Fashion is challenging traditional gender norms

At South African Fashion Week, which came to an end during the weekend of 31 October, gender fluidity, expressed through gender-neutral or genderless design, was a strong theme – as was the case at similar events in London and New York.

The notion of traditional gender norms is being challenged by some of the designers like maklele and Michael Ludwig, who participated in the South African event.

Gender-neutral fashion, according to Jacques Rothmann, associate professor in sociology at NWU, refers to fashion that rejects the notion that some garments are inherently male or female by rejecting binary gender codes.

“Gender expression in fashion presents us with a dualism of sorts,” Rothmann explains. On the one hand individuals are free to explore unique gender identities and on the other they are constantly aware of what is considered socially acceptable.

“Gender-neutral fashion allows one the opportunity to critique and transgress the ‘traditional’ or ‘orthodox’ understandings of gender,” said Rothmann.

In a 3SM survey about gender-neutral fashion including 40 students, a total of 87 percent knew what gender-neutral fashion was; 58 percent believed they wear gender-neutral clothing, and 71 percent thought that gender-neutral fashion or clothing was needed in our society, especially as part of student life.

Following the recent gender awareness week on campuses of the North-West University (NWU), students and experts were approached to comment on the topic of gender-neutral fashion.

According to Rothmann, recent studies among South African university students, show that women are more positive and accepting of gender diversity, whereas males assign more importance to traditional views that favour the noted cisgender expressions.

“I think it’s actually just a comfortable way of dressing for everybody without having to think too much if what they are wearing is considered “manly” or “womanly” in the traditional sense.”

“Gender expression in fashion presents us with a dualism of sorts,” Rothmann explains further. On the one hand individuals are free to explore unique gender identities and on the other they are constantly aware of what is considered socially acceptable.

“Gender-neutral fashion allows one the opportunity to critique and transgress the ‘traditional’ or ‘orthodox’ understandings of gender.”

But students have different views on gender-neutral or genderless clothing.

Sabrina Schutte, a fourth-year social work student, says: “To me this androgynous sense of fashion is ideal for a modern world”.

Zane Joubert, a third-year accounting student says: “In our society, the majority of people do not show their identity through the way in which they dress. I am repulsed and continuously driven out of my mind with boredom by the basic, half-baked, stolen ideas that I see in Potch with regards to style/expression.

“Our society, especially student life, is in dire need of progressive thinking and experimentation [in fashion]… I fear that it will never evolve beyond the limited, depressing, pathetic sense of style it [the student community] currently possesses. I am disgusted beyond words with gender-allocated clothing, and I certainly do not want to be surrounded by it.”

But another student, who wanted to remain anonymous, disagrees with the notion of genderless wear.

“I feel feminity and masculinity gets lost in unisex clothing,” said the student.

Mbulelo Mbiphi, a final year public administration student at the NWU’s Mahikeng campus and one of GQ’s ten best dressed men for 2021 said:  “Personally, I believe gender-neutral fashion creates room for originality and authenticity which are very important components of fashion.” 

When asked about the role of gender-neutral fashion in the South African context, he replied: “Gender-neutral fashion will help with regards to people being accepted for who they are, what they believe in and what they stand for.”

Professor Chantelle Gray, who specialises in contemporary philosophy, states that fashion should challenge gender norms, which are not neutral and can be very harmful to people who do not readily conform to them.

“Many queer theorists, such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, described ways in which the assumptions of normative heterosexuality obscure the prefiguration of normative subjectivity,” she continues.

“Clothing in general is not necessarily binary but that does not mean it [binary clothing] is not pervasive. From birth we are given arbitrary choices like ‘pink for girls’ and ‘blue for boys’ – and these go along with embedded assumptions on how different genders should act”, added Gray.

Rothmann confirms this by stating: “South African society is still very much patriarchal and heteronormative because of, among others, ‘traditional’, religious and familial socialisation during a person’s formative years.”

The European Institute for Gender Equality defines heteronormativity as the assumption that everyone is naturally hetrosexual (or straight) and this is superior to other sexualities or gender identities.

Said Rothmann: “Gender-neutral fashion is one mechanism that forces society to hold the mirror up to itself and identify what needs to be done to encourage an inclusive, supportive and reciprocally respectful context for people, irrespective of their gender- and sexual identities.” – Christiaan de Klerk, Dané Jordaan, Elsje-Marié Jordaan and Marizyl Marais