I’ve heard complaints of little girls toys being pink, all pink. And sort of saying that’s not fair, and if they have a girl they would get the normal colored version.
Just thinking today, well last night, about maybe it is because little boys are not allowed pink - they are taught that pink is not a color for them. Girls then may naturally gravitate to this color because it is theirs. It’s something they can have, an actual color, that boys are not allowed to have.
So the teaching that pink is for girls may be really the teaching the boys that they can not have pink. If so the unfairness is done to the boys to the benefit of the girls.
Going further, far extrapolation here with major assumption: Pink, is a exclusive gender based ‘club’, later there are many such ‘women’s only’ clubs and woman’s ministries where men are excluded, not to many men’s only clubs, yes many that are predominantly male, but I believe (but don’t know), few are exclusively male - especially newer ‘clubs’ and groups.
Ladies’ Home Journal article in June 1918 said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies, according to Paoletti.
In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading U.S. stores. In Boston, Filene’s told parents to dress boys in pink. So did Best & Co. in New York City, Halle’s in Cleveland and Marshall Field in Chicago.
If a boy wants to wear pink that bad, he can wear it when he grows up. Some men wear pink. I wouldn’t generally recommend it but it can work sometimes.
Anyway, I don’t really see how this is “a new take” though. Yes, it’s seen as more acceptable for girls to wear more boyish clothes and generally be tomboys than it is for boys to wear pink or play with dolls. That didn’t originate from sexism against males, but from sexism against females (although it also hurts males by denying them nurturing, etc.).
I don’t have a problem with pink. I do have a problem with colors being gendered, though. Pink doesn’t belong to anyone. If a little boy wants to wear pink, why not? If a little girl wants to not have a pink frosted bedroom, she shouldn’t have it foisted on her. It’s just a color, not an identity.
Little girls aren’t born with color preferences. I agree that a girl who doesn’t want a pink bedroom should have some say, but not any more than she would have if the room was blue or done in neutral colors or whatever. If the parents can’t afford to redecorate, too bad so sad.
In Thailand, pink is for anyone born on Tuesday such as myself. It’s not considered a feminine color at all. It’s the color of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand’s first institute of higher education, founded in 1917, because the king it’s named after (who was the little boy in The King and I) was born on a Tuesday.
Lots of male pink wearers in Hawaii too. Considered more of a “tropical color” there than a girl’s color.
There are many feminists who would offer an analysis compatible with what you’re saying. The injustice isn’t just to women, but to people in general as we try to force them into gender roles they may not actually fit into.
This is not to say everything’s equally bad or good for both men and women. It’s just to point out that patriarchy isn’t really good for almost anyone–male or female.
In my head is the idea that in the Victorian era, the association was reverse–pink for boys, blue for girls. If this is true, we don’t need to go looking for subconscious associations to explain things. It looks like cultural forces suffice.
Is this true? The answer is not so sure. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2831/was-pink-originally-the-color-for-boys-and-blue-for-girls
I don’t have time to read this entirely right now but the gist I’m getting is that pink was never for boys as much as it is in a widespread fashion for girls today.
Cultural forces no doubt, but there must have been some reason why pink stuck as a girl color in the first place, to become as widely associated as it is now.
If you’re going to bust out the evo psych bullshit that women naturally love pink because cavewomen picked pink berries, I’m going to laugh myself to sleep.
Maybe it just happened, or maybe people are inherently more inclined to associate pink with femininity, because of vaginas. Or for some other reason. Or, fine, for no reason. lol. When it comes to gendered things, it’s likely that there are physical biases to a lot of the variations. Take frills, for example. Same connotation, really. Yes, this is pure bs that is impossible to prove. It’s funny though, and plausible.