Page 134 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 134
šolsko polje, letnik xxxi, številka 5–6
and girls. When asked why certain individual girls are popular, one inter-
viewed girl responded: “Because, well, hmm, she just, hm, has bigger boobs,
and wears her trousers so tight, right, and her T-shirts with a very low neck-
line. While I don’t like wearing just any low neckline T-shirt that makes
everything pop out”. In defining this group of girls as popular, both boys
and girls seemed to construct masculinity and femininity as consistently
symmetric and in mutual opposition and complementarity, as corroborat-
ed by two British studies (Frosh et al., 2002; Gleeson & Frith, 2004). The
sexualisation of girls’ looks corresponds with the logic of intimate-partner
choices in boys, which is dictated by the norm of heterosexuality. In their
interviews with 12- to 16-year-old girls in the United Kingdom, Gleeson
and Frith (2004, pp. 104–111) reveal the characteristics of the sexualis-
ation of the clothing practices in girls. Some girls avoid pink colour be-
cause they construct it as the colour that represents a specific type of fem-
ininity – passive, innocent, immature and asexual. They see the rejection
of pink as a way of creating a distance from the traditional normative fem-
ininity; they choose to use black as the testing and identity negotiation
of alternative models of femininity. Their refusal of pink as a colour thus
shows ambiguity: on one hand, as the tendency to recognise their sexu-
al maturity and at the same time creating a distance from the tradition-
al norms of femininity. Certain pieces of clothing, such as corsets, short
skirts, high-heel shoes that also in wider society are constructed as sexu-
alised and believed to stereotypically mark a specific type of female sexu-
ality, are used by girls consciously and intentionally on certain occasions
while going out in the evening and associating with friends. The visibili-
ty of the body, in particular of certain body parts and the skin, has always
been the object of social control and regulation, while simultaneously ex-
posing the body and disclosing its specific parts are one of the dominant
norms of femininity. While social norms dictate that our bodies should
be decently covered, at the same time they, ambivalently, encourage teen-
age girls and young women in particular to disclose certain parts through
specific clothing styles. The respondents say that part of the pleasure re-
lated to sexualised clothing style stems from the wish to attract the heter-
osexual male gaze, while at the same time they were positive that they do
not do this consciously and on purpose. Instead, they naturalise this strat-
egy of sexualisation by saying: “I really like this style”, and thus seeming-
ly ignore the meaning that a particular style or piece of clothing has. They
also thus ignore the fact that style and clothes have meanings independ-
ent of those ascribed to them by the person who wears them. In this way,
girls evade the dominant cultural interpretations of their clothing style
and insist on the ambivalence and constant identity negotiations between
132
and girls. When asked why certain individual girls are popular, one inter-
viewed girl responded: “Because, well, hmm, she just, hm, has bigger boobs,
and wears her trousers so tight, right, and her T-shirts with a very low neck-
line. While I don’t like wearing just any low neckline T-shirt that makes
everything pop out”. In defining this group of girls as popular, both boys
and girls seemed to construct masculinity and femininity as consistently
symmetric and in mutual opposition and complementarity, as corroborat-
ed by two British studies (Frosh et al., 2002; Gleeson & Frith, 2004). The
sexualisation of girls’ looks corresponds with the logic of intimate-partner
choices in boys, which is dictated by the norm of heterosexuality. In their
interviews with 12- to 16-year-old girls in the United Kingdom, Gleeson
and Frith (2004, pp. 104–111) reveal the characteristics of the sexualis-
ation of the clothing practices in girls. Some girls avoid pink colour be-
cause they construct it as the colour that represents a specific type of fem-
ininity – passive, innocent, immature and asexual. They see the rejection
of pink as a way of creating a distance from the traditional normative fem-
ininity; they choose to use black as the testing and identity negotiation
of alternative models of femininity. Their refusal of pink as a colour thus
shows ambiguity: on one hand, as the tendency to recognise their sexu-
al maturity and at the same time creating a distance from the tradition-
al norms of femininity. Certain pieces of clothing, such as corsets, short
skirts, high-heel shoes that also in wider society are constructed as sexu-
alised and believed to stereotypically mark a specific type of female sexu-
ality, are used by girls consciously and intentionally on certain occasions
while going out in the evening and associating with friends. The visibili-
ty of the body, in particular of certain body parts and the skin, has always
been the object of social control and regulation, while simultaneously ex-
posing the body and disclosing its specific parts are one of the dominant
norms of femininity. While social norms dictate that our bodies should
be decently covered, at the same time they, ambivalently, encourage teen-
age girls and young women in particular to disclose certain parts through
specific clothing styles. The respondents say that part of the pleasure re-
lated to sexualised clothing style stems from the wish to attract the heter-
osexual male gaze, while at the same time they were positive that they do
not do this consciously and on purpose. Instead, they naturalise this strat-
egy of sexualisation by saying: “I really like this style”, and thus seeming-
ly ignore the meaning that a particular style or piece of clothing has. They
also thus ignore the fact that style and clothes have meanings independ-
ent of those ascribed to them by the person who wears them. In this way,
girls evade the dominant cultural interpretations of their clothing style
and insist on the ambivalence and constant identity negotiations between
132
