BBC News has a story about the effects of pink on young girl's development.
Some commentators now believe pink dominates the upbringing of little girls, and this may be damaging.Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, says the "total obsession" with pink stunts girls' personalities. "I am very worried about it. You can't find girls over the age of three who aren't obsessed with the colour. It's under their skin from a very early age and severely limits choices, and decisions.
"We have got to get something done about the effect marketeers are having. We are creating little fluffy pink princess, an image of girliness, that is very specific and which some girls don't want to go along with, but due to overwhelming peer pressure, are having to conform to."
The article goes on to overlook what I think are the important issues underlying this question. What we really need to talk about, which is demonstrated by the pink example, is how our society constantly polices gender roles. This policing starts at a young age and color preferences are just one of many examples we could use. While the article makes the point that exposure to pink itself is not going to seriously change a girl's life, what bigger differences underlie this superficial examples? We treat boys and girls differently in so many ways, many of which we don't even perceive. The cumulative effect of all these slight behavioral and social differences are what really has an impact on both genders, and continues to reinforce ideas about gender difference.
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This is exactly why no one will ever know the sex of my baby before it's born (years from now when I decide I want kids). The thought of a room filled with pink makes me sick. There are other colors! It's ok!
We didn't tell anyone the sex of our baby either because we wanted all gender-neutral stuff. Then after she was born I warned people that I would return/exchange anything that was pink or said "princess" on it. Everyone's been pretty good about it, but you can tell they roll their eyes behind my back.
Yes, there is plenty of eye-rolling being directed at me right now, since we too, have chosen to not know the sex of our baby because I have explained that "I'm not interested in rigidly gendering my child before he or she is even born." Family really loves that explanation. :-)
But I agree with Miriam, they sort of missed the point, that it's not JUST the color, it is the messages that go with the pink about being a "diva," a "princess," a "drama queen" and that OTHER colors/packaged items directed at boys encourage creativity, exploration, etc.
And the functionality of clothing for boys vs. girls also makes me mad. So many parents of girls put them in clothes that limit their movement, it's infuriating. When my daughter was starting to crawl there were two other girls in her room at daycare whose parents always put them in little dresses that would get all tangled up around their knees so they couldn't move. And when we're at the park I can't believe how many of the girls my stepduaghter's age (5) are wearing high heeled sandals and skirts that prevent them from climbing or running very fast. And then people yammer on about how much stronger and faster the boys are. Un-fucking-believable.
I think this has the capacity to backfire, though. A friend of mine was a pretty staunch "no pink, frilly, princess stuff" advocate until her daughter (during that lovely 2-3yo phase when children rebel against their parents, which usually returns when kids become teens) decided she ONLY wanted pink, frilly, princess stuff. There's got to be a balance. Since then, she's started discussing choices with her daughter to develop both hers and her daughter's critical thinking skills.
Yeah, don't get me wrong. I teach critical thinking (on the college lever) and engage in lots of dialogue with my stepdaughter and encourage critical thinking in all areas. It's not like we forbid pink princess stuff, but we object to the fact that the entire world seems hell bent on shoving it down their throats at every turn. If all they get from our friends and family is pink princess shit, then that limits their choice in the other direction.
My conversations with my stepdaughter involve discussing the fact that people tell you that you have to like/dislike something because you're a girl, but they just made a mistake about that (she's very interested in the concept of making mistakes right now). Similarly, we discuss the princesses, and I tell her that I personally don't like the princess stories because they tell you a lot of things that aren't true. Then we discuss the untrue things implied by and contained in the stories. And we talk about what a "real girl" is like, and how she's smart and strong and funny, but these things aren't important to you if you're a princess.
I happen to like the color pink itself, so I wouldn't care too much if my daughter had a pink room. All the "princess" and "diva" crap though makes me want to barf. My (far in the future) child will have none of that!
I looked in the toys section the other day and it seems if you want to buy a "girl toy" or even large stuffed letters apparently, you can't avoid pink. Though sometimes it's just the packaging and not the actual toy. I mean isn't a variety of colours more interesting to look at anyway?
Pink is my absolute favorite color and I'm not ashamed of that. In my cubicle right now there is a pink lamp, notebook, chair, calendar and vase staring back at me and I don't think they're stunting my personality. I agree with Miriam. Instead of talking about superficial things like the color pink we need to explore how gender roles stunt girls personalities. I didn't grow up with a pink room. It was green. But I doubt that has anything to do with who I am today. I credit my parents -- who taught me to never let anyone tell me I couldn't do something because of my gender or race -- for that.
The article itself is a bit odd, the way it frames obsession with pink as "damaging" - you're right, Miriam, that they sort of missed the issue.
The comments below add to this, the way the dissenters seem to think that love for pink is hard-wired (did they not even read the first paragraph?). If you think a color preference is hardwired, then you're probably likely to believe that so many other personality traits or characteristics are, as well.
I find it odd that the dissenters are saying, "I kept her away from pink and Barbies but she still wanted them!" as if we're raised in a vaccuum. Watching TV, going to preschool, playing with other little girl friends - little kids get exposed to all these ideas THERE, too, it's not just the influence the parent tries to have.
