J. Crew Under Fire for Gender Bending Boy

By Dr. Keith Ablow

A recent feature in J. Crew's online catalogue portrays designer Jenna Lyons painting her son Beckett's toe nails hot pink. The quote accompanying the image reads, "Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon."

Yeah, well, it may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid-and maybe a little for others who'll be affected by your "innocent" pleasure.

This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity-homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such "psychological sterilization" [my word choice] is not known.

In our technology-driven world-fueled by Facebook, split-second Prozac prescriptions and lots of other assaults on genuine emotion and genuine relationships and actual consequences for behavior-almost nothing is now honored as real and true.

Increasingly, this includes the truth that it is unwise to dress little girls like miniature adults (in halter tops and shorts emblazoned with PINK across the bottoms) and that it is unwise to encourage little boys to playact like little girls.

If you have no problem with the J. Crew ad, how about one in which a little boy models a sundress? What could possibly be the problem with that?