Socks!

Last week I was feeling a bit bored - so naturally I decided to go shopping. But I was not shopping for just anything, I was shopping for something very specific: Socks. Baby socks to be precise. I envisioned that I would walk into our local Ross and pick up a package of white baby crew socks, you know, just like the ones I buy myself. Alas, I was tragically wrong. Ross does not carry white baby crew socks. What they do carry are two options. You guessed it - blue socks and pink socks.

Now, I am no stranger to the world of gendered clothing, especially when it comes to babies. Everybody knows that the gender lines are drawn very clearly in the sand when it comes to babies. Pink and purple for girls. Blue for boys. It is no secret that I don't agree with this philosophy - all of the baby clothing that I have purchased thus far is yellow and green, the universally accepted gender neutral colors. I have also bought a few things that are brown, and orange, or even cream, but I have bought nothing pink or blue. I don't know if my baby will be a boy or a girl, but I don't really care. I just want a healthy baby. I also believe that just because a child is born anatomically one or the other has no real indication of how they will identify as adults. Hence, I hesitate to place them in a strict gender box by only dressing them in according to gender norms. This is a concept that many find annoying, or do not agree with. The other day somebody asked me if I was going to wait until after the baby was born to have a shower, because it would be rude to expect people to buy gender neutral clothing. Rude? I don't know about that.

So back to the socks. It wasn't so much the fact that they had blue and pink to choose from, it was the fact there was no third option. No white, no yellow, nothing. Just pink and blue. I could have handled this like a mature adult, but then I made the mistake of looking more closely at the socks and reading what was written on them.

The pink socks had pretty white lettering that said "Pretty Baby." The blue socks had bold typeface that said "Little Explorer." At this point, I thought my head was going to explode. I mean really, are we so concerned about gender identity that we have to gender our babies entire bodies, including thier feet? I mean they are feet. The Pretty baby vs. Little explorer theme is basically repeated throughout all baby clothing. Girls are princesses, ballerinas, divas, beautiful, pretty, and sweet. Boys are rough, active, athletes, and little men. Girls get kitties, flowers, and butterflies. Boys get trucks, fire engines, baseball bats, and lions. While this bothers me tremendously, I found it somewhat more bothersome when they put it on a pair of socks. It is as though we can pass up no opportunity to force our children into the "box" of gender roles.

So, I left Ross, and continued shopping until I found one place in town that sold little white baby crew socks. I refuse to limit my childs possibilities in life by telling them they must conform to some ridiculous standard of gender identity. If my little girl wants to be an explorer then I will take her to hike the Inca Trail. If my little boy wants to be a princess, I will buy him a tutu. And as for gendering their feet, not a chance in hell. My baby can wear white socks, just like all the adults in the world I know.