People might be hard wired to like Pink as it is a compound colour composed of violet and red lightwave frequencies that get scrambled in our brains as a new colour. Doesn't explain the gender bias though.
Ah, I was referring only to the gender-specific hardwiring. My brain's not all here today, I could have used more words to be clearer.
My daughter deals with the pink pressure in a very interesting way. When you ask her what her favorite color is, she replies, "I like every color but I say pink because that's what people want." It's depressing that she's so aware of this but encouraging that she sticks to her "every color of the rainbow" guns.
My 5 y/o stepdaughter was told by a teacher at her preschool that girls like pink (I told her she should like whatever color she wanted), so now she says "pink is my favorite, but I like green the best." So depressing that they learn how to try to appease people and fit in at such a young age.
I said my favorite color was black and I got taken to the school shrink.
After that I just said blue. bleah.
I had something similar happen to me. I got sent to the school psychologist around 5th grade or so because all of my art projects were red and black. I was told to use other colors. Nobody had a problem with the same projects in purple and yellow.
God, that's so harsh!
oh my god!!! I just had the hugest blast from the past when you said that. That little girl sounds exactly like me - that's exactly the rationale I used to use to say my favourite colour is "pink", before I had the courage to be different. (She sounds a lot braver than I was, though.) We might even have been the same age. But this actually makes me tear up a little...what the fuck kind of culture doesn't let little girls have their own favourites? What the fuck kind of culture crushes the personalities, individuality, and confidence of little children so aggressively and so overwhelmingly for one sex?
As others have rightfully pointed out, pink is the tip of the shit iceberg. Who knows where I even got the impression that only girls like pink, and they like pink ONLY? Certainly not my parents...they were at least mindful of sexism, though they were hardly gender warriors. (I remember my mom teaching me interesting facts one day, about how boys are just better than girls at math and science. ARRRRGH!) This could only have come through a culture soaked with sexism - I got that idea from somewhere, and the fact that it doesn't have a single source only speaks even more to the pervasiveness of patriarchy.
The pink thing frightens me, because I don't know how many other unspoken tokens of misogyny I'd internalized by then. And when that shit it planted it is fucking inGRAINed: I'm *still* fighting internalized misogyny and I probably will to my grave.
Shit like this makes me never want to have kids.
When I had my first daughter I was hardcore, go out of my way to avoid the dreaded color pink, mostly because I hate it.
She likes pink ok. Prefers blue cause her Daddy likes it.
My second born, who I relaxed with, who is not in any care or interacting for the most part with anyone but us and her sister, loves pink (and orange. She likes barbies to, much to my chagrin.
I can't, and won't control their likes to the point of insanity. It's not as relevant to me as say, explaining that I don't believe gender is a finite 2 version thing, or that sometimes, two moms dig each other and are awesome. I spend my time with the girls actually talking about gender and expectation (as much as I can at this age) and not worrying about a color.
I secretly think someone sits around writing articles to give parents panic attacks about stupid crap.
When I was little I hated pink and would announce to my friends and grandparents that they better not give me barbies. I also hated wearing dresses and refused to brush my hair.
Now that I'm in my early 20s, I actually like pink, although I prefer a darker shade than the popular barbie pink. I like bright pink in the summer and maroon in the winter, for clothing. I had a pink cell phone, a blue camera, and a blue case for my ipod. I just like bright colors.
I don't really think pink is the issue so much as the obvious divide between boys and girls toys.
I once watched a boy play with a physics kit, when three girls entered the room. Two of them were wearing dresses, but the youngest was wearing brown overalls and a green shirt. The boy immediately invited the youngest girl to play with him, and made real and repeated efforts to include her in his project, even though she was significantly younger than he was. He ignored the girls in dresses.
I think he'd mistaken the youngest girl for a boy and so identified her as a peer. But it was striking to me that, in that scenario, the people in pants were allowed to learn physics and the people in dresses were not.
On the other hand, I don't think the "princess" archetype is all bad. A princess is someone who deserves care and comfort and love, who values beauty and safety. All kids deserve to feel like princesses sometimes, and all kids deserve to learn physics.
If you live under a rock, a princess is all the things you say she is. In the outside world, a princess is what Disney says she is.
Exactly! Don't even get me started on princesses.
Thanks for linking to your Princess Fuck You :)
That is awesome.
I disagree about the princess obsession. Princesses are pampered. Our view of them is that they have someone (Daddy?) to take care of them. When I watch preschool girls into the "princess" thing, they are not what I want to encourage in my daughter. Now, granted, these girls are being dressed by Mom, and some of my dislike is that Mom isn't the kind of woman I want my daughter to have as a role model.
I just see princess as equivalent to helpless. We all deserve love, comfort, and safety whether we're living in a castle or on the streets. (In fact, we all deserve not to live on the streets, but that's another discussion.)
I do admit, though, that when my preschool-aged son wants to be a princess, I'm more torn, which probably is hypocritical of me. With him, I worry that I'm teaching him to adhere to rigid gendered sterotypes by telling him he cannot pretend to be a princess.
