{"id":63697,"date":"2014-08-20T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=63697"},"modified":"2014-09-20T16:38:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-20T21:38:53","slug":"bathing-suit-fashion-and-the-project-of-gender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/08\/20\/bathing-suit-fashion-and-the-project-of-gender\/","title":{"rendered":"Bathing Suit Fashion and the Project of Gender"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came across this ad for bathing\u00a0suits<\/a> from the 1920s\u00a0and\u00a0was struck by how similar the men’s and women’s\u00a0suits were designed. \u00a0Hers might have some extra coverage up top and feature a tight skirt over shorts instead of just shorts but, compared to what you see on beaches today, they are essentially the same bathing suit.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, why are the designs for\u00a0men’s and women’s bathing suits\u00a0so different today? Honestly, either one could be gender-neutral. Male swimmers\u00a0already wear Speedos; the fact that the man in the ad above is covering his chest is evidence that there is a possible world in which men do so. I can see men in bikinis. Likewise, women go topless on some beaches and in some countries and it can’t be any more ridiculous for them to swim in baggy knee-length shorts than it is for men to do so.<\/p>\n

But, that’s not how it is. \u00a0Efforts to differentiate men and women through\u00a0fashion\u00a0have varied over time. \u00a0It can be\u00a0a response to a collective desire to emphasize or minimize difference, like these unisex pants<\/a> marketed in the 1960s and 70s. \u00a0It can also be, however, a backlash to those same impulses. \u00a0When differences between men and women in education, leisure, and work start to disappear \u2013 as they are right now \u2013 some might cling even tighter to the few arenas in which men and women can be made to seem very different.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came across this ad for bathing\u00a0suits from the 1920s\u00a0and\u00a0was struck by how similar the men’s and women’s\u00a0suits were designed. \u00a0Hers might have some extra coverage up top and feature a tight skirt over shorts instead of just shorts but, compared to what you see on beaches today, they are essentially the same bathing suit. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":63700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,225,55,2103,2102,253,10514,23705],"class_list":["post-63697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-clothesfashion","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies","tag-gender-history","tag-history","tag-leisure","tag-vintage-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/08\/17.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63697"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64198,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63697\/revisions\/64198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}