dressed. Fashion is a central factor that defines and embodies the real and the phantasmatic status of humans in relation to gender, and the post suggests that this especially applies to small children. It is paradoxical that children, whose ‘true nature’ is to play, and whose identities are still thought to be in a state of formation, are subjected to rigid gender norms which adults are not expected to abide by. Children are, just like Lenni, expected to dress according to the prevailing gender norms that connote gendered childhood: ‘girlhood’ or ‘boyhood’. In this way children’s clothes are part of a broader fashion culture that formulates and normalises meanings related to gender.

The communicative nature of fashion is no new invention – it has been observed by the majority of writers and theorists addressing fashion and clothing since the early stages of industrialization and mass production in the 19th and 20th centuries (See e.g. Barnard, 1996; Crane, 2000; Entwistle, 2000). When fashion is understood as communication, researchers look at the processes by which various meanings, including class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity, are constructed by clothing and other forms of bodily decoration (Vänskä, 2017).

Perhaps the best-known analysis of fashion as communication has come from the French cultural scholar Roland Barthes. His book The Fashion System (1990 [1967]) has inspired a research tradition in which clothes are read as symbolic texts and representations that generate meanings. Barthes proves, among other things, that although clothes may have a functional raison d’être (i.e. protecting the body from the cold), this is by no means their only purpose, nor – in the case of fashion – even a relevant one. Instead, they construct other meanings – and in this particular case, those of gender and sexuality. Clothes draw attention to gender so that one can understand, usually at first glance, whether the wearer of clothes is a boy or a girl. Gendering through clothing starts early: babies, whose gender is often not that clear, are dressed in gender-specific colours and materials. Lenni’s case suggests that a four-year-old child is already completely wrapped in the conventional codes of gendered clothing so that any deviation from this code creates strong, emotionally charged reactions.

Even though fashion can be considered to be a site of play and imagination, Lenni’s mother’s open post attests the contrary. Fashion is composed of rules, rituals and strict codes. And yet, the ensuing social media campaign in support of Lenni’s clothing choices also demonstrates that fashion is not only defined by norm regulations and stereotypes but is also a cultural sphere in which there is at least some room for play and individual choice. This makes fashion a site of ambivalence. Even if a pink dress in contemporary culture constructs the wearer as a girl, there is no reason to assume that it could not also indicate otherwise. The contradictory voices over pink and dress reveal that gender and sexuality are among the most regulated and contested aspects of fashion and clothing when it comes to children. Clothing indeed makes gender and sexuality, it does not only reflect it.

This line of thinking has its roots in 20th-century sexology, especially in Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s (1965 [1886]) and Havelock Ellis’ (1900 [1895]) popularised work. Both of them spread the idea that a person’s sexual identity is not only an inner quality but can be discerned from appearance and from clothing particularly. Thus, both men stated that if a woman dresses in elegant, masculine tailored suits and tuxedos, it is evidence of her homosexuality, of her ‘inner pathology’, that is, of her lesbian identity (Geczy and Karaminas, 2013: 24–32). ³ The reverse also applied: if a man cross-dressed, it was considered to be a sign of his homosexuality (Geczy and Karaminas, 2013: 72–82). ⁴

Consequently, this tradition has successfully been utilised in contemporary theories of gender and sexuality, especially in queer theory, and as proof of gender performativity (Butler, 1990; Geczy and Karaminas 2013; Halberstam, 1998). Despite these theoretical efforts, Lenni’s mockers’ way of ridiculing the boy as ‘homo’ and ‘drag queen’ also suggest that cross-dressing is still considered to signify a person’s essential and undesirable non-heterosexuality. As Shaun Cole (2000) writes, being openly gay has long meant a threat of public exposure, ridicule, (verbal) abuse and even the threat of violence. It has also meant remaining invisible. Invisibility was even advocated by the first gay rights organizations such as the Mattachine Society (1951) for gay men and the Daughters of Bilitis (1955) for lesbians. Both advised their members to adhere to normative gender roles and dress codes. Lesbians were advised to wear skirts and blouses, and to discard signs of masculinity and the established style of the mannish lesbian. Gay men were urged to abandon femininity, to stick to restrained colours and to dress according to the conventions of male fashion: dark suits, simple shirts, tie and sports jackets. The fear of exposure was reflected in lists of ‘don’ts’ for gay men:

