Dress and sex -- A majority of girls demonstrated appearance rigidity at least once

Dress and sex: a review of empirical research involving human participants and published in refereed journals. Sharron J. Lennon et al. Fashion and Textiles, December 2017, 4:14, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40691-017-0101-5

Abstract: Our research purpose was to assess research addressing relationships between dress and sex. Our review was focused on a 25 years span (i.e., 1990–2015) and on empirical research utilizing human participants published in refereed journals. Three main areas of research emerged: (1) dress used as cue to sexual information, (2) dress and sexual violence, and (3) dress, sex, and objectification. Our analyses revealed parents do invest their young children with sex-typed dress however sometimes children demand to wear such dress. Some women intentionally use dress to communicate sexual information but inferences about women who wear sexy dress can be misinterpreted and are sometimes negative. Observers link wearing sexy dress to violence including sexual coercion, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and unwelcome groping, touching, and grabbing. Certain items of sexy dress that reveal the body have been linked to self-objectification. The fit of the items may also contribute to the body revealing nature of clothing styles that elicit self-objectification. The use of sexual images of women and children has increased over time and viewing such images is also linked to self- and other-objectification. Suggestions are provided for future research.

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"Appearance rigidity involves insisting on wearing dress items that are closely tied to one sex or avoiding dress items linked to the opposite sex. Few boys demonstrated appearance rigidity, but a majority of girls demonstrated appearance rigidity at least once. Rigidity was linked to children who indicated it was important to them to be a girl or boy (measured using items adapted from adult identity measures). Repeating the study with 4 year old children from ethnically diverse backgrounds, incidents of appearance rigidity were even higher as over half of both the girls and boys demonstrated it."