There is a great French movie about a boy that wants to be a princess called "Ma Vie en Rose" which basically means "My Pink Life" but it's also a play on words. Not that it's relevant but it's a very good film about gender roles.
Women are seriously missing in science, technology, engineering and math and as this story suggests the problem begins from early childhood development. Science is limited because some of the potentially greatest scientific minds are drawn away from the fields.
Why would people think that pink is hardwired for girls? Pink wasn't even associated with girls until after WW2. Before that it was seen as more of a boy color: http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/pinkblue.html.
I always hated pink going up, because it was a "girly" color and I didn't want to be regarded as girly - I associated this with being regarded as inferior. It wasn't until after college that I began to gradually introduce pastel shades into my wardrobe, as my confidence level improved.
I hate that pink and all its associations are being forced upon girls today. Pink is a lovely color, but is just one of many. I did a dance of joy when the Libby Liu story at the local mall shut down - talk about pink abuse!
My sons and husband are very masculine and they adore the color pink. As a matter of fact, they love all pastel colors. You know why? Because the girls love it! My husband has beautiful dark skin and lighter colors look wonderful on him and my teens like the attention they get from girls telling them how much they love their pink, yellow, mint shirts.
I don't personally care for pink, but I don't think it's intrinsically evil. But when marketers make practically everything that's for girls pink, I feel like they're trying to shove my daughter into a small box marked "expectations for girls". Plus, when "normal" merchandise is a variety of colors and then the "girls'" versions are pink, that just reinforces the idea that female is "other".
Like a lot of posters, I resisted the color pink growing up. I didn't want to be seen as 'girly'. As an adult, I've come to terms with the color pink, especially since pink shirts are much more forgiving to my complexion than white.
My best friend (who happens to love the color pink) had a baby last year and purposefully did not tell anyone the sex to avoid every gift to the baby being pink.
My brother and his wife recently had a baby girl. They let people know early on in the pregnancy that the child would be a girl. Most of the gifts they received were pink.
I agree that pushing gender norms on children from such an early age is ridiculous. Why make the child live in a weird monochromatic cotton candy colored world.
I will also never understand the need for companies to market a boys and girls version of everything, even things that are gender neutral. For example, I noticed that Legos and TinkerToys now come in a girls variety. The difference? Instead of being the bright primary colors of the regular version, the girls version is all shades of pink and purple. At least the price was the same.
They'll always market as many versions of something as possible becuase its a way to get people to buy more of them.
And why, oh why, do they have to have separate diapers and pull-ups? Is girl pee and poop really that different from boy pee and poop.
No, but girl babies and boy babies wet their diapers differently, so the absorbent padding goes in different places.
I know that's how they advertise it, but it's kind of a myth. I was discussing this with a couple of other moms at the daycare, and we took apart a "boy" and "girl" diaper, to find that they were almost identical. The "boy" diaper was thicker by about the equivalent of 3 kleenexes in front. How much is that going to help? They put padding all the way around diapers, because the moisture spreads out as it's absorbed into the lining, so they're basically the same. We always bought "boy" pullups for my stepdaughter when she needed them because she loves Diego and Buzz Lightyear, and those are the images on the "boy" pullups, and we never had a leak, even overnight.
I have to say that hasn't been the case for our sons. He definitely wets through the girl pull-ups much faster than the boy ones.
My nephew is potty-training, and he wears either boy or girl pullups. He's really into Dora right now, so they often get the Dora ones, but those are one of the more expensive brands, so maybe that has something to do with it. It doesn't always track with the price, either. When my daughter was tiny she had more blowouts in Huggies than any other brand, including the cheaper store brands, for some reason.
And why, oh why, do they have to have separate diapers and pull-ups? Is girl pee and poop really that different from boy pee and poop.
well, that might have something to do with where they put in extra absorbancy lining, since the girls and boys' urine would come out from different places?
I remember watching Michael Stipe on a political programme in the UK a couple of years ago talking to arch conservative Michael Portillo;
'It's very brave of you wear a pink shirt, a male politician wouldn't do that in the U.S. as people might think ...'
'Well, this is Hunting Pink!'
As a kid, I always liked red. Ruby or blood red was the best. Now, I still love red, but I also adore pink. Only not pastel pink. I really like the colour that crayola calls cerise. :) A nice bright pink - one of the colours the new ipods come in.
My daughter is a big fan of purple. All shades. Always has been. She wants a violet wall in her room, and lavender highlights. So I kinda doubt the bit about not being able to find a girl who doesn't love pink.
I think the author is kind of using pink as a representation of all the stereotypical, puffy princess feminity. which is not the worst possible plan. and yeah, while I agree that the problem is more the expectations behind pink rather than the color itself, I do think those expectations matter and saying "I'm not going to get involved in my child's color choice" is kind of burying your head in the sand. also, we had an official get sued here in my university for painting the visiting teams locker room pink. I don't know all the details, but I think it was supposed to be a psychology experiment. I found that whole controversey interesting
Kids are going to have peer pressure to conform no matter what, so better pink than something else, like being naughty.