Don’t masquerade … in women’s clothes … don’t be too meticulous in the matter of your own clothes, or affect any extremes in color or cut; don’t wear conspicuous rings, watches, cuff-links, or other jewelry; don’t allow your voice or intonation to display feminine inflection – cultivate a masculine tone and method of expression. (Cole, 2000)

Skirts and dresses – on the history of masculine attire

There have not always been such big differences between girls’ and boys’ clothing as there are today. Gendered clothing for children started to appear in the late 19th century, or, as Jo Paoletti (2012: 24) remarks, parents started dressing their children in more gendered ways between 1890 and 1910. For a long time, children were not seen as individual dressers and small children’s wear followed the centuries-long tradition which had manifested in similar types of tunics, robes and skirted garments regardless of gender.

It may thus seem to the contemporary eye that little boys who were attired in skirts or dresses were dressed ‘like girls’. However, this was not how contemporaries saw it: skirted boys and girls were dressed like this in separation from adults. They were dressed age-appropriately. Clothing that we now consider thoroughly feminine represented infants’ dependency on adults (Paoletti, 2012; see also Tortora and Marcketti, 2015 [1989]).

Clothing started changing gradually according to gender. First, women’s and men’s clothing began to differ through the appearance of factory-made garments. Second, decorativeness and colour became codes linked to femininity after the ‘great masculine renunciation’ at the end of the 18th century when menswear ceased to use brilliant, ornamented and refined forms as well as bright colours (Bourke, 1996: 23–33). Middle-class men started to dress more simply and the colours they wore became darker in line with working in modern factories. The code for men became simplicity and inconspicuousness. It was no longer acceptable for men to show off their personal tastes by wearing lavish clothing (Vänskä, forthcoming). ⁵ The changes, furthered by social and technological advances, meant that gender became a differentiating factor alongside class. The segregation of women’s and men’s styles and especially the appearance of the functional dark suit for men have also been linked to the birth of democracy and the modern worker.

The more rationally oriented dress code for middle-class men communicated characteristics linked to masculinity: reason, control and social activity, whereas the more decorative styles intended for middle-class women reflected their duty as the expression of their husbands’ wealth. Men’s dress codes became highly regulated: they were – and still are – allowed to express their individuality only through details of dress. Men’s actual wardrobe must consist of trousers, shirts, jackets, waistcoats and flat shoes – or, alternatively, of jeans and various shirts. Contemporary understanding of gender-specific garments is thus rather recent. In fact, masculine dress was understood very differently before the 18th century. For example, high-heeled shoes were part of aristocratic men’s wardrobe up until the late 18th century, and symbolised their social status: the higher the heels, the higher the social rank of the person (Steele and Hill, 2013). Likewise, skirts used to be an integral part of men’s wardrobe. In Roman times, for example, all men from slaves to the emperor wore tunics, the style of which reflected their social status. The ‘skirt’, therefore signified masculinity. All free men were permitted to wear the toga, a garment that was denied to women. Slaves and foreigners were also forbidden to wear the toga so that they would not be mistaken for Roman citizens (Bolton, 2003).

