Bio

Jo Paoletti has followed an unusual professional path, from her undergraduate aspiration to design costumes for theater to American Studies, but a few guiding questions have been constants. How does consumer culture shape gender identity? What determines the acceptable forms of gender expression?

Her recent book, Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution (2015), and her first book, Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America (2012) are the first two installments of a trilogy. Pink and Blue traced the complicated history of gendered and neutral clothing for babies and toddlers since the late nineteenth century providing evidence that supposedly traditional patterns of gender expression are not only new, but also constantly changing. Sex and Unisex considers the impact of the civil rights movement, second-wave feminism, and the sexual revolution on gender expression in the 1960s and 1970s. The fashion chaos of the era reflected the public response to turbulent times -- excitement, confusion, and conflict – and reveal the emerging outlines of today’s “culture wars”. The third installment (working title Age Appropriate) will focus on gender expression and identities of baby boomer women, exploring their lifelong experiences of gender identity acquisition and maintenance.

In addition to many academic citations in a wide variety of disciplines, her work on gender and clothing, unisex fashions, and school and workplace dress codes has become part of the public discourse on gender identity and expression. It was the topic of the most emailed Smithsonian.com article of 2011, a feature on CBS “Sunday Morning”, and scores of print and radio interviews, from the Washington Post to the BBC.

Jo Paoletti is a graduate of Syracuse University, and holds an MS from the University of Rhode Island and the PhD from the University of Maryland.

Sub-specialties:

Pink and blue (history and current use), History of children’s clothing in the US, cultural aspects of gendered dress codes, unisex clothing of the 60s and 70s, current trends in gendered clothing, history of gendered clothing in the US.

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