That said, it is IMPOSSIBLE to go to a mall or other mass retail store and buy baby/children's items that are NOT gendered. There are no generic baby things, no neutral items (occasionally the pale green onesie) but that's it. Unfortunately, the sweatshop-free, organic, gender-neutral baby & toddler market just can't be found at WalMart or The Children's Place or Babies R' Us.
I know that my grannies and aunties would not go online to a store to find an item or whatnot like that, which, unless you live in a big city, is usually the only option for a little variety. They depend on registries at mass retailers for shower gifts, which is where the gendering begins.
As far as a little girl choosing pink dresses or Barbies or whatever, if that is what she likes and not what she feels she should like, and can make her own decisions, then I don't see a problem. The little boy who ignored the girls in the dresses is the one who needs to be gently educated, too.
There are so many worse things than clothing and color preference, like being shallow and materialistic, selfish, or not playing nice with others. If my kid was playing with blocks I would be ecstatic - they aren't watching TV for five minutes!
The picture for this post makes me wince.
OK, the shades of pink everywhere is alot to take in . But the various dolls, dresses (I don't see any pants), shoes, "play" dishes/cutlery/tes sets, Barbie & Disney Princess paraphenalia is what really makes me nauseous (although, I do believe there is a pink Barbie car there). Where are the (even pink) legos? Or something besides "typical girl" toys?
Sorry I haven't even addressed the article yet!
When I saw that picture, I didn't think "how can she have so much PINK?!"--I thought, "how can she have so much STUFF?!"
The consumerism is absolutely more damaging than the pinkness and possibly even more damaging than the gender conformity.
VERY true.
FYI, the photo at the top of the post is from an artist's piece investigating the ramifications of gender-specific consumerism. There's a similar shot of a little boy surrounded by blue toys and looking glum.
Given that the photo is the work of a current artist, Miriam, can I politely suggest updating the post with an art credit or link to the original Feministing entry that discussed the work?
Everybodyever - thanks for explaining :)
And it is a nice comment on gender-specific consumerism, because I can think of several young girl's bedrooms that look similar to this.
Just a quick comment on the photo - I found it creepy that it took me a few seconds to distinguish the little girl from her baby dolls. It's almost like people consider little boys as people and little girls as toys. Obviously, baby dolls are designed to look like babies and not the other way around, but it got me thinking.
(small aside, if you'd installed me in that room when I was that wee I would have had a screaming fit!)
I've always liked pink, and still do. I never understood why girls wanted to hate pink just because it was girly and they wanted to be cool and not girly. I thought it was like saying it was bad to be a girl, so I never bought it. I don't see the point in trying to keep your daughter from ever seeing pink, especially just to turn and say "Well gee, she still loves the color, no point in trying to keep my princess gender neutral anymore!"
If I have a daughter, you bet she will wear pink. If I have a son, when he's a baby, I'll find a cute outfit with pink as well. I'll put other colors in the child's life and try my best to tell it that it can like what it wants, it doesn't have to follow tv or friends and be what it is told to be. I will also teach it that pink is not girly, and even if it was, girly does not mean bad. My future baby's daddy agrees.
Of course, this is just one of the minor issues that makes me not even want to have a child.
You bring up a good point how many girls tend to hate pink for being too girly. Somehow, in my childhood mind, I came to the conclusion that being a girl was bad. In fact, I used to refer to pink as 'red for sissies'. So, somewhere along the line, I bought into the idea that pink = girl and also that girl = bad. That's some seriously f*cked up gender hate.
hahahaha.
PINK IS DESTROYING MY MIND!!!
Seriously? Why not focus on something that actually affects the development of young women, like a lack of education, poor health and sex education, employment discrimination, abuse, violence or poverty?
I love pink, high heels, lipstick and Barbies. I'm also educated, on my way to a graduate degree, a lesbian and a feminist.
Pink and girly toys are not the problem (and there are gender-neutral toys out there, I promise). It's just a catchy pop-psychology theory that avoids addressing the real issues underlying gender inequality.
I think the main problem may be not whether a girl likes pink (as you said, there's nothing wrong with it :P ), rather, that it is expected and assumed that girls will like pink, and if it is not their preference, there is something wrong with them. It's more a freedom of expression type deal rather than the effects of a color. Though I would find it pretty hilarious if it was found that pink was radioactive or something >:D
Eh, while it is annoyning how some people seem to think that all they have to do to get women and girls to by their products is douse it with pink paint, I hardly think think the color is what we should focus on. It's just a distraction from the fact the children's toys are still stuck in the '50's. Boys' toys - science and construction kits, robots, toy weapons and cars, all have to do with some future useful skills for a variety of professions while girls are still hounded by baboes and dolls formed to fit a horrible, unrealistic, racist beauty standard, kitchen set, things like that horrible Rose Petal Cottage, play makeup, and dressup. The fact that all the girl shit is pink are the least of our problems. What's really the problem is that Barbie is always blonde and white with a barely-stocked black counterpart pushed to the side like some sort of forced, shameful secret. There are no fun forensic science kits for girls that could be inspired from shows like Bones (put together bones-- Just like Doctor Brennan!), or toy police or detective costumes and toys despite shows like Law and Order with prominent female cop and detective characters, no "Build Your own Dollhouse" playsets, or full-figured Barbies. I don't care if it's pink, just make it constructive.