The masculine history of clothing has framed the discourse around men’s clothing in terms of freedom and agency. This largely applies to boys and their clothing. Boys are seen to be able to produce speech acts with their clothing choices unlike girls who are defined through a more limited and commodified vision of gender and sexuality, and a more limited possibility of exercising free speech or choice (see, for example, Attwood, 2006: 77–94; Brundson, 2000; Gill, 2003: 100–106; Walkerdine et.al., 2001). Still, as Lenni’s case suggests, clothing and certain colours also produce anxieties that are projected onto boys’ bodies. A moral panic around a boy wearing pink is indiscriminately social but it also suggests that little boys’ bodies are increasingly considered as sexually vulnerable. The Facebook post leads us to believe that garments such as skirts and colours such as pink diverge from conventional social norms of gender. It also suggests that garments and colours have the power to sexualise the little boy’s body and to open it up for (spiteful) commentary. But if the history of fashion proves otherwise, what does the history of the colour pink say?

Pink: Formerly known as the masculine colour

The current conception of the associations of the colours pink and blue with childhood innocence and children’s gender difference is also a new invention. Up until the First World War in Europe and in the USA boys were dressed in pink, while the colour for girls was blue (Ambjörnson, 2011; Paoletti, 2012; Tortora and Marcketti, 2015). Both colours also have an interesting history. While pink was still valued in the late Middle Ages, its popularity and appreciation decreased to a new low in the 1800s. Pink was defined as the most artificial of all the colours, as a simple blend achieved by mixing white into the noblest of colours (red). Pink was thought to stand for everything that was vulgar, artificial and off-putting (Pastoureau, 2004).

Despite this downright loathing of the colour, pink and light blue were seen as children’s colours. This was because pink, like red, was connected to strength and decisiveness, while blue had been linked to girls since the Middle Ages because it referenced the Virgin Mary (Garber, 1997: 1; Koller, 2008: 403; Pastoureau, 2004: 26–28). This history was turned on its head after the Second World War, when the connotations of pink changed to the complete opposite – girlish sensitivity, grace and homosexuality, caused by the Nazis branding homosexuals with a pink triangle in concentration camps. ⁶ Blue was considered the truly boyish colour, partly because it was a popular choice in military uniforms. The transformation of pink into a girly colour partly connects to the idea of ‘weakening’: while red has traditionally been associated with fiery passion, love, eroticism, pornography and active sexuality, blending it with white was considered to ‘weaken’ it. But it was also thought that when white lightened red, it also wiped out all the interpretations related to sex, passion, sensuality and the body. This made pink especially suitable for boys who were only in the process of becoming men. However, as pink started to be seen as the ‘weak colour’, it was disconnected from the masculine and strong colour red, and ultimately from boys. Because of these signs of weakness, blendedness and artifice, pink gradually became the symbol for girlishness and homosexuality – a type of sexuality considered vulgar and perverted (Pastoureau, 2004). This troubled history of pink and its associations with vulgarity and perversion are clearly at stake in the ways in which Lenni and his mother encountered hateful speech. Simultaneously, the counter-reactions also suggest that these meanings are not fixed but in a constant state of flux.

Heteronormative childhood

Lenni’s mother’s letter and the social media activist campaign demonstrate how gendered and sexualised childhood is constructed through clothes and colours. It highlights the ways in which conventional gender differences are reinforced and how little room there is for doing gender differently. If a boy wears a pink dress, grown-ups will worry and start to ask whether there is something wrong, either with the boy or with his parents. Some people will tend to assume, as they did in Lenni’s case, that a boy who likes pink and wears a dress either aspires to be a girl or is a homosexual. This mental correlation demonstrates that gender variant children or homosexual children have no established visual and sartorial history of their own – however, this is also beginning to change as gender variant and non-heterosexual characters are increasingly seen in popular media targeting children (see e.g. Ward, 2012).

‘A boy in a pink dress’ thus speaks volumes about how clothing and colour normalise the idea of children’s heterosexuality. They function as tools for upholding the heteronormative gender system, which understands heterosexuality as such an institutionalised and normalised fact that it starts to look like asexuality and as the only acceptable model of behaviour (Schilt and Westbrook, 2009: 440–464; Warner, 1991). In other words, the concept of heteronormativity draws attention to the ways in which gender and sexual hierarchies are created and established, and how this process materialises in clothing and colours. The loathing of a pink dress on a boy indicates that heterosexuality in a boy is given priority, while other forms of gender and sexuality are marginalised (Bond Stockton, 2009).

