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Quick history bit! Do you know how pivotal the invention of the zipper in 1917 was to gender construction in children? From the mid 1500s to the 1900, MOST children wore dresses throughout early childhood, up to around age 8.
Adult men's pants had complex fastenings that would confound a small child needing to get to the toilet in time, so until a child was able to deal with all those ties and hooks and buttons, it was skirts for everyone!
The zipper was patented in 1917, and after that clothes got MUCH more heavily gendered much earlier. Now we've got this nonsense: express.google.com/u/0/product/42…
I mean, pants are SO much more sensible for a crawling baby still in diapers, But this? "Super-skinny, designed to flatter" jeans for a newborn? This is nonsense: amazon.com/Levis-Girls-Su…
So yeah, most of those pictures of kids in dresses c. 1500-1900 are just that: kids in dresses. If you dig into the styling details, there's still gender markers there, but not like the extreme dichotomy of the 20th century. Tl, dr: SKIRTS ARE FOR EVERYONE! LET KIDS BE KIDS!