OMG! I had an extremely detailed dream a few months ago during one of my particularly bad Bones binges wherein I was a little girl who had just received a Jeffersonian lab playset... BUT THE DISMEMBERED CORPSE WAS MISSING!!!! I would have had a much happier childhood in dreamland. Brennan instead of Barbie.
Part of the problem though is that marketers are using colour to label toys which could otherwise be gender neutral as "girl's toys" or "boy's toys".
In terms of development at infancy, I'd bet a variety of colors and objects would be the most effective in cognitive growth. Maybe I'll look to see if there are any studies about that. I think offering children a variety of toys (they don't need to be very fancy) is the best way to go. Stuffed animals and dolls give them opportunities to engage in pretend play and explore theory of mind. Legos and blocks allow them to explore construction and physics. Both are vital to a child's development, regardless of gender.
And what I do think is potentially very damaging is the fact that they market things like sporting goods to girls that are pink, of course, and less functional than the default, or male, equivalent. My stepdaughter has a pink "girl power" aluminum T-ball bat that is lighter than the standard one. Similarly, her glove that came with the set is a cheap pink vinyl, and not flexible enough to allow her to catch the ball. People think I'm being ridiculous when I don't let her use these things, but what kind of a message will that send her when she can't catch because of her girlie glove and can't hit the ball as far (and doesn't develop adequate upper-body strength) because of the pathetic bat? Fuck that.
The studies show that patterns matter more than colors in infancy, which is why it was the trend for a while to have all black and white baby toys (at least in my group of friends).
Women are seriously missing in science, technology, engineering and math and as this story suggests the problem begins from early childhood development. Science is limited because some of the potentially greatest scientific minds are drawn away from the fields.
If liking pink makes someone happy, then I don't see what the problem is. My brother was obsessed with purple when he was a kid, it was horrible. Only because it was an obsession, not because it was liking a color. The real question that should be asked is why little kids feel the need to obsess over something (advertisers and merchants - I'm looking at you). It's this "I have to have it" culture that has ruined America financially.
When we were kids my mom used to give us boysenberry juice, and my little sister used to insist on calling it girlsenberry.
I saw a little girl in San Diego wearing a shirt several years ago and I have been looking for it ever since. It was BRIGHT pink, had a picture of a "glass slipper" with a circle/line through it and a book with the words: "Forget the glass slipper, Give me an education." She was probably about 9 years old.
Of course, the flip side to this is that since girls get the color pink, boys can't go anywhere near it. It's ok for girls to wear blue, but not so much for boys to wear pink. Guys really do get painted into a corner by being defined by what isn't female.
I've noticed in my forays down the infant clothing aisle, that it's just as difficult to find cloths for a male infant that are not sports or car themed.
I'm glad my brother and his wife chose a jungle theme for their baby's (girl) room. I like monkeys. They're working on the theory that they can reuse the same stuff when/if they have another kid, whether it's a boy or a girl. Gendering infant products is just really inconvenient.
As a little girl I was very obsessed with reptiles, and therefore insisted everything be the color green(which is kind of odd now that I think about it, since reptiles aren't exclusively green. My own corn snake was orange, red, and yellow.) I had several green shirts with decals of cobras and such on them, that my parents probably had to go to the "boy's" department to find.
I didn't really start to actively dislike pink until middle school, where I began to associate it with the kinds of girls I disliked--mean, racist, backbiting, caring what everyone thought (especially boys) and having no decent taste in music. Pink was helpless, frilly, and mainstream. Pink was being uncreative and wanting no more from life than a husband and a house in the suburbs(not to dis anyone who lives there but my parents had moved me from an urban enviornment and I had a lot of culture shock.)
Now I can wear pink but only if A)it's mixed with black and/or red and B)has a picture of a skull or a knife or something on it. Maybe one day I'll find a pink shirt with a picture of a cobra! :)
I think pink is like a metaphor for the limited options that women face. When you look down the "boys' toys" aisle, you see a variety of different colors. When you look down the "girls' toys" aisle, all you see is pink. It's like girls are being warned that they have less to look forward to when they become women.
I agree completely! I find it hard to talk about this without sounding like it's the colour itself that bothers me, when no colour is good/bad... we just associate different things with them. And while I like pink (which adds to the confusion when I'm complaining/making a snarky remark about pink things to someone), I associate it very stongly with gender policing and the othering of the female/feminine - I mean, a whole colour assigned to represent a class of people? And although a few colours are considered masculine, no one, single colour is thought of as representing maleness and inappropriate for females (unless contrasted with pink, like blue for baby boys).
