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  • ABCs and Ph.D.s: Frills, lace, and dressing for success

    By Liz Stockwell November 12, 2008 5:01 am

    I know that my mother and mother-in-law laugh at me behind my back. After all, I’ve taken some pretty ridiculous stands in the name of feminism since my daughter was born. To my mother-in-law I implored: “Please. No pink or frills or lace. I know she’s your first granddaughter, but I want to go easy on the girly-girl stuff.” Ha! Somewhere around age two my daughter mysteriously gravitated toward ruffles, lace, and sparkles, despite my best efforts to steer her toward practical, sporty, gender-neutral clothing. Ever frugal, I was frustrated by her refusal to wear her brother’s hand-me-downs, but they just couldn’t compete with the clothes generously passed on to us by friends with older girls. My daughter loved sorting through the stuff we received, and before I could filter out the tutus and pink tights, they became part of her wardrobe. So much for gender-neutral. Thanks to our generous friends, my daughter had plenty of previously loved clothes to choose from during the summer. To meet her discriminating approval, dresses and shirts had to have spaghetti straps and lace, and bottoms had to be pink, purple, or flowered. We got through the warm weather with few problems—so what if the paisley-swirled tank-top clashed with the pink polka-dot capris.

    However, as the cold weather approached, I started to worry. My daughter’s first day of pre-school was cold and rainy, but she insisted on a perky sundress and refused a sweater because it covered the lacy spaghetti straps. A winter wardrobe of turtlenecks and sweaters simply did not fit my daughter’s sense of style. Then one day my daughter rediscovered a shiny, blue velvet dress she had ignored last winter. With a gauzy rose on the chest and long fuzzy sleeves, this garment has become the new favorite, and she wears it two or three days in a row, sometimes sleeping in it. As long as it’s not obviously soiled, I’m just happy she’s wearing something relatively warm. One day we were an hour late for pre-school because the blue dress was wet in the washer; we eventually found something else to wear, but it required lots of cajoling, cuddles, and gentle persuasion. Was my daughter’s insistence over the blue dress a stand-in for some other anxiety? Perhaps, but once we got through the impasse over clothing and found another acceptable outfit (all purple, with sparkles), my chipper little girl sang all the way to school.

    I think I know how my daughter feels. My own clothing is sometimes important to me too. When I was teaching, I always worried about looking too young, and days before the first class I would rehearse my outfit so as to make the exact first impression—authoritative, yet comfortable and a little stylish (but definitely no pink, lace, frills, or flounces). My husband, on the other hand, shows up for his first lectures of the semester wearing jeans and a T-shirt from some conference he’s recently attended. How come he doesn’t have to worry about first impressions? I envy his confidence to just be himself without worrying about what his students think. Certainly it was the content of my classes and my ability to be an effective instructor that mattered, not something as trivial as how I was dressed. But wearing particular clothes gave me that extra boost of confidence going into the classroom. From high school to graduate school, I had only two female instructors in science courses, and somehow I developed the idea that women faculty had to be conservative in their clothing choices. However, some of the women I most admire in science aren’t afraid to flaunt their own senses of style and dress in stereotypically very feminine clothing. One such highly successful scientist wears beautiful flowing clothes, often pink, and even accessorizes with scarves she can use to illustrate points in her lectures. Far from being judgmental about the clothing other women choose to wear, I sometimes wish I could free myself from the “Dress for Success” mould.

    My daughter’s not quite four years old, and I celebrate the determination and strong sense of preferences she’s already developed. She has far more flair for fashion than I do, and I love seeing some of the combinations she creates. I’m sure we’ve experienced just the first of many disagreements we’ll have over clothing, and lacy frills seem pretty innocuous. In fact, I’ve come around in my thinking—a few weeks ago I went to the fabric store to buy, of all things, yards and yards of different kinds of ruffles, lace and sequin trims to sew on the “boring” clothes. Anything to increase my daughter’s clothing options and make the winter shirts and pants “prettier.” If it has to be practical, it might as well be frilly too. And if she ever stands in front of a lecture hall filled with students, I hope my daughter has the confidence to wear her pink lace and frills with pride, if that’s what she’s still into.

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Comments on ABCs and Ph.D.s: Frills, lace, and dressing for success

  • It is not just the girls
  • Posted by Jean on November 12, 2008 at 8:50am EST

  • I thought that this was a developmental stage. I have two boys, and they have both gone through this sort of thing. Right around three it starts. Suddenly it occurs to them that they can dress themselves and make choices and from there until around five, it was all over. My first son wore superman and batman pajama sets almost every day for two years, and trying to talk him out of it was like pulling teeth. It created great trauma and endless weeping. My mother advised me to try and support his choices, reminding me that for some odd reason I was fixated on green pants at the same age. I was worried about him growing up measuring himself against these hyper-masculine characters. I tried to limit his exposure to them, but the obsession continued. Oddly, over the last summer a transformation occurred. Now, although he is pretty insistent on what he wants to wear, he almost never wears superman or batman gear unless he is specifically “dressing up” to play. The younger one is markedly less obsessed but has certain favorites.

  • Posted by Stephanie on November 12, 2008 at 9:25am EST

  • I think fashion sense skips generations due to the rebellion thing--my mother is a tailored sort, I am definitely given toward the more than occasional tasteful frill. Tenure (and a lack of administration ambition) have done wonders for me in that respect--I wear what I please now even if I might look perhaps a bit too feminine at times (dropped lace collars are my particular vice)because that's who I am. That may be where the flowing-clothed scientist gets her authority as well.

  • This too, will pass
  • Posted by Joanna on November 13, 2008 at 9:40am EST

  • My daughter, who is now 14, went through a very similar phase at the same age. She came home from preschool and announced that girls wear dresses (according to one of the other girls) and from now on she would only wear dresses. Despite my assurance that girls (including me) wore pants too, she was adamant (peers trumped mom). Because we live in Minnesota, I had similar worries about the weather, but she survived with layers. Then at age five: pants only! because crawling on the playground in a dress was too hard.
    Over the years, the only clothing rules I've enforced have been:weather appropriate gear must be worn when there is a health hazard and no offensive slogans on T-shirts. Pierced ears, OK, but no other permanent body modifications until she is 18.

  • Posted by Robin on November 13, 2008 at 8:00pm EST

  • Worry not. My son wore a coat and tie each day between the ages of three and six and introduced himself to everyone as Tom Brokaw. He watched TB each night intently and studied and adopted his every move. Later it was George Washington and Orville Wright, etc., etc. Now he's a 24 year-old incredibly smart and successful professional. My daughter, who wore only pink and purple for several years (including pink snow boots through an entire Southern summer), is a brilliant feminist and an honor student at a prestigious university, about to graduate and go to law school. Respecting their choices as youngsters was the right thing to do, even though (I confess) I cringed when the other mothers smirked at their ensembles.

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