The post on Facebook and the social media event that ensued from it indicate that clothes and colours are far from being neutral in meanings related to gender and sexuality. Instead, they have the task of adapting a person to his or her social environment and gendered norms of being. Seen in this way, it has never been a question of just clothes or colours. Children’s clothes and colours are important objects that reveal how a child should supposedly be approached, spoken to and treated, and how children are expected to interact with one other. We will speak more softly to a child recognised as a girl based on clothing and its colour, and more sternly to a child we assume to be a boy. In these, mostly subconscious behavioural patterns and norms, girls are taught sensitivity and boys’ assertiveness (Leaper, 2014). Ultimately the dichotomy produces the internalised idea that boys and girls are different and opposites – a natural fact that is written all over their clothing.

In fact, what Lenni’s case underlines is how clothing and colour fetishise gender difference. When certain kinds of clothes are bought for a child, the act involves the thought of a predetermined gender and sexuality. Clothes are thus not only linked to their functionality, but are also connected to proper childhood through diverse chains of metaphors and associations. Children’s clothing and colour carry the burden of heteronormativity. In order for a pink dress to maintain its place and status as the primary definer of heterosexual girlhood, it needs an opposite: the heterosexual boy and his wardrobe. And these categories are differentiated from gender variant and homosexual childhood.

The idea of the homosexual child brings up the efforts to trivialise and pathologise all non-normative forms of childhood, be they related to gender or to sexuality. While heterosexual girls and boys simply appear in the world (Bond Stockton, 2009) and start dressing in pink and blue respectively, non-heterosexual children only come about through deliberate action. Giving birth to a homosexual child requires political will, conscious choices and theoretical midwifery. Non-straightness and gender variance is still viewed by our culture as something that should not appear in childhood, but only when the grown-up person comes out of the closet by telling others about his or her gender variance or sexual orientation (Seidman, 2003). The logic behind the coming-out theory is the idea that while helping the individual in question, it also helps the surrounding community to become more accepting of gender variant identity and homosexuality (Jagose, 1998). In other words, the supposition is that gender variant identity or gayness are not just private matters that belong behind closed doors and only concern the person’s nearest and dearest, but a life-changing and possibly emancipatory identity for the whole community.

By the time someone comes out, however, he or she is usually so far from childhood that the ‘(parental) plans for one’s straight destination’ have been extinguished a long time ago, as the American gender theorist Kathryn Bond Stockton (2004) puts it when writing about queer childhoods. She finds it ironic that whereas a heterosexual child – and here it could be added cisgendered ⁷ child – is a gift of life, while a homosexual – or a gender variant child is a ‘tombstone of heterosexuality’. By this, Bond Stockton means that the arrival of a gender variant or a gay child means the metaphorical death of the heterosexual child, because the coming-out process traditionally also involves the a posteriori construction of a non-heterosexual childhood. By building an imaginary story, the person can find a logical – that is, natural – explanation for the feelings of being the odd one out and the outsider in childhood. The coming-out process incorporates the construction of a narrative that demonstrates that the person never had a heterosexual childhood at all.

In other words, children that do not conform to heterosexuality or to the conventions of gendered expressions do exist, but mostly as retrospective and imaginary constructs. This is noteworthy: after all, we tend to assume that we live in a society where different expressions of gender and sexuality are permitted and where gender variance and non-heterosexuality is guaranteed the same rights as cisgendered and straight people. This openness is limited to adulthood, however, and does not apply to children, as Lenni’s case so vividly testifies. Children are under particular scrutiny when it comes to gender and their sexuality is under guard although they are simultaneously defined as innocent. The hateful remarks Lenni and his mother had to endure indicates how this works: through attempts to write off any characteristics that may indicate gender variance or non-heterosexuality appearing in childhood – femininity in a boy or overt masculinity in a girl.