I think if girls' toys/clothes are ALL "pink for girls", while boys' toys/clothes have a wider variety of colours but strictly no "pink for girls", kids will get the message that there are, say, toys, and then there are toys "for girls". ie. male as the default sex, female as the other (although it's hardly the only place they'd get such a message - how and when people accept male as the default sex would need its own very long thread!).
And it's far more acceptable for girls to like blue, green, red, orange or yellow (boy colours: the rainbow, minus girl colours?) than it is for boys to like pink since that's "for girls" - just like it's far more acceptable for girls be masculine than for boys to be feminine in general. Why is that? *cough* What message does that send?
When girls reject anything "girly", I think there's often more to it than personal taste - especially if they show contempt towards "girly girls". They can see that girls come second!
When I was little, I had my fair share of pink toys, princess toys, plastic vacuum cleaners and pretend stoves. I found them all interesting, but I also loved Hot Wheels and Tonka Trucks. My walls were painted pink, my sheets had flowers on them. I had a dinosaur nano-pet and a kitty cat one. My parents encouraged me to be typically girlie, but somewhere along the line, I developed a rebellious streak and spent years of my youth wearing mens clothing, not brushing my hair, and avoiding showers for close to a week at a time.
The point being, I don't think pink really has anything to do with it. I don't think that princesses and barbie dolls are that awful. Encouraging your daughter to be nothing but a housewife and a doormat is awful.
Another note, I don't know why so many women hate Barbie dolls. Granted the image of large breasts and tiny waist is a bad ideal, but this a doll who is pretty and smart. She's a doctor, an Olympian athlete, a fire fighter, and a bikini model. To me, Barbie shows girls that they can be whatever they want...at the very least, she's better than those awful Bratz dolls.
Barbie shows girls that they can be whatever they want As long as they're fuckable! If you're ugly, well, then you might as well die. Or at the very least, you can't be an astronaut.
I am an ugly feminist; I'll admit it. I've known this since I was a little girl. Barbies really pissed me off then and still do now.
I think a lot of feminists despise Barbies and Bratz because of the way they enforce cultural gender ideals. And the fact that so many women who grew up with Barbies hate their bodies and are constantly dieting and undergoing plastic surgery seems to support this. They've internalized the message that they must look exactly like Barbie, and they'll do anything to accomplish that. Pretty sad.
Barbie has real professions. I think the Bratz dolls are pop star, singer, model ... and that's about it. At least I had a Doctor Barbie.
And don't forget lesbian barbie! Or was that just me, in my room, being a pervert at 4?
I love pink. I also happen to adore green. And black. Yes, black is fantastic.
f it. Decorate the kid's room with pink TRIANGLES and rainbows, and THEN see how that affects her psychology.
Hah! Your comment reminded me of the time my friend and I were playing with Barbies and decided that we needed a male character. We took one of the hollow, generic dolls and cut the chest off with a pair of scissors. We then stuffed the hollow torso with fabric and masking taped over it ("bandages") so the chest would be fairly solid. After a hair cut, we had our male character.
And the best part is that after a while, we decided that we didn't want the male anymore and wanted another female doll. I took one of those hair ties with the 2 big beads on it and positioned it on the doll's chest. It fit perfectly. I think we invented the first trans-gendered barbie.
My favorite color has always been some form of blue. I had a conversation in one of my education courses about little girls and the exclusive pinkness, and I found out that a lot of women in my class had a similar experience to me: at around age 8 or so, everyone decided that they hated pink. It was interesting to hear the different reasons for it; some people said that they realized they could still be a girl and not wear pink, some people thought pink was for "little girls" and they were big girls now, some people resented their parents pressure. I decided in 3rd grade that I would become a Tomboy because it meant I could get dirty and ride my bike a lot, and for an entire year my favorite color was black, the toughest one I could think of. I went so far as to spray paint my pink and purple bike horrid shades of green and orange with my dad's help, anything to get rid of the "girly" colors.
It was interesting to realize that so many girls have pink as an important marker in their lives.
I have to agree with Miriam about how our society does tend to encourage gender differences, but shouldn’t they? I mean you can't always have the same expectations for girls as you do for boys. Pink and purple have been, for a long time, associated as being girl colors just like blue and green have been boy colors. I don’t think that when they made that association they were thinking about demoralizing women. It’s just a color; it’s not there to offend anyone. I happen to love the color pink and am the furthest thing from a girly girl. I don’t think that the color defines me in any way. Just like I don’t think that blue defines boys in any way.
Historically speaking, differences, whether they're connected to race, gender, or sexual preference, are emphasized and constructed to justify and perpetuate hierarchy. Once the dominant group relinquishes their claim to superiority, they find that they don't need to construct difference anymore.
And critiquing the way femininity and girlhood are constructed in our culture does not amount to claiming that girls and boys should be identical.
"I have to agree with Miriam about how our society does tend to encourage gender differences, but shouldn’t they?"
Ok, I give up. Why should we encourage differences based on someone's gender? Does it help anyone? How?
