Us Weekly Concerned About Shiloh's Sexuality, Wearing Of Jeans

“Are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sending the wrong message to their 3-year-old daughter Shiloh by often dressing her up like a little boy?” asks the always-considerate tabloid weekly:

Say the “experts,” no if she chooses the clothes herself, yes if they’re forcing her to wear stuff she doesn’t want because that could lead to the child of Brangelina being “picked on or ostracized by her peers, potentially leading to social problems, anxiety, and poor academic performance.”

Oh, but don’t worry, there’s a precedent for non-lesbians wearing boy’s clothes:

Carol Tuttle, a psychotherapist and the author of “Dressing Your Truth-Real Beauty for Real Women,” says Shiloh’s style is “similar to a look Avril Lavigne made popular, and we still felt Avril’s feminine nature coming through.”

(For the record, Shiloh is pictured sporting an outfit that’s more Good Charlotte than Avril, and not especially masculine, but whatever.)

This story aroused mixed feelings in me. One: wonder and awe at the tabloids’ continuing interest in small children’s clothing; how much Adderall do they need to take to sustain this level of attention to something so boring? Two: confusion at exactly what they want a little girl to wear, since we’re always hearing that Suri’s clothes are too “adult” and prissy and, Three: trauma. As the baby of a committed feminist, I was dressed, in the early 80s, in aggressively androgynous clothing which, with my sparse hair, made my sex impossible to gauge. Perhaps as a result, my first sentence was “I am not a boy.” But Shiloh is older; she is verbal; and even if I were interested in advancing opinions about what strangers’ children should be wearing, I would have no problem with her sporting comfy, casual playclothes which she probably wouldn’t wear if she didn’t want to. Although, given her mother’s history of bisexuality, it’s true: we all need to be extra-vigilant!