On my way back to Ithaca I stopped over in New York city to see my one year old niece, Talia (above). She's wearing a sweater that I picked up for her in San Jose. It has a stylized cat on it (in case you can't tell from the picture) and says 'Meow' (all you can see is the 'M').I've noticed an interesting trend in infant clothing-- boys' clothing features lots of dogs and girls' clothing features far fewer animals, only an occasional cat. I'm fascinated that as a society we not only go to great lengths to identify infants' gender from day one (and if a baby is somehow dressed in an ambiguous, gender-neutral outfit then people inevitably inquire as to its sex) but also have denoted certain animals as masculine or feminine.
I wonder how dogs got to be masculine and cats got to be feminine? Women are sometimes derogatorily referrred to as catty. Could that have something to do with it?
Some rap singers refer to themselves as big dogs in their songs. (Akon has a song titled 'Big Dog' and Cordazar Calvin Broadus goes by the name 'Snoop Dogg'). Some little boys' clothing even says 'Big Dog' on it, although I doubt they are specifically referencing any rap songs.
I think it's fascinating that even in a language where objects/nouns are not gendered, we manage to assign a gender to animals.
That said, I did manage to find one top for Ian featuring a jaguar (that's a _big_ cat, not a big dog) and an older girls' top with a Scottish terrier (albeit wearing a jeweled collar). You know me, I like to be subversive!
Interesting observation. I can say I have noticed that most boy clothes have dogs and girls have cats, but I do see a fair amount of animals on girl clothes, but maybe not as much as boys overall.
ReplyDelete