Monday, December 11, 2006

Unisex baby hell

This is how bad it is. As I was shopping for friends' baby shower this weekend, I mentally applauded them for refusing to know in advance the sex of their baby, especially when I discovered how unbelievably difficult it is to find unisex baby clothes. No matter how many times you tell the relatives you prefer unisex, I thought, they're going to get stereotypically gendered stuff out of desperation because there's nothing else here.

It turns out it's worse than that. These same friends had a similarly-situated expectant friend or relative. Her family decided on their own that it would be a boy, and bought it blue boys' clothes anyway. Hmm... but I'm not sure what it proves that when the baby turned out to be a girl, they decided that the boys' clothes couldn't be used and now they're packed away, waiting for someone else in the family to have a boy. If you decide that your "unisex" girl baby "can't" wear "boys' blue"...?

I ended up going empty-handed to the shower because I hated the only unisex I could find and I wanted to take the time to shop better. Today it's looking like the entire mission is a fool's errand. Witness:
Amazon.com >
Apparel & Accessories >
Kids & Baby >
Infant & Toddler >
* Girls
* Boys
* Shoes
Girls, boys, shoes? Surely....
Search >
Infant & Toddler >
"Unisex" >
* "Gerber" Onesie with Matching Cap and Booties (Unisex)
Choose a color:
* Pink
* Blue
I give up. I guess the only way to avoid "gendering" a baby is to let it go naked.

Oh, wait. Hmm. Dammit.


Update: I'm not alone! Rigid lines between boys' things and girls' things removes options

1 comment:

Eszter said...

I haven't tried to do this online so I haven't had these frustrating experiences in this sense. Walking into stores, sometimes the exact same thing happens though. You have a girls' section and a boys' section. And the items are very gendered, if not in color then in style. I try to look for clothes that are green or yellow and ones that don't have gendered decorations (construction tool kit, etc.), but these are not easy to find.