I loved, loved, LOVED Ozy’s post on Pink Nail Polish a while back (well, a while in Internet years, anyway) — so much, in fact, that it got me thinking about just how politicalized the colour has become.
Pink was used as a symbol of liberation by homosexual rights groups in the 1970s. The pink triangle, once a Nazi invention used during the Second World War to mark gay people, was a sign of oppression, tyranny and hatred. Later it became a rallying point for gay rights activists, a sign that wherever the triangle was, that area was a safe place free of homophobia.
Today the colour has come to mean different things to different people:
For some it’s a sign that you are a socially conscious and enlightened male (“Check me out in my pink shirt: I’m so secure in my masculinity”).
For others it’s a corrupting influence on the developing minds of young girls (“I won’t let my daughter fall victim to the pink princess epidemic”).
Or it can be a warning of the coming femmepocalypse for certain conservative and MRA groups (“BOYS WEARING PINK NAIL POLISH, AHHH FEMINISM MUST DIE FOR THIS INJUSTICE”).
Yet for others, pink has begun to be seen as a marker of regressive masculinity (e.g., frat boys wearing pink Fred Perry shirts) and are wary of approaching those men who are wearing that color.
Such a divisive history for a shade we’re constantly told is soft, nurturing and passive, don’t you think?
I was teased in college for wearing a pink robe. In point of fact, it had been a RED robe, before it faded. Explaining this was fruitless.
I ended up buying a new blue robe. I didn’t choose blue on purpose as a boy color. it was what was left after I eliminated red, pink and colors i didn’t like.
When I was 5 I was fine with pink and frilly dresses, and wore almost nothing else. Someone told me one day that green couldn’t be my favorite color because I was a girl and pink had to be my favorite color. I can’t recall the details, but it must have been really harsh, because I immediately began to refuse “girl clothes” in most situations and it would take about 10 years to allow myself to wear clothes obviously for women, and another 5 years on top of that before I would loosen my hatred of the color pink to… Read more »
Unrelated, but I wanted to drop by and say welcome to the blog. I noticed you were new here, and it’s nice to see new faces. 🙂
Good points! Did you know that “blue for boys” and “pink for girls” was actually simply a marketing decision in the relatively recent past? If you want a real mindfuck, take a look at Ernest Hemingway (a real man’s man if there ever was one) as a child. And that was considered perfectly fine dress for a boy!
Very true doctormindbeam in fact with regards to the second Ernest Hemingway picture it wasn’t uncommon for all children regardless of gender to ware dresses at one point not to long ago.
Side note baby Hemingway still looks like he could kick my ass.
His beard could kick my ass… before it was even grown!
I have a copy of a photo of my Grandfather in similar (although a bit more brocaded) attire, from when he was about 5. I believe the clothing was white.
Ah, the colour pink and its association with girls. What a trivial association that is. Back in The Old Days (maybe before my time), blue was considered a harbinger of protection and good luck. Boy-children were treasured (and possibly more disposable, in a reproductve sense, so more were needed) and were given (baby blue) clothing to improve their rates of survival. An alternate colour was eventually selected for the other half of the race and so an equally soft colour was chosen for them (pretty in pink). Eventually, pink was associated with lack-of-physical-strength, girls and femininity. In less-enlightened times, homosexuality… Read more »
Please cite this. My understanding is it was usually white, and then an advertising campaign decided arbitrarily on blue and pink.
This cannot be true, because Sara is right (and doctormindbeam as well, though he’s referring to even earlier times).
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html
Up until the 1920s, all babies were dressed in white. Then from about 1920 to 1940, a majority though not everyone had girls dressed in blue and boys in pink. After that manufacturers started switching the colors; noone is really sure why but I suspect it was for the sake of standardization.
(Humble pie and much wringing of caps)
My apologies Dr MB and Brian – I recant the history lesson I was given as flagrant hearsay. Like I said, it was (supposed to have been) before my time. 1920s may have been so, too.
This reminds me of how, back in Victorian times (I think), blue was supposedly the “soft” feminine color, while pink was considered active and thus more masculine! So it’s kind of funny now, to hear how women naturally like pink and men just naturally don’t.
Totally. Learned this on QI, actually. Pink was the boy’s color, and blue the girl’s.
Also
All children used to be called girls. Boys were “knave girls”, and girls were “gay girls”. Some history irony going on here. “Boy” was reserved for servants, see Slavery et al.
I didn’t know that about all children being called girls! It is funny and fascinating how many things can change over time, which I think says a lot about so-called “biological” behaviors of men and women.
That’s a very long time ago; I believe Old English or something.
I know in Old English “man” was gender neutral, and “male person” and “female person” were wyrman and wyfman respectively. And have, ever since I learned this, insisted on the internet that we ought to go back to doing it this way.
My linguistic crusade is unappreciated! Unappreciated I tell you! 😛
It is a long time ago. I have to admit wyrman and wyfman sounds much “unequal”, if you must.
Indeed, wyrman has the same prefix that gave us the word werewolf, or man-wolf. And there’s the problem; if you start insisting that male folks be called weremen, people are just going to assume it means someone who turns into a man every full moon. Which, in turn, is going give rise to a LOT of tasteless PMS jokes… 🙂