Girls and boys who break the norms of femininity for females and masculinity for males are usually accepted as long as it looks like a temporary experimentation phase. However, a feisty tomboy is much more acceptable than a girlish boy. The reason may lie in gender hierarchy: whereas a girl’s boyishness is seen as an attempt to rise above the hierarchy, a boy’s girlishness is the opposite. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that a boyish girl will come up against opposition if she goes too far in her tomboyishness. Still, matters are worse for boys: there is not even a term for girly boys, and not many descriptions of girlish boys in literature. One exception is My Princess Boy (Kilodavis, 2011). Like Lenni, it is also a story about a little boy who loves pink princess clothes. The book has been well received in the media, but it has also sparked opposition. In both cases, remarks about feminine boys being ‘perverted’ and their parents being ‘clueless’ send a message that parents should refrain from offering non-conforming gender arrangements to their children because the dichotomous arrangement is the norm. In this sense the concern about Lenni’s appearance was not only about a boy dressed in a nonconforming outfit. It was also about the worry of losing heterosexual privilege. The verbal assaults against Lenni’s appearance must therefore be understood first and foremost in the context of heterosexual privilege. His embodied identity expressed and signified a position that threatened this privilege.

Final remarks: Dress and hegemonic masculinity

Heterosexual privilege defines a boy who identifies with femininity as someone who relinquishes his ‘natural’ power, and therefore dismisses him as weak and non-masculine. Alongside heterosexual privilege, another concept that explains the strict categorical boundaries of boyhood is hegemonic masculinity (Carrigan et al., 1985). Hegemonic masculinity is based on the superiority of boys and men over girls and women. In this scenario, the ideal boy is aggressive, assertive, self-confident and, most essentially, heterosexual. Boys and men are tempted, sometimes forced to take on, the ideals of hegemonic masculinity. The most prominent element of hegemonic masculinity is power, which can be political, economic, social or physical. With this power, a man can control either the society or his own surroundings. Furthermore, a man must prove his manhood; in other words, masculinity is an ideal that must be pursued (Jokinen, 2000). Additionally, hegemonic masculinity is only open to heterosexual men; others are branded as deviant, sick or feminine, in other words, non-masculine.

All this means that masculinity is first and foremost a representation. It consists of socially constructed norms that dictate what a boy should be like, how he should behave and feel, and, especially, how he should dress. His wardrobe should thus feature garments and colours that signify hegemonic masculinity instead of femininity and homosexuality. Assumedly these garments are non-skirts and monochrome clothes that command authority and power. Traditionally, these garments encompass suits, ties, jackets, shirts, t-shirts and jeans (Barry, 2015: 151).

Lenni’s case indicates that not only men but also little boys are expected to express hegemonic masculine ideals through their clothing in order to protect the boundaries of their gendered identities and prevent these from being questioned. The attention to how boys dress is therefore not specific to fashion but reflects the omnipresent force of narrow gender codes.

It is also evident that Lenni’s case reveals a world that is still sharply divided into two gender categories. At the same time, it is this normativity that has offered Lenni and other men posting images of themselves in pink dresses, the opportunity to question these classifications and boundaries. I urge scholars to further investigate the relationship between boyhood, sexuality and fashion. Scholars should explore in more depth how boys engage with masculinity, how the ideal of hegemonic masculinity influences boys, and how their sartorial choices may challenge it. Researchers could also analyse the relationship between gender and fashion with non-western boys. While it has been shown that globalisation has spread hegemonic masculinity to non-western countries (Connell and Wood, 2005; Kimmel, 2003), a focus on fashion and how it mediates masculinities would provide much-needed new knowledge about the role of fashion in shaping boyhood on a global scale.