It Began With Socks

Last week, I bought some clothes for my seven-year-old. The age is important here, so pay attention to it. She is seven years old. SEVEN. A child by all standards.

Online portals are flooded by merchandise, so obviously, one must use filters. Filter by gender, select girls, and look for the socks. Wait, don’t do this right away. If you navigate away from this tab, you might not come back. Not that I’m going to give you a life-changing revelation, but still, read on. Then, you can run your own tests.

So, I filtered and started looking for socks. Here are my observations.

Don’t girls wear calf or knee-length socks anymore? Don’t they wear colours like yellow, blue, and green anymore? This is the 6 to 8 years age group, mind you. Anyway, the savvy shopper that I am, I removed the gender filter and bought a lovely pack of navy, yellow, and gray pairs.

A few days later, I was unpacking this delivery and checking the items against my order. You know, if they sent me the right size, if the listing had the right cotton and polyester percentage, etc., etc., etc. The socks packaging caught my eye. The age was correct. The polyester percentage was acceptable. But the knee-length socks said boys’ socks. The ankle ones said girls’.

Who decided that? What kind of fashion police took a call that girls’ socks stop at ankles and boys go all up to the knee? What if a girl wants knee-length socks? What if a boy wants shorter ones? Why can’t we just call them kids’ socks and be done with it? Why are we calling them girls’ and boys’ socks at that age?

And this is where I know some people will say, “It’s only socks.”

I know. I wish I also thought it was only socks. But I have two daughters. So I don’t always get to think, “It’s only socks.”

I have tried to teach my daughters that they can choose. They can run, read, question, argue, build, earn, lead, leave, stay, say no, ask why, and take up space.

And then the world quietly comes in through a shopping filter and says, “Yes, yes, of course. But within this section, please.” A pink section. A shorter section. A prettier section. A slightly uncomfortable, but very cute section.

This is what makes me mad. Well, one of the things that makes me mad. Not the socks themselves. The training. We introduce these differences early on and don’t even realise it. It begins innocently enough with shorter socks and then snowballs into pay gap and seat-at-the-table conversations. You think I am jumping the gun, making a big deal about something as inconsequential as socks?

No, I don’t think so. There is a pattern.

Men have their own exhausting scripts. I am not dismissing that. But at least most of them are allowed to carry the world in comfortable shoes. At least their bags are designed to hold things. At least their pockets are real. At least their work clothes do not require a separate strategy for sitting, walking, bending, and commuting. Life is hard for everyone. It becomes a bit harder when your clothes are working against you.

The problem is not that women like pretty things. Of course we do. Men like things that are aesthetically pleasing to them as well. The problem is that girls are taught very early to choose from a smaller set of options and still call it choice. A man chooses what works. A woman is first taught to choose what fits.

And fit is such a dangerous little word. Fit into the clothes. Fit into the room. Fit into the role. Fit into the version of womanhood that will not make anyone uncomfortable.

This is the part I don’t know how to parent my way out of. I can control what I say at home. I can buy the navy socks. I can remove the gender filter. I can tell my daughters that comfort matters, money matters, ambition matters, and their choices do not need to be pre-approved by the world. But I cannot control every shelf, every ad, every cartoon, every school corridor, every relative’s comment, every “girls don’t,” every “boys will,” every tiny instruction disguised as taste. I cannot stand next to them forever, swatting away nonsense with one hand and holding the correct size socks in the other.

Because by the time women reach the boardroom, the bank account, the negotiation table, the marriage, the motherhood decision, the career break, the comeback, the “Can I ask for more?” moment, the training has already been happening for years. Small things. Smaller socks. Shorter shorts. Fake pockets. Painful shoes. Tiny bags. Smaller pay. Smaller voice at the decision-making table. Choices that looked like choice.

And then we are surprised when women hesitate before asking for more money. When they explain before they decide. When they apologise before they disagree. When they wonder whether wanting more space makes them difficult. It did not begin in the boardroom. It did not begin with the pay gap. It did not begin when someone forgot to invite a woman to the table and then called it an oversight.

It began much earlier. In the children’s section.

With socks.