My apologies in advance if this turns into a rant, but this issue has been getting under my skin a lot lately. I'm a preschool teacher, working with children ages 2-5. A couple of months ago, while all of the preschool children at our center (about 80) were out on the playground, I idly decided to count how many girls were NOT wearing any pink (since it was obvious most were). There wasn't even one. Every day since then, I have done the same thing. There has never been one female child who did not wear pink to school for even one day. SERIOUSLY. The same is not at all true for boys, who I have seen wearing every color besides pink and purple (which I have never seen).
I respectfully disagree with the commenters who feel like this is a "superficial" issue. A few weeks ago, a three-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl were playing with a hot pink frisbee. Another three-year-old boy approached and said to the other boy, "That frisbee is for girls." Despite my shock I was able to address the issue with the children present, but I could barely contain myself.
This incident also got me thinking about the fact that this frisbee is possibly the only thing we even have at the school that is pink. Look at it this way: a preschool classroom typically consists of a variety of materials and furniture in blue, green, red, and yellow. Products/clothing in these colors are sometimes marketed to girls, but they are almost always pastel. These preschool tools and furniture are almost never pastel. They are the exact same shades of the colors that are found in the clothing/products marketed almost exclusively to boys. So what kind of message are the youngest girls getting about who these classrooms really belong to?
From the other side of things, there's this example: A three-year-old boy had an accident one day and did not have a spare pair of pants in his cubby. We have a very small supply of extra clothes at school, and the only pair of pants we had that day were some bright pink sweatpants, so we put them on him (he didn't think anything was wrong with it, and thankfully none of the children on the playground commented on it, which I was worried about). A few hours later his dad came to pick him up. When he saw that his son was wearing pink pants, he insisted that he change back into his pee-soaked jeans for the bus ride home. The little boy was crying and pleading with his dad not to make him wear the "pee-pee pants", but his dad forced him to anyway. Classy.
I'm floored. That little story about the Dad forcing his kid to put back on the pee soaked pants sounds like borderline abuse. Really sickening.
Like many other posters, I also went through a phase where I rejected pink because it was seen as girly. Now though, I love pink. However, when I'm buying clothes for my niece, I am very conscientious of the clothes I choose. While I naturally lean towards the pink clothes because I personally think they're cute, I try to pick other colors more. It is rather depressing that they are all pastels and there are very few, if any, primary colors.
On a sort of related side note, I work at Claire's, a very "girly" accessory store in the mall. One day, I had two younger sisters (probably 10 and 12 or so) paying for something. The older sister was trying to figure out how much money would cover the amount due, when the younger sister took the money from her hands, and quickly found the correct amount. The mother was standing behind them, and smiled at the older sister and said "At least you are the pretty." The older sister said "Yea, she's always been the smart one." I was too stunned to even say thank you and wish them a nice day. People are amazing sometimes in their ignorance.
"At least you are pretty." *
My bad.
Also missing in this article's analysis is the relationship between pink and hyper-consumption. You can (and have to) buy the very gendered identity that will later cause nervous breakdowns and lessened self esteem! Hooray!
As a side note, I do really like pink. Most people think it's funny that I like it so much because I am a (only slightly!) "boy-ish" lesbian. Read: I don't wear skirts. Whatever.
No one has mentioned color psychology studies using pink rooms to quell drunks and psych patients. What does being in a primarily pink room do to a girl's ambition and energy level?
Pink is a hell of a color to be inundated with. Some parents could ease up on it, you know, moderation in everything.
heirrants comment is just what I was wondering about.
Given the psychological effect of colors (especially at a young age), I wonder what else is influenced?
The "missing in this article's analysis" comments all suggest that this is a subject ripe for study. Any psych students reading? Cause if so, hint hint...
i went back and forth with liking pink and hating it, in what was i suppose my attempt to navigate gender roles and figure out what the hell i actually liked as opposed to what i was told from birth (not by my parents, but by you know, everything ELSE) that i ought to like because i was a girl. i'm ok with pink these days, mostly only hot pink though, because i like bright colors and i don't wear too much because there are other colors that i like more and that look way better on me. it's weird though, because even now that i'm a grownup, sometimes when i'm at the store and i opt to buy some totally harmless product (like post-it notes or an ipod case or whatever) in pink or purple when there are other colors to choose from, i feel silly, like a sucker somehow.
i have a two-year-old nephew and the gendering that's already going on with him is infuriating to me. everything is trucks, cars, sports! everything! he got a new bedding set for christmas that is all trucks and it even has cute throw pillows that are shaped like trucks and road signs and shit and it's hard to criticize because the stuff is frankly adorable and creative, but so fucking MANLY RAWRRR. i try to buy him clothing that doesn't involve any of the above, but it's a drop in a bucket when everyone else drowns him in it. i think part of the problem is that my parents only had girls, so my dad is having fun buying hyper-"boy" things for his grandson, but i don't think he realizes how over-the-top it is sometimes. i want to talk to him about it, but i don't even know how to bring it up, especially when my sister will back him up--because she doesn't want to raise a "girly" son. *vomit* i just hope that as he gets older i can exert some kind of positive influence to counteract the gendering he's getting everywhere else.
does anyone have any experience trying to talk to a sibling or a friend who has a child that they feel is being inundated with dolls or trucks according to the sex of the child? is there a way to do it without sounding self-righteous and mean?
