Moi je m'appelle Lo-lita,
Collégienne aux bas,
Bleus de méthylène
This fragment of the lyrics comes from the song by Alizée Moi… Lolita released in 2000 and probably many people from Europe, where it topped the charts, hummed it in its glory days. Apart from the references to Nabokov's novel, the remaining two lines can be translated as Schoolgirl in stockings, Methylene blue. So what is the deal with these blue socks and what does it have to do with young seductresses?
Queen of the Blues
Contrary to appearances, the blue stockings do not concern only the students themselves, but also their guest. We need to go back to the 1750s when the Blue Stocking Society was founded. It was a loose organization of privileged women interested in education who gathered to discuss literature, inviting educated men to participate. European fashion of the mid-18th century, in which black stockings were worn with formal wear and blue stockings were worn during the day or more casually, emphasizing the informal nature of club meetings. The most common such reference is to a man, Benjamin Stillingfleet, who reportedly did not wear formal black stockings and yet belonged to the Blue Stockings Society [1].
Thanks to the strong personality of another famous salon owner and writer, Elizabeth Montagu, the so-called Queen of the Blues, the term bluestocking soon came to refer to all literary women. Until the 20th century, there was much criticism of girls acquiring knowledge because, according to the prevailing stereotype, it eliminated them from being a good wife and mother. The opposite of bluestocking and other popular-culture image was the sweet girl graduate who used her education to find and impress her future husband [L. Peril, College Girls. Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Coeds, Then and Now, 2006 , pp. 28-31].
Collégienne look
Compared to the 18th century, today skirts have become much shorter, revealing the knees and with them the socks (but not particularly blue) . In the 20th century, along with clothing, the perception of female sexuality also changed. Back then, there was a double view of the image of a school girl: Bluestockings in class, and silk hose and silver slippers in the evening [E. Eldridge, Co-ediquette: Poise and Popularity for Every Girl, 1936, p. 136]. Although some believed that a student's appearance must correspond to her age: Moreover, the boy who invited Sally to the house party likes her as he remembered her at home and does not want a blase woman who looks thirty-five in her place [E. Post, Etiquette, 1942, p. 339].
Long-lasting erotic symbol
Over time in the 1950s, men's magazines discovered the cute and innocent college girl. And they began to show her as first in a school uniform, and later as a half-naked object of gazes. It wasn't until the late 1960s that they featured full nudity or even frontal views, and scantily clad female students seemed to be one of the delights of school life.
However, the 1950s are not the starting point for combining eroticism with young, studying girls. Almost from the very beginning, the student was surrounded by a rapidly commercialized aura of eroticism: At the turn of the twentieth century, the college girl was as much an object of public interest as Civil War battlefields or the natural wonders of Yosemite [L. Peril, College Girls..., p. 311].
Now I'm left to ask my favorite question when analyzing any cultural phenomenon, why does it work?
The school uniform, with blue or white stockings, is both a fetish and a symbol of childhood. A female student or even a college girl exudes innocence, but also youth. And as we know, youth itself (even more so when wearing a short skirt) can be an erotic incentive. And maybe that is why the sympathy for such an image is related to the pursuit of maintaining eternal youth, which is the best seller in the consumer world?
A great blog by Lisa Hix at Ms. Magazine contextualizes Bic's recent pink pen debacle. Marketing things as "ladies' products", i.e. coloring them pink and raising the product's price, is a trend that started in the late 1940s and was fazed out by the 70s. (It's no coincidence that this marketing trend stopped in the 70s when the 2nd wave of feminism started.) Hix' piece is essentially a book review of Lynn Peril's study of "pink think"--this particular way of marketing to women.
"Feminist writer Lynn Peril, the author of Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons, explains that mid-century manufacturers realized that if you take an ordinary object, turn it pink and put the word “Lady” in front of the name, then you’ve created a product “for women” that can be sold for more money. Peril coined the term “Pink Think” to describe this particular phenomenon, which she defines as “a group-think about what constitutes ‘proper’ female behavior.”
“Pink Think assumes there is a standard to which all women—no matter their age, race, or body type—must aspire,” she says. “It’s the idea that women and girls are gentle, soft, delicate and nurturing, made of sugar and spice and everything nice. ‘Femininity’ is sometimes a code word for this mythical standard.”"