They even put pink on toys that could be gender-neutral, ruining the message. My daughter's little kitchen set (hand me down) is pink. I couldn't have bought a non-pink one if I tried.
Actually, I did try. All the kitchen sets were bright pink, and the little workshop sets were priary colors.
And she's not getting the workshop set. She's got enough "stuff" already, even hand-me-down, so it's alllllll PINK!
She refused to put on her boots the other day, claiming they were "boy shoes." (They are brown.) I showed her my own brown hiking boots and asked if I was a boy or a girl when I wore them. She was very confused but concluded I was still female. Still hasn't put on the boots, though.
You know, it doesn't have to be that way. This type of obsession with pink and hyper-gendered products is only a given if parents are not deliberate about what their children are exposed to. My little sister who is 9 actually hates pink, partly because she is not a "girly girl" and also because my parents do no expose her to all of this Barbie, Disney Princess crap and have allowed her to define herself in more gender neutral terms. I think this pink obsession is often due to parents buying into all of this quite literally.
That is true to some extent, but unless you ban TV completely and homeschool them, it's really impossible to avoid it completely. We don't encourage any pink shit, Barbies, Bratz, or Princesses, but people (from the bank teller who gives them Princess stickers to family friends who buy them nothing but pink gifts) are always imposing this shit on them. You can't even take them to the dentist without having to negotiate the Princess crap, because the dentist has Princess toothbrushes for the girls and Shrek toothbrushes for the boys. When my stepdaughter told the hygienist that she really liked Shrek, the hygienist hesitated, until my stepdaughter said, "that's OK, I already have a toothbrush at home." Then you could tell the hygienist felt bad, and gave her the Shrek toothbrush. Why should you have to fight this stuff off so consistently at the age of 5? It's unbelievable that people don't want to let them choose.
It's so true! You can fight it and fight it but how much energy can you put into this stuff?
My daughter can't go to the pediatrician without having to stand up for herself if she wants the non pink sticker. At the same time I'm trying to teach her to be gracious if someone (appropriate) wants to give her a gift.
Who needs it, take the damned pink sticker and be done with the office visit...knowing you've just contributed to her feeling gendered.
Images and language matter; what little girls and boys see as the culturally preferred options available to them influence their choices and therefore their lives. Check out our recent post about the toy lists for girls and boys on a major national retail chain's web site at "Shaping Children's Choices Through Sexist Advertising" on our blog: Responding to Sexist Remarks: Creating Change One Conversation at a Time (http://sexistremarks.wordpress.com). On the list for little girls are dolls, dress up, and the ever popular "princess." Boys get building blocks and cars and trucks. This is truly amazing in 2009.
We hope that you also will check out the other information on our blog, Responding to Sexist Remarks: Creating Change One Conversation at a Time. We launched the site to create a place for women and men to share their ideas for how we can respond to sexist remarks and commentary during everyday conversations. We want to create change in how we talk to and about women
and girls in our families, neighborhoods, and communities—always keeping our eye on the ultimate goal of ending the use of sexist remarks.
I relate to others frustration in relation to having ones interests and colours dictated by gender. When I was a child I hated pink and everything that was considered girly -- dresses, dolls, Barbies, Care Bears, My Little Ponys. I was obsessed with dinosaurs, Lego, Thundercats and my BMX and my favourite colour was blue.
Leading up to my 6th birthday my mum had all my wrapped presents on top of a dresser in her bedroom and I would often sit at the bottom of it gazing upwards, trying to work out what was in the biggest present (because in my almost-6-mind BIGGEST equaled BEST!) I was so very, very excited about this present and couldn't wait to open it. I did and discovered it was one of those plastic woman heads with nylon hair, the kind on which you were supposed to practice your hair and make-up skills. I *hated* it and ended up cutting all its hair off and scribbling over it in biro. While this demonstrates that I was obviously a bit of an ungrateful brat, it goes to show how relatives go into auto-pilot when buying a gift for a girl -- "it's marketed for a little girl, therefore a little girl will like it", without making allowances for any personality traits or interests that do not fit the stereotype.
I occasionally still get a watered down version of it today. I'm well known among my friends for collecting gadgety things, torches, multitool sets, cool bottle openers, that kind of thing -- the kind of things that aren't marketed for women unless they're in pink. Yet still male friends when buying for Christmas will get me smellies or jewelery. Which I don't mind, but I can tell they've gone into girl-auto-pilot in just the same way.
My sister has recently had a baby boy and she told me about when she went to stay with our stepsister. She had bought my nephew a little teddybear that happened to have a dark pink/purple ribbon. And my sister made our stepsister take the ribbon off before she would give the teddy to my nephew!! I was furious but wasn't sure how to articulate my feelings on it so I said nothing. But I know that this will be an issue that will come up again in the future so yes, I too would appreciate any advice on broaching this subject with relatives.
More girls should be allowed to be like this--http://www.onnetworks.com/videos/smart-girls-at-the-party/the-feminist-ruby
:)